Christian Bohr

Christian Bohr (1855-1911) was the father of the famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr, as well as the famous mathematician Harald Bohr. He married Ellen Adler in 1881.

Personal life
He wrote his first scientific paper, "Om salicylsyrens indflydelse på kødfordøjelsen" ("On salicylic acid's influence on the digestion of meat"), at the age of 22. He received his medical degree in 1880, studied under Carl Ludwig at University of Leipzig, took a Ph.D. in physiology and was appointed professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen in 1886.

Christian Bohr is buried in the Assistens Kirkegård.

Physiology
In 1891, he was the first to characterize dead space.

In 1904, Christian Bohr described the phenomenon, now called the Bohr effect, whereby hydrogen ions and carbon dioxide heterotropically decrease hemoglobin's oxygen-binding affinity. This regulation increases the efficiency of oxygen release by hemoglobin in tissues, like active muscle tissue, where rapid metabolization has produced relatively high concentrations of hydrogen ions and carbon dioxide.