This, he argued, would affect the movement of sodium ions and make nerve cells inexcitable, thus causing anaesthesia.

He therefore had the idea of looking at an enzyme which was embedded in the membrane and finding out if its properties were affected by local anaesthetics.

Eventually he managed to discover that ATPase was most active when exposed to the right combination of sodium, potassium and magnesium ions.

There he met Robert Post (born 1920[4]), who had been studying the pumping of sodium and potassium in red blood cells.

At this stage Skou was unaware that ouabain inhibited the pump, but he immediately telephoned his lab and arranged for the experiment to be done.

[6] Following the Nobel Prize, Skou gave several interviews recounting the story of his discoveries, and at age 94 was reported to still keep up with publications in his field.