SOME ASPECTS OF 

 VITAMIN RESEARCH 



KARL FOLKERS, director of organic and biochemical research, 



MERCK & CO., inc.; AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY AWARD IN PURE 

 chemistry; CORECIPIENT of the mead JOHNSON AWARD 



So little is known about the chemistry oj vitamins — not 

 a single one has been isolated with absolute certainty — 

 that I have hesitated to include this subject among the 

 applications of organic chemistry. The very extensive 

 contemporary literature on vitamins which takes up 

 much space in journals devoted to biochemistry^ contains 

 few chemical facts, and very few that are thoroughly well 

 established. 



T\ 



^HIS statement was made in 1928 at Cornell University by 

 George Barger (1) during his lectures on some applications 

 of organic chemistry to biology and medicine. These lectures were 

 concerned with hormones, vitamins, chemical constitution and physio- 

 logical action, chemotherapy, and blue adsorption compounds of 

 iodine. The number of well-established chemical facts on the chemis- 

 try of the vitamins developed so enormously during 1928 to 1945 

 that an entire university course could justifiably be devoted now to the 

 organic chemical aspects of the vitamins. The companion develop- 

 ments on the biochemistry of the vitamins and on the application of 

 the vitamins in clinical medicine might also require a course each for 

 adequate presentation to students. The industrial production of 

 vitamins on a ton basis, a subject recently reviewed by Major (30), 

 is no less amazing in the rapidity and magnitude of the develop- 

 ment. 



Today there are so many excellent books and review articles 

 on the chemistry of the vitamins available, that no effort will be made 

 in the following sections to cover any topic completely. Instead, a 



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