Ragnar Granit

Ragnar Arthur Granit ForMemRS^[1] (30 October 1900 – 12 March 1991)^[2] was a Finnish and Swedish scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967^[3][4][5] along with Haldan Keffer Hartline^[6] and George Wald "for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye".^{[7][8][9][10]}

Ragnar Arthur Granit was born on 30 October 1900 in Riihimäki, Finland, at the time part of the Russian Empire, into a Swedish-speaking Finnish family. His parents were the forester Arthur Granit och Albertina Helena (Bertie) Malmberg. Granit was raised in Oulunkylä, a suburb of the Finnish capital of Helsinki, and attended the Svenska normallyceum in Helsinki.

Granit worked as an editor of Studentbladet from 1923 to 1926, contributor to the first issues of the magazine Quosego and editor of the magazine Finlands Röda Kors during the 1930s. During this time, Granit also published several articles and works of fiction. Granit was also a member of the Nylands Nation, where he was a curator, and later of Folkhälsan and the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare.^[2]

Granit initially studied philosophy at Åbo Akademi University, but later switched tracks to medicine. Granit graduated with his bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki in 1926 with the thesis Farbentransformation und Farbenkontrast. In fall of that same year, Granit defended his thesis. In 1927 he received his licentiate degree and on the same day he also received his doctorate in medicine and surgery.^[2]

In 1940, when Finland became the target of a massive Soviet attack during the Winter War, Granit sought refuge – and peaceful surroundings for his studies and research work – in Stockholm, the capital of neighbouring Sweden, at the age of 40. In 1941, Granit received Swedish citizenship, which made it possible for him to live and continue with his work without having to worry about the Continuation War, which lasted in Finland until 1944. Granit was proud of his Finland-Swedish roots and remained a patriotic Finland-Swede throughout his life, maintaining homes in both Finland and Sweden after the Moscow Armistice ended the Continuation War and secured Finnish independence.

Granit was professor of neurophysiology at the Karolinska Institute from 1946 to his retirement in 1967.^[11]

Granit was elected an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1954.^[12] In 1960, Granit was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS).^[1] Granit was appointed a member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters in 1937^[13] and was elected Swedish member number 912 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1944. He was also a board member of Samfundet Nordens Frihet 1942–1945.^[14]

In 1967 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.^[10] Granit said that he was a "fifty-fifty" Finnish and Swedish Nobel laureate.^[15] He was elected an International Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences the following year.^[16] In 1971, he was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[17]

Granit died on 12 March 1991 in Stockholm at the age of 90. Granit and his wife, the baroness Marguerite Emma Bruun (1902–1991), who he married in 1929, were buried in a church cemetery on the Finnish island of Korpo.^[18][2]

• Ragnar Granit on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture 12 December 1967 The Development of Retinal Neurophysiology
• "Ragnar Granit". Biografiskt lexikon för Finland (in Swedish). Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. urn:NBN:fi:sls-5171-1416928957777.