Hexuronic (Ascorbic) Acid as the Antiscorbutic Factor, and its Chemical Determination

Abstract

THE conclusion having been reached that vitamin C is identical with hexuronic acid, it becomes of obvious importance in the first place to see how this can be reconciled with Zilva's contention¹ that there is a lack of parallelism between antiscorbutic activity and reducing capacity—one of the most characteristic properties of hexuronic acid. Fig. 1 summarises all the data given by Zilva, mean values for antiscorbutic potencies being plotted at each level of reducing capacity. Bearing in mind the unavoidable variation in biological response between individual experimental animals, it becomes evident that Zilva's data, once they are analysed in this way, appear in fact to afford good evidence of a close quantitative relation between reducing capacity and antiscorbutic activity in lemon juice fractions, and therefore are not at variance with the hypothesis that hexuronic acid and vitamin C are identical.