ABSTRACT
In 1904 Bohr, Hasselbalch and Krogh showed that carbon dioxide diminished the affinity of haemoglobin for oxygen. This phenomenon, known as the “Bohr effect,” together with the reciprocal effect of oxygenation upon the combination of carbon dioxide with blood, discovered by Christiansen, Douglas and Haldane (1914) must be taken into account in all quantitative considerations of the respiratory function of the blood of mammals. It is now recognised that the effects of carbon dioxide are not specific, but are due to alterations in the acid-base equilibrium of the blood and may be produced by other acids. The phenomena have also been described in the case of the blood of the lower orders of vertebrates (Krogh and Leitch, 1919; and Southworth and Redfield, 1926) and of the body fluids of invertebrate animals, such as the worms which have respiratory pigments more or less closely related to haemoglobin (Barcroft and Barcroft, 1924).
This phenomenon also occurs in the case of haemoglobin solutions as demonstrated by Rona and Y ö pp ö (1916) and Ferry and Green (1928).
