science · 15 November 1874 · 150 years ago
birth
Born 15 Nov 1874; died 13 Sep 1949 at age 74.
Schack August Steenberg Krogh was a Danish physiologist and zoologist who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1920 for his discovery of the motor-regulating mechanism of capillaries (small blood vessels). Working with frogs, which he injected with Indian ink shortly before killing, he showed that in sample areas of resting muscle the number of visible (stained) capillaries was about 5 per square millimeter; in stimulated muscle, however, the number was increased to 190 per square millimeter. From this he concluded that there must be a physiological mechanism to control the action of the capillaries in response to the needs of the body (not just flow due to heart beating). Krogh's research linked exercise physiology with nutrition and metabolism.
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