Krogh Principle

Krogh's principle states that "for such a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice, or a few such animals, on which it can be most conveniently studied." This concept is central to those disciplines of biology that rely on the comparative method, such as neuroethology, comparative physiology, and more recently functional genomics.

Krogh's principle is named after the Danish physiologist August Krogh, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his contributions to understanding the anatomy and physiology of the capillary system, who described it in The American Journal of Physiology in 1929. However, the principle was first elucidated nearly 60 years prior to this, and in almost the same words as Krogh, in 1865 by Claude Bernard, the French instigator of experimental medicine, on page 27 of his "Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale":

Dans l'investigation scientifique, les moindres procédés sont de la plus haute importance. Le choix heureux d'un animal, d'un instrument construit d'une certaine façon, l'emploi d'un réactif au lieu d'un autre, suffisent souvent pour résoudre les questions générales les plus élevées.

Claude Bernard: Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale, J.B. Baillière et Fils, Libraires de L'Académie Impériale de Médecine, 1865. pp. 400

Krogh wrote the following in his 1929 treatise on the then current 'status' of physiology (emphasis added):

...I want to emphasize that the route by which we can strive toward the ideal is by a study of the vital functions in all their aspects throughout the myriads of organisms. We may find out, nay, we will find out before very long the essential mechanisms of mammalian kidney function, but the general problem of excretion can be solved only when excretory organs are studied wherever we find them and in all their essential modifications. Such studies will be sure, moreover, to expand and deepen our insight into problems of the human kidney and will prove of value also from the narrowest utilitarian point of view.

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