NEW VITAMIN SHOWN

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21652, 10 December 1935, Page 10

NEW VITAMIN SHOWN

IMPORTANT FACTOR IN LIFE RESEARCH IN AMERICA NEW YORK, November 10. One thousand milligrams of a pure, crystalline derivative of vitamin E, the fertility vitamin without which human and all other mammalian life would vanish from the earth, was_ shown here for the first time before the American College of Surgeons, says William L. Lawrence in a message from San Francisco to the "New York Times." A white substance, in appearance like ordinary table salt or granulated sugar, it represents the first harvest of a discovery announced before the meeting of the American Chemical Society here in August. At that time Dr. Herbert M. Evans and his associates at the University of California stated that after many years of "big game hunting" in an effort to capture vitamin E in its pure form, they had at last succeeded. On that occasion, however, their efforts had yielded only a very small amount hardly enough for experimenting. During the last two months, however, after assiduous application of the new knowledge to large quantities of wheat germ and cottonseed oils, the most potent hiding places of the substance which makes possible the perpetuation of high forms of life, Dr. Evans and his co-work-ers, Drs. Oliver and Gladys Emerson, have pried loose from their habitat a relatively enormous quantity of the vitamin. Scientists all over the world arc waiting for it in the hope that the precious substance will furnish a new key with which to unlock important mysteries of life itself. Presence in Human Diet Ever since vitamin E was discovered by Dr. Evans in 1922 it has been known to have a highly important role in the vital processes. In experiments, its absence in the food of animals makes it impossible for them to bear young. Its absence in the diet of males has also been found to result in sterility. But there is said to be nc danger of its being absent from the human diet. Within recent months experiments in Canada and in the United States, though handicapped by the unavailability of the vitamin in pure form, have led to the belief that it maj somehow be related to the cancel process. During the next few months, Dr. Evans and his associates hope, the process of isolating vitamin E ir pure form will have been so perfected as to make-possible its production on a commercial scale. Dermatitis is Traced Meantime, the mysteries of another vitamin, at present known as vitamin B-6, are being studied al Dr. Evans's biochemical laboratories by his research associate, Dr. N Halliday, who presented a progress report. Vitamin B-6, Dr. Halliday stated was a product separated from whal was orginally known in England as vitamin B-2 and in the United States as vitamin G. This lastnamed vitamin is now known tc consist of two distinct vitamins flavin and B-6. The two vitamins, Dr. Hallidaj reported, had been found to hav< different functions. Flavin, whei fed to animals along with vitamii B-6, seemed to be necessary for thi promotion of growth. , B-6, by itself, did not promot Sowfch but, without it, the animal id been, found to develop dermati

tis, a condition in which the nails, toes and ears dry up and eventually fall off. Dr. Halliday pointed out, however, that the dermatitis produced in rats by the absence of vitamin B-6 in the diet, had not yet been established to be identical with the human form of the disease known as pellagra, with which vitamin G has generally been associated.