A. J. Carlson

Anton Julius Carlson (January 29, 1875–September 2, 1956) was a Swedish American physiologist. Carlson was born in Sweden and came to the USA in 1891. He received a doctorate in physiology at Stanford in 1902 and began working at the University of Chicago in 1904. While Carlson was at Chicago, he conducted experiments on Fred Vlcek, similar to those conducted on Alexis St. Martin by William Beaumont, regarding his gastric fistula. These included illuminating his stomach with electric lights in order to observe digestion. Carlson became chairman of the physiology department at the University of Chicago in 1916 and remained chairman until 1940.

Carlson was president of the American Physiological Society from 1923 to 1925 and president of the AAAS in 1944. In 1953, Carlson was the first person to receive the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award.