the Swedish health ministry, he had the honor of being the first professor of ophthalmology at Uppsala University.
Gullstrand was married in 1885 to Signe Christina Breitholtz, and the couple had a daughter who died in infancy. Despite this personal loss, his professional career was very successful. On various occasions his work in the field of ophthalmology was distinguished with important prizes, including from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Medical Association and the Uppsala Faculty of Medicine.
Gullstrand’s service to the academic world, and his recognition for it, did not stop after he was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research into the dioptrics of the eye. He was a member of the Nobel Physics Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1911 to 1929 and was its chairman from 1922 to 1929.
Throughout a life dedicated to understanding the structure and function of the cornea and research into astigmatism, Gullstrand made many significant contributions to the field. Among other achievements, he improved the corrective lenses used after cataract surgery, invented the slit lamp used to study the eye, to which he gave his name, and reformulated German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz’s theory to develop a mechanism that allowed the eye to focus both near and far within certain limits. When he died in Stockholm on the July 28, 1930, Gullstrand left an important legacy that revolutionized the practice of ophthalmology.
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)
1911 Literature
In appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers’ own feelings and stimulate their imaginations.
Count Maurice Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck achieved worldwide recognition through his literary output. He was born in Ghent, Belgium, into a wealthy family. He attended the Jesuit College of Saint-Barbe and Ghent University, where he obtained a law degree in 1885. Maeterlinck’s early life suggested that he would follow a career in law, however, after a short period of time working as a lawyer at a small firm, Maeterlinck decided he was not suited to this profession.
Deciding to follow his love of literature, he moved to Paris. While there, he socialized with the literati, especially Villiers de L’Isle Adam, who ended up having a great influence on him. These experiences were so enriching that Maeterlinck decided to move permanently to Paris in 1896. Some time later, however, perhaps in search of peace and quiet, he moved to Saint-Wandrille and restored an old abbey for his retreat.
Maeterlinck’s debut as a well-known writer in the French language had occurred some years earlier, in 1889, with the publication of a collection of poems entitled Serres chaudes (Hothouses). That same year Octave Mirbeau, at the time the literary critic for Le Figaro newspaper, greatly praised Maeterlinck’s first work for the theater, La Princesse Maleine, which made him an overnight success.
In the following years he continued to produce books full of mystery and adventure. The romantic drama Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), which was adapted to the stage, is considered a masterpiece of symbolist drama. La Vie des abeilles (The Life of the Bee), published in 1900, is one of his most meditative works and shows his more transcendent side. L’Intruse (The Intruder, 1890), Alladine et Palomides (1894), Aglavaine et Sélysette (1896), and the pieces Joyzelle (1903) and L’Oiseau bleu (1909) — one of his most popular creations — also confirm the richness of his imagination and his poetic realm. These characteristics were the basis for his being awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Maeterlinck was also awarded the Triennial Prize for Dramatic Literature in 1903, although he refused it, was made Grand Officer of the Order of Léopold in 1920, given the title of the Count of Belgium in 1932 and, in Portugal, the distinction of the Ordem de Santiago da Espada in 1939.
Maeterlinck married Renée Dahon in 1911, with whom he spent the rest of his days until his death in Nice, France.
Elihu Root (1845–1937)
1912 Peace
A man of engaging personality who has tried, with determination and independence, to put his ideals into practice.
Elihu Root, one of the most brilliant administrators in American history and distinguished with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912, was born in Clinton, New York, on February 15, 1845. He studied at Hamilton College, where his father was a mathematics professor, and completed his secondary education in 1864 at the top of his class. In 1867 he completed his degree in law at New York University and, at the age of 30, was already a respected lawyer specializing in commercial law.
His great capacity to understand legal principles, his excellent analytical powers, disciplined attention to detail and ease of expression, both written and oral, gave Root an almost unequalled reputation. He became an advisor to banks and railroad and oil companies, quickly acquiring a fortune as he did so. In 1878 he married Clara Frances Wales, and the couple had three children together.
During this time Root also made tentative entries into politics, becoming involved in the local branch of the Republican Party. In 1899 President William McKinley, wanting a lawyer rather than a military figure to serve as his secretary of war, invited him to fill this position. Root accepted the call of what he termed “the greatest of all our clients, the government of the country,” and served as the 41st United States secretary of war between August 1, 1899 and January 31, 1904.
While in office he reorganized the administrative system of the Defense Department, established new rules for promotion, created the general staff and imposed administrative discipline on the armed forces. During the Spanish-American War Root drew up a strategy to return control of Cuba to the Cuban people, designed a democratic plan for the government of the Philippines and eliminated tariffs imposed on goods imported from Puerto Rico.
In 1904 he returned to law, but he turned back to politics once more after being nominated as secretary of state by President Theodore Roosevelt. He left a notable body of work and solved many foreign policy problems that the country had been struggling with for years. Some of his actions include placing the Consular Service under the Civil Service, maintaining an “open door” policy with the Far East and working with Great Britain to resolve Alaskan territorial disputes between Canada and the United States.
As a senator between 1909 and 1915 he played an active role in resolving the conflict over fishing rights in the North Atlantic and campaigned for an end to American privileges in the Panama Canal. In 1915 he resigned as a senator and declined the Republican nomination as candidate for the presidency of the country. He continued, however, to be an active statesman. He opposed the neutrality adopted by President Woodrow Wilson during the early months of World War I but supported him after America declared war on Germany. He accepted Wilson’s invitation in 1917 to head a special diplomatic mission to Russia, and he was later involved in both the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of the League of Nations.
Root, who was the first president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, dedicated a significant part of his career to questions of international negotiation. Besides work on the creation of the Central American Court of Justice in 1907, he was heavily involved in establishing the Permanent Court for International Justice in 1921. In 1929, at the age of 84, he undertook intense diplomatic work in Geneva to establish a revised protocol for the Permanent Court.
In 1912 Root received the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediating efforts toward international peace. Known as one of the greatest diplomats of the 20th century, he acknowledged the need for an international perspective in this global age: