August Crog (15th of November 1874 – 13th of September 1949) was a Danish professor in the sector of zoo-physiology at the University of Copenhagen from 1916 to 1945. He has contributed to numerous discoveries in several areas of physiology and is known for developing the Crog principle.
In 1920, August Crog won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering the mechanism for regulating the capillaries in the skeletal muscles. Crog is the first person who described the adaptation of the blood perfusion in the muscles and other organs according to the demands by opening and closing of the arterioles and capillaries.
He was born in Grena, at the Urslan peninsula in Denmark, a son of Vigo Crog, a ship maker. His mother was a Roma woman. He educated himself at the Arhus Cathedral School in Arhus. Crog was a pioneer in comparative physiology. He wrote his thesis on breathing through skin and lungs of the frogs: He has contributed to over 200 researches on international magazines. Crog began to teach at the University in Copenhagen in 1908 and in 1916 he was promoted as a regular professor, where he became the head of the laboratory for physiology of animals (zoo-physiology) at the University. Dr. Crog passed away on the 13th of September in 1949 in Copenhagen.
