[Birger Malling's pioneer period as an ophthalmologist in Tromsø]

Birger Malling (1884-1989) was professor of ophthalmology at the University of Oslo from 1939 to 1954. He spent his first and very active years as a practicing ophthalmologist in Tromsø from 1913 to 1922. Based on interviews, patient journals, notes and publications, this article presents interesting and entertaining fragments of this pioneer period north of the Polar Circle. Malling regarded reconstructive surgery performed by himself on a severely multilated Lapp woman as one of his greatest triumphs. In a lecture in 1921 Malling described a characteristic membrane on the anterior surface of the lens in the pupillary field in glaucomatous eyes. He wrote to Alfred Vogt (1879-1943) in Zürich about his findings, but never received a reply. Vogt later published this finding as his own discovery, with no reference to Malling.