VITAMIN C AT LOW COST

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1934, Page 7

VITAMIN C AT LOW COST

DISCOVERY OF SCIENTISTS BRILLIANT RESEARCH WORK SECRET GIVEN TO NATION PROTECTED BY PATENTING * (British Official Wireless.) Rec. 5.5 p.m. Rugby, Sept. 8. Brilliant researches by Haworth, Reichstein and others had proved that a substance containing vitamin C could be synthetised, Professor Szent Gyormyi told the British Association to-day. Professor Haworth and his colleagues had recently discovered a simple method of enabling this vitamin to be manufactured at the cost of a few pence per ounce. The process was patented and the rights handed to the British Government’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The proceeds are to be devoted to the advance of science. Professor Gyormyi gave an address on vitamin C or ascorbic acid to the association. He described how he became interested in the properties of the adrenal gland near the kidneys, defects of 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 of an animal, he pursued his researches at Cambridge. He prepared the same substance from plants, and later in larger quantities in the United States. In Hungary he discovered that parrika contained a large quantity of this substance. Chemical investigation at Birmingham and Zurich showed its constitution was surprisingly simple. Vitamin C is found in green vegetables, fruit juices, germinating pulses and cereals. Scurvy is the result of its absence from the diet.