SOLLMAN, TORALD HERMAN (10 Feb. 1874-11 Feb. 1965), dean of American pharmacology, was born in Colberg, Germany to August and Adelhaid Eckhardt Sollman, and came to America at 13 to live with his brother, a druggist in Canton, working in his store and studying medicine in his spare time. At 17 he became the youngest person to receive a pharmacist's license from the state of Ohio. He studied pharmacology at the Val-de-Grâce Military Hospital in Paris, France (1893-94), graduated from Western Reserve University Medical School (see CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY) with an M.D. degree in 1896, and did additional studies in Strasbourg in 1899.
Sollman was a demonstrator in physiology at WRU (1895-99); lecturer in pharmacology (1898-1901); assistant professor of pharmacology and materia medica (1901-04); and professor (1904-44), responsible for building up the pharmacology department. During WORLD WAR I, he was a consultant to the U.S. Army on poison gas and treating mustard-gas burns. In 1917, he authored Laboratory Experiments in Pharmacology, the first laboratory manual in pharmacology written in English.
In 1928, Sollman was appointed dean of the WRU Medical School, instituting higher standards for selecting students and insisting on a balance of students desiring to be practitioners with those wishing to enter research. Upon his retirement in 1944, he was named professor and dean emeritus. Sollman was honored when Wyeth Laboratories in Philadelphia established the Torald Sollman Award in Pharmacology, international in scope and comparable to the Nobel Prize.
Sollman married Alice Sersall in 1902 and had 1 daughter, Mary Alice.