Rolv Ragnvaldsson Gjessing

Born 1887; died 1959. Norwegian psychiatrist; member of the Academy of Sciences in Oslo (1941).

Gjessing completed his medical education in 1913. From 1929 to 1949 he, was the chief physician and director of the psychiatric hospital in Dikemark. His major works were devoted to the study of biological changes in the organism of persons suffering from periodic catatonia. He distinguished two forms of the course of catatonia; he attached great importance to the disturbance of the endocrine balance in the development of the illness. Gjessing became a corresponding member of the Royal Medical and Psychological Association of Norway in 1938 and an honorary member of the Danish Psychiatric Society in 1947. During World War II (1939–45), Gjessing participated in the resistance movement in Norway.