|
|
Obi Okafor Biology 420 The history of Vitamin C can be traced back to 1500bc when there was an outbreak of scurvy in Egypt. It came up again in the 1400’s in Europe when there were repeated cases of shipmen dying off during expeditions from scurvy (1). Modern research of scurvy started again in 1907 when two Norwegian scientists in their quest to determine the cause of Beri beri in guinea pigs discovered scurvy instead (1). The theory of an antiscorbutic vitamin was postulated in 1911, but it was not untill 1928 that Dr Szent Gyorgyi isolated a substance from oranges, cabbage and the adrenals of Oxen. He called this substance Hexuronic acid, and determined its chemical formula to be C6H8O6. He gave some of his substance to W.M Haworth an English sugar chemist who determined the structural formula and they both named it ascorbic acid, from a-scorbutic which means anti-scurvy (2). Gyorgyi received a noble prize for his discovery in 1937, but there has been a lot of debate on who really discovered the vitamin (1). Vitamin C also called ascorbic acid is one of the most essential vitamins for human survival. It is a water-soluble vitamin and is present in every cell of the body especially cells of the nervous system, blood, teeth, bones and glands such as the thymus, adrenals and thyroid (5).
|
