Prof. August Krogh

Abstract

THE election of Prof. A. Krogh to the Royal Society will give much pleasure to his many friends, who have been following with great admiration his remarkable achievements in different branches of physiology. His early work (1904) in collaboration with Bohr and Hasselbach demonstrated for the first time the effect of carbon dioxide on the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen. In 1910 Krogh definitely proved that the absorption of oxygen and the elimination of carbon dioxide in the lungs take place by diffusion only and without the assistance of any secretory activity by the cells. This investigation finally settled the long-standing controversy around this problem. We owe to Krogh a series of important contributions to the study of the respiration of insects and the elaboration of a delicate technique for the accurate analysis of minute bubbles of gas. This technique was applied ultimately to the study of problems in other fields of physiology. Krogh's remarkable work on the capillary circulation, which was soon recognized by the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, is marked by the same insistence on direct proof, combined with a broad biological outlook. The work of Krogh's laboratory to-day is largely concerned with the problems of respiration, especially at high altitudes, problems of circulation, the mechanism regulating the water and salt exchanges in aquatic animals, and the ecology of aquatic organisms in relation to the nitrogen cycle in water.