In 1947 a Danish physician–physiologist, Jens Christian Skou (1918 to 2018, lower right), began working at the Institute for Medical Physiology at Aarhus University. Although his 1951 doctoral dissertation correlated local anesthetic activity with lipid solubility, Skou eventually investigated the physiology of nerves in shore crabs’ legs. In 1957 Skou became the first to discover an ion-transporting enzyme, the sodium–potassium pump. Forty years later, in Stockholm, Sweden, Skou was awarded his half of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This month, October of 2018, marks the birth centennial of Jens Christian Skou, whose “curiosity-based research” led him from local anesthetics to worldwide fame. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
In 1947 a Danish physician–physiologist, Jens Christian Skou (1918 to 2018, lower right), began working at the Institute for Medical Physiology at Aarhus University. Although his 1951 doctoral dissertation correlated local anesthetic activity with lipid solubility, Skou eventually investigated the physiology of nerves in shore crabs’ legs. In 1957 Skou became the first to discover an ion-transporting enzyme, the sodium–potassium pump. Forty years later, in Stockholm, Sweden, Skou was awarded his half of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This month, October of 2018, marks the birth centennial of Jens Christian Skou, whose “curiosity-based research” led him from local anesthetics to worldwide fame. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator and Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
