Dr. Arvid Lindau, 1892-1958

One hundred years have passed since birth of Dr. Arvid Lindau who first described what he called "angiomatosis of the central nervous system."

Arvid Lindau was born 23 July 1892 in Malmö, Sweden. He was the son of a regiment doctor. After completing school (B.A. 1910) he was trained as a military officer and physician. He got his medical training in Lund (M.D. 1923, Ph.D. 1926). He was a pathologist at the hospital in Lund 1918-1933, and held a concurrent appointment as a military doctor beginning in 1924. He was secretary of the Lund Medical Society from 1926.

It was during this time that he observed and studied a condition involving hemangiomas of the central nervous system and linked this condition to the similar condition of the retina which had been described by Dr. Eugen von Hippel. This became his doctoral dissertation work. He published his findings in a Swedish journal of microbiology in 1926. He was awarded the Lennmalm’s prize (1929) from the Swedish Medical Society. The syndrome he described is now called von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome.

Dr. Lindau traveled to Germany, Czechoslovakia, Holland, England, and the United States to learn from colleagues in different parts of the world. He was a fellow at the University of Freiburg under Professor Ludwig Aschoff; at the Massachusetts General Hospital under professor Hans Zinsser; at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, under Dr. Harvey Cushing; and in the Danish Serum Institute under Dr. Thorvald Madsen. In the U.S. he worked on bacteriology and immunology as well as blood transfusions and practical blood grouping. He published more than 40 papers on pathology, neurology, and bacteriology.

Professor Harvey Cushing visited Lindau’s laboratory in the 1930’s and was fascinated with the samples Lindau had collected. It was Dr. Cushing who made Lindau’s work known in the United States.

In 1933 Lindau was appointed professor of pathology, bacteriology, and general health care at the University of Lund. For the remainder of his career his primary interest was in bacteriology and immunological problems. He had special opportunities to exercise his professional skills when the German concentration camps were emptied at the end of the Second World War and refugees in large numbers relocated to Lund.

Dr. Lindau was a highly respected member of the faculty. He took a great interest in athletics and worked with physical education programs for youth. He was very interested in music, and was also engaged in local politics.

We remember Dr. Lindau for his powers of observation, intuition, and synthesis of information. As he did, we have the opportunity to combine our collective experience and make progress on the road to resolving the puzzle of von Hippel-Lindau syndrome.