Jewish Invention Myths: Vitamin C
Frequently in dealing with jewish invention myths I find that jews simply haven’t bothered to do much if any checking or have simply repeated ‘received wisdom’ from some unnamed/uncited source.
A good example of this is the claim that jews discovered/first created Vitamin C aka L-ascorbic acid.
‘MNews’ claims that:
‘Tadeusz Reichstein – Ascorbic acid
In 1933, chemist Tadeusz Reichstein synthesized a powerful antioxidant in his laboratory – L-ascorbic acid, or vitamin C.’ (1)
This is however a partial truth. Reichstein didn’t discover or first synthesize vitamin C; he in fact came up with the Reichstein process in Zurich in 1933 whereby mass quantities of vitamin C could be produced and which was ultimately bought by Swiss company F. Hoffmann-La Roche A.G. in 1934. (2)
The historical reality is that vitamin C was formally discovered in 1912 (although actually discovered in 1907), isolated in 1928 and first synthesized in 1933 (but not by Reichstein). (3)
Vitamin C was actually first discovered by Axel Holst and Theodor Frolich – a Norwegian and German respectively - in laboratory experiments in 1907 but was named vitamin C by Casimir Funk – who was jewish – in 1912 as part of his vitamin system confirming Holst and Frolich’s published paper from 1907. (4)
However, the first person to synthesize vitamin C in 1933 was Albert Szent-Györgyi along with fellow Hungarian Joseph Svirbely and the American scientist Charles Glen King as he discovered the link between ascorbic acid and vitamin C between 1928 and 1932. (5) For this discovery Szent-Györgyi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1937.
Further Sir Norman Haworth confirmed Szent-Györgyi’s work and further synthesized Vitamin C in 1933 and received the 1937 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for it. (6)
So no Tadeusz Reichstein didn’t discover or first synthesize vitamin C Axel Holst and Theodor Frolich discovered it, Casimir Funk named it and Albert Szent-Györgyi first synthesized it.
References
(1) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions
(2) https://www.tg.ethz.ch/en/projects/details/vitamin-c/
(3) Osman Galal, 2009, Barbara Underwood, ‘Human Nutrition: An Overview’, p. 121 in Victor Squires (Ed.), 2009, ‘The Role of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Human Nutrition’, 1st Edition, Eolss: Oxford
(4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12555613/
(5) Mary Ellen Bowden, Amy Beth Crow, Tracy Sullivan, 2003, ‘Pharmaceutical Achievers: The Human Face of Pharmaceutical Research’, 1st Edition, Chemical Heritage Foundation: Philadelphia, p. 30
(6) https://www.nature.com/articles/165587a0