Despite all of these accomplishments, August Krogh was the most humble and non-obtrusive of men. In fact, he attracted so little attention to himself that on October 28, 1920 when reporters approached the administration of the University of Copenhagen and asked for Dr. August Krogh who had just won an unshared Nobel Prize for physiology/medicine they were told, “It must be a mistake, there is no Danish professor with that name.”
However the legacy left by August Krogh is so great that it is still having an impact on physiology and medical science today. It will soon have an impact on the future of the perfusion profession because his concepts of capillary function and oxygen distribution are just as valid today as they were 94 years ago when he won the Noble Prize for them.
His concept of the oxygen pressure field holds answers to many questions to which perfusionists must find answers. Only now, with our pumps and oxygenators, can perfusionists begin manipulate the oxygen pressure field. In controlling the oxygen pressure field perfusionists have the potential to reverse shock and multiple organ failure and treat such deadly conditions as adult respiratory distress syndrome or sepsis. These two conditions alone account for hundreds of thousands of hospital deaths every year.
Perfusion Theory is an educational platform for the Oxygen Pressure Field Theory (OPFT). August Krogh’s theoretical concept of the oxygen pressure field is explained and then applied to clinical applications in perfusion practice.