At first, I wanted to learn about Albert Szent-Gyorgyi because of how much I loved this quote:
Upon hearing the remark, 'Discovery consists of seeing what no one else has seen.' Szent-Gyorgyi replied, ... "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought."
While reading about him I learned about how he discovered vitamin C ...which I will get back to in a minute. It was his work after receiving the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1937 that intrigued me.
Szent-Gyorgyi was to pioneer muscle research. I was intrigued because at the time I was familiarizing myself with this part of his work my father was having his life prolonged by a medicine designed to only work on the heart muscle. Literally, we have a drug today that is so specialized that it only affects the heart and allows it to beat when it otherwise would not on its own. Szent-Gyorgyi's work influenced upwards of three decades of research on the fundamental reaction of muscle contraction. Along the way he discovered the proteins actin and myosin.
As stated earlier, his major accomplishment was the discovery of ascorbic acid or vitamin C. Very interesting that vitamin C was only discovered in the 1930's. At the time, the germ theory of disease, developed by Pasteur was widely believed. The theory stated that bacteria were the cause of all disease. Several colleagues of Szent-Gyorgyi demonstrated that beriberi, rickets and scurvy all had dietary cause and not bacterial cause as the problem. This set the stage for Szent-Gyorgyi's "discovery".
Szent-Gyorgyi was an active anti-Nazi having been a decorated soldier in World War I. He was given sanctuary by the Swedish legation in Budapest in World War II and when the embassy was raided by the Gestapo, he escaped and remained in hiding for the duration of the war. Originally he was rescued by the Russians. After several years in Russia, where he was highly respected, he chose to move to America in 1947 where he worked for the balance of his career. He was an early researcher on cancer but his views were seen as highly unorthodox and his financial support dwindled with the following years. I wonder just how non-conventional those views are today? Stay tuned ... we'll see if we can find out.
Have a great month.
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