Denmark - Conditions of Life

Denmark - Conditions of Life - Health

Denmark
3.Conditions of Life
3.7 Health

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Johannes Fibiger
Niels Ryberg Finsen
Niels K. Jerne
August Krogh
Jens Christian Skou

Niels K. Jerne, 1911-94, Danish physician and immunologist. After occupying professorial chairs in Switzerland, USA and Germany he headed the independent Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland 1969-80, an institution with no commercial obligations, established especially for him by the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche. During his time of office the Institute became the international centre for immunological research. Jerne finished his career as professor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris (1981-82). He formulated several new theories on the way in which white blood corpuscles form antibodies, thus overturning accepted assumptions. According to the final theory he formulated, the network theory (1973), the organism forms antibodies combatting its own antibodies in such a way that a kind of immunological balance and an exchange of information is established in the immune system in the same way as in the central nervous system. Together with Georges Köhler and César Milstein, Jerne was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1984.
Nils Engelbrecht
Louis du Pasquier
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August Krogh, 1874-1949, Danish physiologist, graduate in zoology 1899, Professor of Animal Physiology at the University of Copenhagen 1916-45. At an early stage, Krogh became a pupil of the respiratory physiologist Christian Bohr, who became an important influence in his subsequent research. The special character of this research was determined by Krogh's great understanding of physics and chemistry and also by his unusual skill in constructing scientific apparatus. Krogh's metabolism apparatus, which could measure oxygen consumption, was still being used in hospitals in the 1980s to measure metabolism. His principal contribution was in circulation physiology, as he was able to explain the control of the capillaries, which regulate the flow of blood as needed. This gave him the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1920. In collaboration with H.C. Hagedorn, he introduced insulin treatment in Denmark in 1922; together, they started the production of insulin which has since given Denmark a leading position in this field.
Nils Engelbrecht
The Royal Library
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Photo; Jens Christian Skou, physician Jens Christian Skou, b. 1918, Danish physician and physiologist. After graduating from medical school at the University of Copenhagen in 1944, Skou was appointed to the Institute of Physiology at Aarhus University in 1947. In 1957, while investigating the active mechanism of local anaesthetic drugs, he discovered that the nerve cell membranes of crabs contain an enzyme, sodium potassium ATPase, which in the form of the sodium potassium pump helps to maintain the salt balance between the cells and the tissue fluid by pumping sodium ions out of the cells and potassium ions into the cells. 1963-78 Skou held the chair of Physiology in Aarhus, and 1978-88 the chair of Biophysics, also in Aarhus; in 1997 Skou shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the Briton John Walker and the American Paul Boyer.
Nils Engelbrecht
Lars Møller/Nordfoto

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