Gottschalk, Carl W.

Carl W. Gottschalk, born in Salem, Va. His first scientific interest was the study of butterflies, and the young lepidopterist discovered a new species ( Strymon cecrops Gottschalki ) when he was only 15 years old.

Gottschalk entered Roanoke College in 1938 with a pre-med major and attended the University of Virginia Medical School directly after graduation from Roanoke. Through the accelerated wartime program, he obtained his M.D. degree from Virginia in 1945. While interning at Massachusetts General Hospital, he was initially drawn to cardiology. The military intervened, however, and Gottschalk spent 1946 to 1948 in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, studying the effects of arctic weather and extreme cold on military personnel. From 1948 to 1950, he again conducted research in Boston at the Harvard Medical School, where his focus changed from cardiology to kidney function.

Gottschalk continued his investigations of renal function at Harvard, eventually revolutionizing the study of renal physiology. He was the first to prove the counter-current theory, explaining how the kidney excretes fluid that is more concentrated than any other body fluid. Gottschalk elucidated the link between heart problems and kidney function and was very influential in national planning for dialysis and kidney transplantation treatment for patients with chronic kidney disease.

Gottschalk was professor of medicine and physiology at the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine, 1952-1969, and Kenan Professor of Medicine and Physiology, 1969-1992. He served as chair of the Committee on Chronic Kidney Disease, sponsored by the United States Bureau of the Budget, which issued its influential Report of the Committee on Chronic Kidney Disease in 1967. He was also known for his Diseases of The Kidney, first published by Little Brown in 1988.

Gottschalk was named an American Heart Association Career Investigator and won the North Carolina Medal and the O. Max Gardner Award. In 1970, he received the Homer W. Smith Award from the New York Heart Association; in 1990, the A. N. Richards Award of the International Society of Nephrology; and, in April 1993, the first Robert W. Berliner Award for Excellence from the American Physiological Society. Gottschalk was president of the American Society of Nephrology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine.

An avid bibliophile, Gottschalk donated his Robert Louis Stevenson collection to the Rare Book Collection of the Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during his lifetime. His significant collection of rare books on the history of medicine, now known as the Carl W. Gottschalk Collection, came to the Rare Book Collection after his death in 1997.

From the guide to the Carl W. Gottschalk Papers (#4935), 1930s-1999, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)