[Doctor Eyvind Kraft--halfway around the world in the 1880s]

More than every second Norwegian 19th century physician made one or more study trips abroad. Some of them were probably more inspired by love of adventure than by the prospect of gaining new medical insight. This was probably also true of my great-grandfather, Eyvind Kraft. Shortly after completing medical school in 1879, he left Norway on the "Musca", an emigrant vessel, bound for Hawaii. He returned home approximately six years later to establish a sanatorium. In the meantime he worked as a ship's doctor, made a contribution to the understanding of the contagiousness of leprosy, and was among the founding members of the first medical society in the state of Wisconsin. Back in Norway he worked at the sanatorium, but also as a general practitioner and among fishermen during the seasonal fisheries. He had to travel to the Continent in an attempt to cure his "nerve disease". Eyvind Kraft's life tells an exciting story of exotic places and of the view of disease in his time.