18 Facts About Axel Key

Ernst Axel Henrik Key was a Swedish pathologist, member of parliament, writer and rector at Karolinska Institute.

Axel Key enrolled at Lund University in 1848, where he obtained a bachelor of medical sciences degree in 1855 and a licentiate of medicine degree in 1857.

Axel Key worked as assistant surgeon for two years in Stockholm.

Axel Key received his doctor of medicine degree in 1862 after having defended his doctorate the previous year with the thesis.

The year before Axel Key received his doctorate, he was appointed temporary professor of pathological anatomy at the Karolinska Institute, and in 1862 he was appointed full professor.

Possibly under the influence of Virchow, Axel Key was liberal, and joined the Second Chamber in 1882, where he served on the education committee.

Axel Key was quite patriotic and a Scandiavist, supporting cooperation between the Scandinavian countries.

Axel Key found that schoolchildren became sicker the older they got.

Axel Key found that as many as 80 percent of the students had long-term illnesses.

Axel Key was rector of the Karolinska Institute from 1886 to 1897.

Axel Key campaigned for the institute to achieve full equality with the medical faculties at Uppsala University and Lund University, but this did not materialize during this period.

Axel Key made a name for himself there through his speeches at the professorial inaugurations, which dealt with the history of Swedish medicine.

Axel Key founded Medicinskt Archiv in 1863 with colleagues at the Karolinska Institute, its successor in 1869, and the popular science together with Retzius.

Axel Key was a close friend of Artur Hazelius and supported him in the establishment of the Nordic Museum and Skansen.

Axel Key was the president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund, the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg, the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala and became an honorary doctor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen in 1879.

Axel Key was president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1887 to 1888.

Axel Key was diagnosed with cancer in 1894 and underwent several operations in the last few years of his life.

Axel Key died on 27 December 1901 in Kungsholm or Ulrika Eleonora parish, Stockholm County, Sweden.