Ccxlvi. Vitamin C and the Suprarenal Cortex. I. Antiscorbutic Activity of Ox Suprarenal. by Leslie Julius Harris and Surendra Nath Ray

THE chemical study of vitamin C has been notably advanced by the discovery that hexuronic acid possesses antiscorbutic properties. It will be recalled that when he first isolated hexuronic acid, Szent-Gydrgyi [1928] concluded that it was identical with the reducing substance which is found in active vitamin C concentrates. However, observations by Zilva seemed to show that the reducing substance in question bore no relationship to vitamin C, and hence the matter was dropped for some years. In the meantime a series of detailed investigations by Tillmans and his collaborators [1930; 1932] led to the conclusion that antiscorbutic activity went strictly parallel with reducing capacity and it was argued that the reducing substance was "the carrier of vitamin C activity." Recently the whole question has been re-opened by Svirbely and Szent-Gy6rgyi [1932, 1, 2], who reported that a specimen of hexuronic acid (derived from ox suprarenals) in doses of 1 mg. per day would protect guinea-pigs from scurvy over a 90-day test period. Independently King and Waugh [1932; see also Waugh and King, 1932] have found that a crystalline preparation of vitamin C which they isolated from orange juice possesses the chemical and physical properties of hexuronic acid. The conclusion which Szent-Gy6rgyi draws from his test that "vitamin C is a single substance identical with hexuronic acid" is disputed by Zilva [1932, 1], although he admits [1932, 2] that specimens of hexuronic acid may contain some vitamin C. Zilva [1932, 3] opposes also the conclusions of Tillmans. In a previous communication from this laboratory [Harris, Mills and Innes, 1932] confirmation was obtained, by means of striking curative tests and also by the microscopic tooth-structure method, of the conclusion which Svirbely and Szent-Gy6rgyi had reached from a preventive test, that hexuronic acid possesses antiscorbutic potency; and its degree of activity was also determined quantitatively. The question was discussed whether the antiscorbutic action of hexuronic acid was an inherent property of the pure substance itself