Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2010 Dec;34(4):174-85. doi: 10.1152/advan.00092.2010.
The year 2010 is the centennial of the publication of the "Seven Little Devils" in the predecessor of Acta Physiologica. In these seven papers, August and Marie Krogh sought to refute Christian Bohr's theory that oxygen diffusion from the lungs to the circulation is not entirely passive but rather facilitated by a specific cellular activity substitute to secretion. The subjects of the present reevaluation of this controversy are Christian Bohr, Professor and Doctor of Medicine (1855-1911), nominated three times for the Nobel Prize; August Krogh, Doctor of Philosophy (1874-1949), Christian Bohr's assistant and later Nobel Prize laureate (1920); and Marie Krogh, née Jørgensen, Doctor of Medicine and wife of August Krogh (1874-1943). The controversy concerned is the transport of oxygen from the lungs into the bloodstream: are passive transport and diffusion capacity together sufficient to secure the oxygen supply in all circumstances or is there an additional specific ("energy consuming" or "active") mechanism responsible for the transport of oxygen from the alveoli into the bloodstream? The present discussion purports to show that the contestants' views were closer than the parties themselves and posterity recognized. Posterity has judged the dispute unilaterally from the Nobel laureate's point of view, but it is evident that August Krogh's Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of a cellular activity (Christian Bohr's expression), represented by Krogh's discovery of capillary recruitment. Christian Bohr appears to have been correct in the narrower sense that the diffusion capacity at rest is not great enough to explain the transport during work; a special mechanism intervenes and optimizes the conditions under which diffusion acts. August Krogh, of course, was right in the wider sense that the transport mechanism itself is always entirely passive.
2010 年是《生理学文献》前身发表“七个小恶魔”的百年纪念。在这七篇论文中，August 和 Marie Krogh 试图反驳 Christian Bohr 的理论，即氧气从肺部扩散到循环系统并不完全是被动的，而是被一种特定的细胞活动所替代，这种活动替代了分泌。本次对这一争议的重新评估的主题是 Christian Bohr、医学教授和博士（1855-1911 年），曾三次获得诺贝尔奖提名；August Krogh，哲学博士（1874-1949 年），Christian Bohr 的助手，后来的诺贝尔奖获得者（1920 年）；以及 Marie Krogh，原名 Jørgensen，医学博士和 August Krogh 的妻子（1874-1943 年）。争议的焦点是氧气从肺部到血液中的运输：被动运输和扩散能力是否足以在所有情况下都能保证氧气的供应，还是存在一种额外的特定（“耗能”或“主动”）机制负责将氧气从肺泡输送到血液中？本次讨论旨在表明，参赛者的观点比当事人和后代所认识到的更为接近。后代从诺贝尔奖得主的角度单方面判断了这场争议，但很明显，August Krogh 的诺贝尔奖是因其发现一种细胞活动（Christian Bohr 的表述）而授予的，这一发现代表了 Krogh 对毛细血管募集的发现。从狭义上讲，Christian Bohr 似乎是正确的，即在休息时扩散能力不足以解释工作期间的运输；一种特殊的机制介入并优化了扩散作用的条件。当然，August Krogh 从更广泛的意义上也是正确的，即运输机制本身始终完全是被动的。
