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Dr. Mellanby’s major work, Nutrition and He was a Rockefeller Fellow at Cambridge, May Mellanby
Disease, published in 1934, devoted a chapter visiting professor at Harvard, and held a research
to Mrs. Mellanby’s research on diet and dental position at the National Institutes of Health. In and associate
decay. The Mellanby papers are housed at the 1948, he was selected as a member of the Na- showed that
30
Wellcome Library in London. tional Academy of Science. 35 even badly
In the 1930s, Szent-Györgyi discovered
HERBERT McLEAN EVANS vitamin C, “the anti-scorbutic factor,” as well as formed teeth
Herbert McLean Evans, MD (1882-1971), a components and reactions of the citric acid cycle. attacked by
California native, was an anatomist and embry- In some experiments he used paprika, a famous cavities could
ologist who obtained his medical degree from national food product, as a source of the vitamin
Johns Hopkins University and was an associate and as the Hungarian cure for scurvy. He also increase their
professor there. Later he was professor at the discovered actin and myelin in muscle tissue. resistance to
University of California at Berkeley. His later work was concerned with cancer, and caries so that
In his research, Evans studied human nutri- he founded the National Foundation for Cancer
tion and other sciences. In 1922, with his associ- Research in 1973. the decay
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ate, Katharine Scott Bishop (1889-1976), he dis- process was
covered vitamin E, which was called the “fertility ALFRED FABIAN HESS AND slowed and
factor.” Vitamin E deficiency is associated with ADOLF WINDAUS: VITAMIN D
increased infection, anemia, stunted growth, Dr. Alfred Fabian Hess (1875-1933), a even stopped
poor outcomes in pregnancy, and reproductive graduate of Harvard, earned his MD from by vitamin D
failure. Rat pups deprived of vitamin E in Evans’ Columbia University and studied medicine in supplied in
and Bishop’s experiments became partially para- Berlin, Prague and Vienna. He spent time at
lyzed. Adult rats survived without vitamin E but the Rockefeller Institute as well. In 1921 he ob- cod liver oil.
were sterile and pregnancies were resorbed. In served that ultraviolet (UV) light cured rickets.
1937, Dr. Evans isolated vitamin E from wheat Dr. Hess worked with Harriette Chick and her
germ. Vitamin E destroyed “free radicals” and team to cure rickets among children in Vienna.
was itself destroyed in the process. The author He founded the Tuberculosis Preventorium for
of more than seven books and numerous articles, children in New Jersey, and was professor of
Dr. Evans was selected as a Fellow of the Royal pediatrics at New York University. In 1925 he
Society. isolated sitosterol. When irradiated by UV light,
both sitosterol and cholesterol from the rat brain
HENRIK DAM AND VITAMIN K were active against rickets. 37
Henrik Dam (1895-1976) was a Danish bio- Hess and his team proposed the hypoth-
chemist and physiologist who was awarded the esis that “it would seem quite possible that the
Nobel Prize in medicine in 1943 for the discovery cholesterol (which we now know as 7-dehydro-
of vitamin K with Edward Doisy. For his work he cholesterol) in the skin is normally activated by
used chickens as experimental animals. Dr. Dam UV-irradiation and rendered anti-rachitic—that
called the new vitamin “koagulation,” (German the solar rays and artificial radiations can bring
for coagulation), thus vitamin K. about this conversion. This point of view regards
the superficial skin as an organ, which reacts
ALBERT SZENT-GYÖRGYI: VITAMIN C to particular light waves rather than as a mere
The Hungarian scientist Albert Szent- protective covering.” 38
Györgyi, MD (1893-1986), won the Nobel Prize From 1919-1922 Hess was concerned mainly
in physiology in 1937 for his discovery of vitamin with the study of rickets, heliotherapy (curing
C. He had a very colorful history as a freedom with sunlight), infant feeding, irradiated er-
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fighter and covert diplomat while serving in both gosterol and cod liver oil, particularly with its
World Wars. Adolf Hitler personally issued a potency in connection with rickets, as well as
warrant for his arrest because of his resistance irradiation of milk, dental caries and minerals
activities. After the Communists took over Hun- in human milk and cow milk. 37
gary he immigrated to the U.S. 35 Hess asked the German steroid chemist
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