Allvar Gullstrand

Allvar Gullstrand was born on June 5, 1862, in Landskrona. Educated at Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute, he was appointed the first Professor of Ophthalmology at Uppsala University in 1894, later holding a personal chair in physiological and physical optics.

Gullstrand applied advanced differential geometry to biological optics, formulating the definitive schematic model of the human eye and discovering the optical role of the internal layers of the crystalline lens in accommodation. In 1911, he invented the slit lamp (Spaltlampe) and the reflection-free ophthalmoscope with Carl Zeiss Jena, tools that remain foundational to ophthalmic diagnosis and surgery to this day. He was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.