NO SUCH PUSSON!

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 110, 6 November 1933, Page 7

NO SUCH PUSSON!

A DOUBTING SAINT

HOW SCIENCE REPLIES

VITAMIN C

"When the exact seienecs rebuke the iuexaotj the world listens. w ,When the reverse happens, the world smiles.

It is reported to have been said in high places that a vitamin has never "been isolated, and may not exist./ If go, vitamin C may bo a false aland.

But Professor A. Sycnt-Gyorgi, probably anticipating a writ of habeas corpus, has filed His defence in "The Listener" of September 27. .Is the Professor able to produce the body? He is. The great Austro-Hungarian Empire has gone, but the Hungarian pepper plant has reconstructed the title deeds of a greater dynasty than the Habsburgs—the dynasty of the- vitamins, Hungarian pepper is to supply the '/pep" needed in all human affairs, from royal thrones down to Boyal Commissions. . Now let Professor Syent-Gyorgi, of •the Institute,'of Medical Chemistry at the University of Szeged, Hungary, tell his own story:— . To a seafaring people, as the English, the- Vitamin C has perhaps the most historical interest among all his brother-vitamins. This is.the vitamin which is present in fresh vegetables, the absence of which will cause that horrible disease called scurvy. Scurvy was for the sailor of old ages a greater danger than rocks and tempests, and caused up till lately the end of many a ■keen explorer who had more courage than vitamin. ; ; My own research has brought me in touch with this substance, and this fact brings out a characteristic feature of ■modern research. It shows how the detailed study of an apparently insignificant phenomenon can lead sometimes to unexpected results, and-it also shows how the success of modern research. ■ depends on the closest international collaboration. •, , ' PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE. > Working more than ten years ago in . the cellar of physiological laboratory at Groningen in Holland, I wondered what the function of a small gland could be, which the scientist calls the adrenal gland and which' you find located just above the kidneys. Soon I got the impression that this gland' must bo involved in the process of breathing. ' One of my, chief arguments was perhaps not quite scientific. You know that many plants, such as apples, potatoes, and bananas, turn brown if they are bruised. This change in colour js due to some, trouble in the breathing of the plants. Now human pathology teaches that patients whose adrenal glands are not working also turn brown. For this reason the disease is called the '' bronze diseaue.'' But to understand the possible role of the adrenal gland in breathing we had to know first more about breathiig itself. In'the animal, however, there are so many complications that I decided to study breathing in plants, and spent several years cutting up all the plants and fruits which my greengrocer could supply. After several years' work I noticed in one experiment' something which woke my interest. Some colour reaction, which usually appears immediately after mixingpthe^ chemicals, showed a. short delay—of. a second or so—if certain .planet juices were present. This little delays which had been ■: overlooked ■by all previous workers, was nothing very striking", and did not seem'very oxeiting, but scientists always want to know everything^ and I wanted to know the reason for. it. I spent two years studying it till I could satisfy myself that it w,as caused by the presence of a substance, the molecule of which, was composed of six carbon, eight hydrogen, and six oxygen atoms. ~ Such a statement sounds quite simple, but in fact it is a very hard job. to make such a; thorough acquaintance with a new substance. In an animal or vegetable tissue there' are .thousands of known' and unknown substances, and if one wants to know one special substance one has in separate it completely from, all the rest —to isolate it. Isolation was in. this case specially difficult, since the subatance was very unstable aid was present < only ■in minute quantities. In. the end, however, the substance paid well for the trouble I took to hunt it up, for it had the most fascinating chemical properties. I will .call this substance ascorbic acid, for' reasons which you will understand later. ' ' A COLOUR CLUE—BROWN. The1' first question ■ I . asked from ascorbic acid, after I got hold of it, was whether it could tell me something about the adrenal gland. .; Could it tell me why patients turned brown if they lost their adrenal gland? Certainly it could. I found that the .adrenal gland contained relatively big quantities of ascorbic acid,, and that ascorbic acid could prevent patients or potatoes from turning brown. Meanwhile my. cellar at Groningen became too narrow for the widening work, and helped by the Rockefeller Foundation and the hospitality of Sir Gowland Hopkins, I transferred my quartprs.into the biochemical laboratory at Cambridge, and-I owe all the success to this change. It was only in Cambridge that I could really go to ■ work and « got ascorbic acid in pure" condition as a white powder, composed of . . nice little crystals. ■'.' ■''.•' As the substance got more and more interesting I wanted to have more and more of it,'to study it properly and also to give some to Professor Haworth at .Birmingham, who, from the first, showed great interest in, it. The trouble was, that I could get it from plants only if I worked with small quantities. As soon as I wanted to work on a bigger scale, for instance -with 5000 oranges, all my previous juices went down the sink, without leaving any ascorbic acid behind. The only suitable material,. which allowed work on a big scale, were adrenal glands.. To help 'me out Professor Krogh tried to send me in. big quantities, by air, glands from Copenhagen. Even this did not help, and in the end I had to go to'tho States, to use the unlimited material of the great slaughter-houses and the unlimited hospitality of the Mayo clinic, ana after a year I returned victoriously with 20 grams of pure ascorbic acid, which I had the honesty to ' share with Professor Haworth. THE "WHITE POWDER AS VITAMIN O! There I was, with a spoonful of white powder as the result of more than five years' labour. I described my results; they were printed and forgotten—a thing which often happens in science. But there was one thing I did not test, which did not allow me to forget my substance. I always had_ a suspicion that this white powder of mine might be the Vitamin _C for which science was looking with concentrated efforts. Newer observations made by German and American workers more anfl more confirmed me in this suspicion. After I returned to my country, Hungary, I got the chance to test this point. At the same time fate sent me a very clever young American collaborator, Mr. Svi'rbely" who also hstd had much

experience with vitamin experiments in animals, and with him I set out at once to test tho point. Ou paper such a test is quite simple. One has to tako guinea-pigs and keep them on food which contains no Vitamin C. Then they get scurvy. In another set of animals, kept'on the same diet, one gives the animals a little of the substance in question. If this substance prevents the development of scurvy, it may bo the vitamin.

I To our grea,t excitement our experiments showed'clearly that our white powder could prevent scurvy, or scorbut, for which reason we call it now ascorbic acid.' We spent mauy months repeating this- experiment till we were quito sure about it and could declare that our white powder, ascorbic acid, with its sis' carbon, eight hydrogen, and six oxygen atoms,, was nothing else than the long sought, mysterious Vitamin C in,person. At the same time also an American worker, Mr. C. G. King, arrived at the same conclusion. FROM ABATTOIRS TO PEPPER PIELDS. With this our poor forgotten ascorbic acid at once came into the limelight of science, and sineo vitamins have_ an equally great scientific and practical importance, general interest at once turned towards it. One wanted_ again to know more about it, find out its precise chemical structure and all its properties and activities. There was only one big difficulty: there was none of it. My little tube with its few grammes of vitamin was very soon empty. There are no big slaughter-houses in Europe, which would yield adrenal glands by the ton, and', anyway they are Very expensive. Mprepypr, all the plants failed me as material for big-scale preparation. ;My systematic research for a suitable plant, allowing preparation on a big scale, had no result, and I gave up my search in despair. Now,, as fate would'have it, I am condemned to be.a Professor at Szeged, which is the centre of the Hungarian pepper agriculture. Pepper, or "paprika" as we call it, is a big, healthy fruit. It has many varieties. Some of them are used to-make a powder, some are eaten fresh. One evening, late in October, my wife gave me paprika for supper, v Somehow I could not eat it, but not having the cotfrago to let it stand I said I would make experiments with it. My hope for a suitable source of Vitamin C preparations suddenly awoke in me. I worked all night,, and the next morning I knew that certain species of paprika were, in a quite wonderful manner, a rich, new source for Vitamin 0 preparations, for the same weight of pepper. contained four times , more vitamin than orange or lemon juice, which is known to be very specially, rich, in this substance. Unfortunately, however, the approaching frosts threatened to1 make an end to the pepper t season and to cut short our work! Undaunted we set out. My whole household and all who could help, even, the dog, assisted to make pure vitamin from, pepper, with tho result that after three weeks of hard labour we had a full pound of pure Vitamin Gin glistening crystals—a quantity quite unheard of before in the history of vitamins. With this quantity w could meet all the demands of research workers' for the vitamin, "the demands growing day by day with the increasing interest. It was one of the greatest pleasures I over had in my scientific career, that I was able to provide sufficient material to all who wanted to work on the substance, so that at present intense. scientific1 research on this substance is going on all over the world. It is possible to hope that within a short time science will know all it wanted to know about this substance. A 810 FACT; NOT A RUMOUR. It is often said that science and scientists work only for knowledge, and not for practical application," but if science finds such a new substance, which, has much to do with life and disease, the question immediately arises whether it cannot be used to improve health. I 'have told you that if the Vitamin C is entirely withheld from a human person, ho -will.soon die with the symptoms of scurvy,' and our substance, the ascorbic acid, is able to prevent or cure this disease. You might think that scurvy is a rare disease, and if the vitamin is only good for this disease there is not much use in it. Hecent research, however, shows that this is not the case. The latest experiments teach us that what we called scurvy is but the last station on the long and painful downward road, and there is a long distance , between health and scurvy. If iye do not withhold the vitamin entirely, but feed' on vitaminpoor diet, as we often do, no scurvy will develop, but all the same we shall be far from healthy and efficient, especially the young ; body. Little babies have a big demand for Vitamin C, and, as the animal experiment shows, if the food does not contain .enough, vitamin, already1 in a few days we can recognise in the structure of the teeth that something is wrong. Very probably also tho resistance' towards other diseases begins to fall just as sotm. Much extended work will be necessary to find out exactly how mucli vitamin such.a young body really needs. As far as experience goes'up to. the present, much ■seems 'to-be'wanted, and we can say that our food, and also the' food of mothers feeding babies, in all probability often does not contain enough vitamin. '■''.'.

■ This will bo especially true for young babies; the younger, the more so. For this reason it has lately become a general practice to supplement tho foodof babies with lemon or orange juice, rich in Vitamin C. Unfortunately, however, the new-born babies, who prabably want the vitamin* most, cannot digest such fruit juice. I hope that the pure vitamin, which will be produced on a big scale from peppers'by many factories in the near future, will make it possible also for these newcomers to I haye1 enough of this substance. So I hope that the sunshine beating dqwn on the Hungarian plains and building up the vitamin will bo transported in future to. the north, in the form of small white crystals and help littlo English babies, too, to be healthy apd to buildup good teeth and strong bones.