Hawai'i owes many of its medical and public-health advancements in the first half of the 20th century to a Swedish-born doctor named Nils P. Larsen who was a war hero, writer, lecturer, photographer, etcher and social activist who helped improve conditions for sugar workers and sanitized the territory's milk supply.
Larsen's heroism on the battlefields of France in World War I earned him the Silver Star for carrying wounded from front-line trenches under heavy artillery fire. But his years as a surgeon and physician in his adopted Hawai'i were equally heroic.
As medical director of The Queen's Hospital from 1922 to 1942, and also a pathologist there, Larsen is credited with reducing infant mortality and making the Hawai'i milk supply safe by launching a "clean milk" campaign. At Queen's, he also launched a school for nurses, an occupational-therapy service, a weekly clinic and numerous research projects, including some on diet that sounded an early warning that too much dietary fat could lead to heart disease.
But his impact went further. As consulting physician for the Hawai'i Sugar Planters' Association from the 1930s to the 1960s, he focused on improving health for Hawai'i's plantation workers by crusading for better nutrition, improved sanitation and better living conditions.
A multitalented man, Larsen became an expert on ancient Hawaiian medicine, served in the 1950 Constitutional Convention, and was an accomplished amateur artist whose paintings won prizes and whose photos, including underwater ones, hung in Mainland galleries.
On his death in 1964 at 73, an Advertiser editorial said: "He is gone, and he is irreplaceable."
