VITAMIN C

Evening Star, Issue 21822, 11 September 1934, Page 9

VITAMIN C

BRILLIANT RESEARCH WORK PROCESS HANDED TO BRITISH GOVERNMENT (British Official Wireless.) Pres* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, September 8. In an address on vitamin G, or ascorbic acid, at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancemeufc of Science, Professor Szeivt Gyormyi described how lie became interested in the properties of the adrenal gland, near the kidneys, defects in which cause the skins of human beings to go brown. After extracting a peculiar substance with the properties of vitamin C from the adrenal glands or an animal, he pursued his research work at Cambridge. He prepared the same substance from plants, and later in larger quantities in the United States and in Hungary. He discovered that perrika contained a large quantity of this substance. Chemical investigations at Birmingham and Zurich showed that its constitution was surprisingly simple, and brilliant research work by Professors Haworth and Heichstein and others proved that it could be synthesised. Professor Haworth and his colleagues recently discovered a simple method by which this vitamin can be manufactured at the cost of a few pence an ounce. The process has been patented, and the right handed to the British Government for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The proceeds are to be devoted to the advance of science.