Quotes:Zander, Jonas Gustaf Wilhelm

Zirkoff, Boris

Zander, Jonas Gustaf Wilhelm. Swedish physician and inventor of Medico-Mechanical Gymnastics. Born in Stockholm, March 29, 1835; died June 17, 1920. Graduated at Uppsala University, 1885, and became an M.D. in 1877. Appointed Docent in medical gymnastics at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, 1880. Member of the Academy of Sciences, 1896. Honorary member of the Medical Society, 1904. Received the Gold Medal “Illis quorum meruere labores,” 1915.

Hardly any other Swedish physician was as well known over most of the civilized world as Dr. Zander. As early as 1857, when serving as instructor of gymnastics at the Zander Boarding School for Girls, founded by his two sisters, he made his first attempts at using machines to produce muscle exercises when manual methods were found to be too strenuous. He conceived the idea of constructing mechanical apparatus which would set only some of the muscles in action. Jan. 7, 1865, Dr. Zander opened his Medico-Mechanical Institute, located at Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm, where the number of his apparatuses grew from twenty-seven at the start, to some seventy-two in 1905. Often against opposition on the part of some of his colleagues, he created precision apparatus which eventually aroused admiration and recognition in many countries, where Institutes, similar to his own, were organized, especially in Germany and Austria. When, at the age of eighty-five, he retired from the management of his Institute, his son, Dr. Emil Wilhelm Zander (b. 1867), became its director. In 1893, a special ward of the Institute was formed for treatment of spinal curvature.

In his professional work, Dr. Zander was a scientist of note and rank, with a sharp sense of observation, strong logic and a sober presentation of facts. He was a man of noble ideas, of original thought and dignity of behavior. Apart from his medical work, Dr. Zander was one of the pioneers of Theosophy in his native land. Between 1880 and 1896, he was President of The Theosophical Society, and remained very active in it until his death. His Theosophical affiliation was with the Point Loma Theosophical Society, under the leadership of Katherine Tingley. For many years, he devoted himself to the Editorship of Teosojisk Tidskrijt (1891-96), Theosophia (1896-1911), and Den Teosojiska Vdgen (1911-20), in all of which he wrote serious and enlightening articles on the various teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. He also lectured widely on behalf of the Society in Scandinavia.

Dr. Zander was married to Fanny Agnes Eleanora Hansen (d. 1924), and had by her five sons and two daughters.

(Sources: Dr. Zander’s own thesis Om Mekanisk Gymnastik, dated 596 1864, but not published until 1915; biographical sketches by A. Levertin and Emil Zander in a Festive Pamphlet to Dr. Zander, 1915; by Patrik Haglund in Higiea, 1920; in Nordisk Familjebok, 1922; and the Supplement to the History of the Swedish Medical Association.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 11, pp. 595-596