Vitamin C
Cecilia Winfrey







1785 when “chemical revolution” was in France.
o Actual knowledge was insufficient before this
1842 George Budd (Professor of medicine at King’s College in London) gave a talk about
disorders due to lack of nourishment
1746 clinical trial for scurvy for sailors at sea. He took 12 sailors, and divided into pairs,
and gave them different treatments. Those who received oranges/lemons were almost
recovered in 6 days. Dilute vinegar or sulfuric acid had no improvement after 2 weeks.
o This showed at citrus fruit was the cure or preventative
o They tried to remove the citric acid to isolate it and prevent scurvy, this did not
work. They realized that pure citric acid was not antiscorbutic
o He believed this only happened to sailors, until there was an outbreak in British
prisons
The only difference for the prisons was the lack of potato consumption. This led to the
importance of potatoes as an antiscorbutic (1845-1848)
They saw scurvy appearing from different limitations in food consumption
o Skim milk, potatoes, lemons/oranges, green foods (albumen vegetable)
Justus Leibig (worlds leading organic chemist by 1840) made serious mistakes
o Claimed protein was only fuel for muscular contraction, and lack of protein
caused any deficiency diseases (scurvy)
Henrick Høyer (1593) German physician heard about now people in Northern Norway
used cloudberries to treat scurvy
o Reference a table that tells the vitamin C content of cloudberries vs orange juice.
 80mg/100g = cloudberries
 48mg/100mL = orange juice
Kenneth J. Carpenter; Nutritional Studies in Victorian Prisons, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume
136, Issue 1, 1 January 2006, Pages 1–8, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/136.1.1
Kenneth J. Carpenter; A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 1 (1785–1885), The Journal
of Nutrition, Volume 133, Issue 3, 1 March 2003, Pages 638–645,
https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/133.3.638
Luigi M. De Luca, Kaare R. Norum; Scurvy and Cloudberries: A Chapter in the History of
Nutritional Sciences, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 141, Issue 12, 1 December 2011, Pages
2101–2105, https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.111.145334