Bengt Lidforss

socialist, and an accomplished natural scientist and writer

Ph.D. from Lund University he studied elaiospheres in the mesophyll. He noted that the plants that remain green in winter in southern Sweden had little starch in the leaves during winter. They instead had oil or sugars which prevented injury to the cells from freezing.^[1] With a Battram travel scholarship he went to Germany and spent some time in Berlin. Here he joined the Scandinavian circle around August Strindberg. He then went to Leipzig, working with Wilhelm Pfeffer. After working as an assistant of Ernst Stahl at the University of Jena, he became a professor of botany at Uppsala University in 1909 and at Lund University in 1910.^[2] He was among the first Swedish scientists to write popular science. Lidforss was born in a conservative family but developed a strong stance against religion and the Church of Sweden. He published articles in Malmö-based social democrat newspaper Arbetet^[3] and also, served as its editor-in-chief.^[4]

socialist; he was also a pessimist on capitalism.^[5] He was known to be bisexual.^[6] He was a race mystic who introduced Darwinian ideas which he called as Proletarian anthropology. The Swedish labour movement was noted as anti-Semitical in that they looked upon Jews as capitalist. Lidforss also noted that Jewish culture was distinct and not native in its essence.^[7][8][9] Lidforss suffered from syphilis from an early age and in 1913 he was diagnosed with syphilitic aortitis which led to his death.^[10]