Abstract
Albert (von) Szent-Györgyi started his studies on biological oxidation processes – which also resulted in the discovery of vitamin C, for which he received the Nobel Price in 1937 – in the Laboratory of Physiology of the University in Groningen in 1922–1926. These studies were later continued in Cambridge (UK) and Szeged (Hungary). When he had already received the invitation as well as the financial means to come and work in Cambridge, he still did experiments in Groningen to find out whether the adrenal extract, isolated by him and later found to be a major source of vitamin C, contained the hormone essential for the survival of cats whose adrenals were removed. He was rather upset by the negative results of this experiment, judging by the recollections of a former student of his. This history constitutes an interesting example of the difference between serendipitous discovery and planned invention.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Mr. Pek van Andel for giving me a copy of R. Zondervan’s recollections and Mr. I. Wierenga for carefully reading the manuscript and correction of the English.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Beintema, J.J. The Last Month of Szent-Györgyi in Groningen. J Hist Biol 41, 159–165 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-007-9135-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-007-9135-7