In 1920 August Krogh was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the mechanism of regulation of the
capillaries in skeletal
muscle.[8][9] Krogh was first to describe the adaptation of blood perfusion in muscle and other organs according to demands through opening and closing the
arterioles and
capillaries.[10]
Besides his contributions to medicine, Krogh was also one of the founders of what is today the
Novo Nordisk company.[11]
Krogh was a pioneer in
comparative physiology. He wrote his thesis on the respiration through the skin and lungs in
frogs: Respiratory Exchange of Animals, 1915. Later Krogh took on studies of water and electrolyte
homeostasis of aquatic animals and he published the books: Osmotic Regulation (1939) and Comparative Physiology of Respiratory Mechanisms (1941). He contributed more than 200 research articles in international journals. He was a constructor of scientific instruments of which several had considerable practical importance, such as the
spirometer and the apparatus for measuring
basal metabolic rate.
Krogh began lecturing in the
University of Copenhagen in 1908 and in 1916 was promoted to full professor, becoming the head of the first laboratory for animal
physiology (zoophysiology) at the university.[13]
In the 1930s, Krogh worked with two other Nobel prizewinners, the radiochemist
George de Hevesy and the physicist
Niels Bohr on the permeability of membranes to
heavy water and radioactive
isotopes, and together, they managed to obtain Denmark's first
cyclotron for experiments on animal and plant physiology as well as in dental and medical work.[13]
Publications
The Respiratory Exchange of Animals and Man (1916)
Osmotic Regulation in Aquatic Animals (1939)
The Comparative Physiology of Respiratory Mechanisms (1941)
Family
He married
Marie Krogh (née Jørgensen, 1874–1943) in 1905. She was a renowned scientist in her own right and much of August Krogh's work was carried out in close collaboration with her.[10]
August and Marie had four children, the youngest of whom,
Bodil, was born in 1918. She too was a physiologist, and became the first woman president of the
American Physiological Society in 1975.[18] Bodil married another eminent physiologist,
Knut Schmidt-Nielsen.[19][20]
Legacy
Torkel Weis-Fogh, an eminent pioneer on the study of
insect flight, was a student of August Krogh's. Together they wrote a classic paper on that subject in 1951.[21]
Krogh's name is preserved in two items now named for him:
Krogh's principle, that "for... a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice, or a few such animals, on which it can be most conveniently studied."[24]
Further reading
Larsen, E. H. (2001). "August Krogh and the laboratory of animal physiology situated at Ny Vestergade 11". Ugeskrift for Laeger. 163 (51): 7240–7248.
PMID11797555.
Kardel, T. (1999). "About the seven little devils who changed physiology. August and Marie Krogh on pulmonary gas exchange". Ugeskrift for Laeger. 161 (51): 7112–7116.
PMID10647306.
Schmidt-Nielsen, B. (1984). "August and Marie Krogh and respiratory physiology". Journal of Applied Physiology: Respiratory, Environmental and Exercise Physiology. 57 (2): 293–303.
doi:
10.1152/jappl.1984.57.2.293.
PMID6381437.
Poulsen, J. E. (1975). "The impact of August Krogh on the insulin treatment of diabetes and our present status". Acta Medica Scandinavica. Supplementum. 578: 7–14.
doi:
10.1111/j.0954-6820.1975.tb06497.x.
PMID1098401.
Dejours, P. (1975). "August Krogh and the physiology of respiration". Scandinavian Journal of Respiratory Diseases. 56 (6): 337–346.
PMID769148.
Kenez, J. (1965). "The Capillaries and Krogh". Orvosi Hetilap. 106: 177–178.
PMID14275297.
^"Deaths of C. M. Wenyon, Clifford Dobell and A. Krogh". Comptes rendus des séances de la Société de biologie et de ses filiales. 144 (3–4): 160–1. 1950.
PMID15420871.
^"August Krogh (1874-1949) the physiologist's physiologist". JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. 199 (7): 496–497. 1967.
doi:
10.1001/jama.199.7.496.
PMID5335475.
^Larsen, E. H. (2007). "August Krogh (1874-1949): 1920 Nobel Prize". Ugeskrift for Laeger. 169 (35): 2878.
PMID17877986.
^Sulek, K. (1967). "Nobel prize for August Krogh in 1920 for his discovery of regulative mechanism in the capillaries". Wiadomosci Lekarskie. 20 (19): 1829.
PMID4870667.
^Bernard, Claude. Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale, J.B. Baillière et Fils, Libraires de L'Académie Impériale de Médecine, 1865. pp. 400