Photo by Greg Zirbel. Dr. Hultin, October 2018.
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Tribute to Dr. Johan HultinAn intrepid explorer, adventurer, pathologist, and a really nice man, we are saddened to report that Dr. Johan Hultin passed away on January 22, 2022 at the young age of 97. In the summer of 2018, the Hultin family contacted the Truckee-Donner Historical Society about donations involving 60-year old photographs of Donner tree stumps at Alder Creek, wagon wheels retrieved from the Utah salt flat areas, and other artifacts Dr. Hultin collected in the 1960s.
Dr. Hultin was born in Sweden in 1924, and after the Second Word War enrolled in Medical School there. In 1949 at age 25, he came to the US on a sabbatical to study virology. In his spare time, he led an adventurous life chocked-full of travel, adventure, and discoveries about pioneers migrating to California. He was captivated by the Donner Party story and was determined to learn as much as he could about it, as well as the entire pioneer effort heading west. And this was all in addition to his full-time job. |
As a forensic pathologist, Dr. Hultin would have been the first to admit that he was obsessed with the 1918-1919 flu epidemic. Recall that that epidemic killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide, including at least 375,000 Americans. Intrigued, challenged, and ever the inquisitive man, Dr. Hultin made it his mission to find a sample of that 1918 flu virus so that it could be studied under a microscope. Dr. Hultin learned that there had been a remote Alaskan village, Brevig Mission, south of the Arctic Circle, where 72 of the total 80 residents died of the flu in one week in 1918. Hultin theorized that that far north, the burial site may very well contain tissue that still had the virus intact – buried in the permafrost.
Off to Alaska he went. After getting permission to exhume the bodies from the local tribal council in Brevig Mission, he explained how very important it was to at least try to find the culprit that caused all the deaths. Thawing the ground in order to dig, Hultin retrieved samples from the lungs of one of deceased flu victims, brought them back for analysis, but unfortunately at that time in 1951, he could not recreate viable cultures evidencing the virus.
In the next forty some years, Dr. Hultin specialized in disease diagnosis and process, and became an accomplished pathologist. He went on with his life, married, raised a family, and had a host of incredible “hobbies”: archaeology, automotive engineering, mountain climbing, sailing, home building, wood carving, and history. However, he never abandoned his quest to track down the cause of the 1918 virus by obtaining tissue samples to decode the DNA.
Frustrated, but not giving up, Dr. Hultin kept this mission in mind for the next forty-plus years. In March 1997, he read an article by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of Molecular Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC. Hultin learned that Dr. Taubenberger was intent of finding lung tissue samples large enough that he could isolate the virus’s gene RNA sequence.
Dr. Hultin contacted Dr. Taubenberger, offered to and did return to Alaska – at age 72 - to try a second time to retrieve lung tissue samples from deceased 1918 flu victims. This time, he found one such victim, ‘Lucy’, retrieved the samples, and sent them to Taubenberger for analysis. With this additional tissue, Taubenberger and colleagues successfully deciphered the complete genome sequence of the 1918 virus.
Among Dr. Hultin’s hobbies – the man never stood still – was history. He and his family traced the Donner Party and other emigrants from Salt Lake City to the Sierra Nevada. In the early 1960s, he even helped retrieve tree stumps that had been at the Donner Alder Creek site and offered them to the Donner Memorial State Park who accepted them. Dr. Hultin had located, retrieved, and donated wagon wheels and tools that that had been abandoned in the Salt Lake desert as pioneers travelled across the country, and also brought those to the State Park.
Fast forward almost 50 years and Dr. Hultin wanted to donate the photographs and documentation of the initial 1960s efforts. Unfortunately, the State Park could not accommodate the family’s donation, so Dr. Hultin contacted the Truckee-Donner Historical Society who happily accepted the documentation for safekeeping. The Society has been the fortunate recipient of photographs and documentation made at the time of these historic donations.
We at the Historical Society who had a chance to meet this intrepid explorer, adventurer, doctor, and medical pioneer feel very privileged to have done so. Please visit our Image Collection at images.truckeehistory.org to view the donations Dr. Hultin made.
HCS 2/28/2022
Off to Alaska he went. After getting permission to exhume the bodies from the local tribal council in Brevig Mission, he explained how very important it was to at least try to find the culprit that caused all the deaths. Thawing the ground in order to dig, Hultin retrieved samples from the lungs of one of deceased flu victims, brought them back for analysis, but unfortunately at that time in 1951, he could not recreate viable cultures evidencing the virus.
In the next forty some years, Dr. Hultin specialized in disease diagnosis and process, and became an accomplished pathologist. He went on with his life, married, raised a family, and had a host of incredible “hobbies”: archaeology, automotive engineering, mountain climbing, sailing, home building, wood carving, and history. However, he never abandoned his quest to track down the cause of the 1918 virus by obtaining tissue samples to decode the DNA.
Frustrated, but not giving up, Dr. Hultin kept this mission in mind for the next forty-plus years. In March 1997, he read an article by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of Molecular Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC. Hultin learned that Dr. Taubenberger was intent of finding lung tissue samples large enough that he could isolate the virus’s gene RNA sequence.
Dr. Hultin contacted Dr. Taubenberger, offered to and did return to Alaska – at age 72 - to try a second time to retrieve lung tissue samples from deceased 1918 flu victims. This time, he found one such victim, ‘Lucy’, retrieved the samples, and sent them to Taubenberger for analysis. With this additional tissue, Taubenberger and colleagues successfully deciphered the complete genome sequence of the 1918 virus.
Among Dr. Hultin’s hobbies – the man never stood still – was history. He and his family traced the Donner Party and other emigrants from Salt Lake City to the Sierra Nevada. In the early 1960s, he even helped retrieve tree stumps that had been at the Donner Alder Creek site and offered them to the Donner Memorial State Park who accepted them. Dr. Hultin had located, retrieved, and donated wagon wheels and tools that that had been abandoned in the Salt Lake desert as pioneers travelled across the country, and also brought those to the State Park.
Fast forward almost 50 years and Dr. Hultin wanted to donate the photographs and documentation of the initial 1960s efforts. Unfortunately, the State Park could not accommodate the family’s donation, so Dr. Hultin contacted the Truckee-Donner Historical Society who happily accepted the documentation for safekeeping. The Society has been the fortunate recipient of photographs and documentation made at the time of these historic donations.
We at the Historical Society who had a chance to meet this intrepid explorer, adventurer, doctor, and medical pioneer feel very privileged to have done so. Please visit our Image Collection at images.truckeehistory.org to view the donations Dr. Hultin made.
HCS 2/28/2022
