History
In one sense, it is remarkable that DLCO has retained such clinical utility. The technique was invented to settle one of the great controversies of pulmonary physiology a century ago, namely the question of whether oxygen and the other gases were actively transported into and out of the blood by the lung, or whether gas molecules diffused passively. Remarkable too is the fact that both sides used the technique to gain evidence for their respective hypotheses. To begin with, Christian Bohr invented the technique, using a protocol analogous to the steady state diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide, and concluded that oxygen was actively transported into the lung. His student, August Krogh developed the single breath diffusion capacity technique along with his wife Marie, and convincingly demonstrated that gasses diffuse passively, a finding that led to the demonstration that capillaries in the blood were recruited into use as needed - a Nobel prize winning idea.
Read more about this topic: Diffusing Capacity
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“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)