Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1978. július-december (32. évfolyam, 27-50. szám)
1978-10-05 / 38. szám
Thursday, Oct. 5. 1978 — AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO 9 THE STORY OF MY LIFE /cont. from page 7./ I fill my head with crazy theories and then do simple experiments suggested b} them,” says Dr. Szent-Gyórgyi. He took Ph.D. by isolating what he called ignosco, meaning “I don’t know.” It was ascorbic acid. My story has a certain irony; in my search for life I pulled the living systems to pieces, but on my way life ran out between my fingers and I landed with molecules and electrons which have no life at all. Now, in my old age, I try to put together again what I so carefully dismembered. This far my life was dominated by what I inherited from my mother. All my life I had enormous fun with my work, but the peace of my scientific career was greatly disturbed by what I inherited on my father’s side, which was to follow what one thought to be right. Times and history were so troubled that by sticking quietly to the middle of the road, I found the wind blowing now from this, then from the other side. “ SAW NO MERIT IN DYING” front. Here I stayed a short time only, because in the hospital to which the laboratory belonged, a doctor from Vienna made dangerous experiments on Italian prisoners, saying that they were “only” prisoners. A feeling of human brothedhood began to develop in me and I was so much outraged that I reported this to the army. However, the doctor had two stars more than I and so I had to be punished. For punishment I was transferred into the swamps of northern Italy where life expectancy was very short, owing to the raging tropical malaria. Fortunately, a few weeks later, Germany and Austria collapsed and I could go home. • /To be continued/ Hungarians everywhere and all mankind celebrated last month the 85th birthday of Prof. Albert Szentgyorgyi, discoverer of Vitamin C. NOBELIST ’S SEARCH FOR THE NATURE OF LIFE Dr. Szent-Gydrgyi sought to find the source of energy in life, believing that determined the nature of life. He began by studying oxidation, the basic energy creating process, in plants. His attention was drawn to the brown spots which appear on many plants when they are bruised; bananas show such spots readily. He found this brown color was caused by the oxidation of a phenolic substance by an enzyme. Because only half of all plants show such brown coloration, he turned to plants which do not: lemons, oranges, cabbages. These plants, he found, contain a substance which prevents the formation of colored material through the oxidation of aromatics. He isolated this substance, which he first called ‘hexuronic acid’, but which turned out to be vitamin C or ascorbic acid. That limes would prevent scurvy in British seamen had been known since 1747, but Dr. Szent-Györgyi’s discovery revealed the active biochemical agent in the limes and other fruits and vegetables. This ultimately made it cheaply available. Blunt and outspoken, adventurous and unpretentious, Szeot-Gyb’rgyi is an unorthodox thinker whether it be vitamins or enzymes, muscle contraction or other biochemical systems. His work has had profound effects on our concepts of physiology. He remains even now an informal and friendly man, as charming as he is exciting. Szent-Györgyi’s lifelong differences with the establishment, political as well as medical, continue even today. The very unorthodoxy which made possible his great discoveries apparently frightens official government .bodies which control most basic research funds. Having had his research grant applications denied again and again, Szent-Györgyi refuses to stop research, to have his activities frustrated or to retire. With typical unorthodoxy, he has sought and obtained funds privately and from public solicitations, and só, even as some members of the scientific community are “disturbed” and others say “it isn’t done”, the scientist who has confounded Hitler, among others, continues, as he once put it, “to fill my head with crazy theories and then do simple experiments, suggested by them, keeping my eyes open for the unexpected.” Who knows what discovery the next “unexpected” finding will bring us? 1 was born and brought up in a feudalistic world. It was deeply ingrained in us that dying for the king is the greatest honor. I was in the third year of my medical studies, and was completing my compulsory military service, when World War I broke out, in which I wasted five years of my life. In the third year of the war I could clearly see that we had lost and our lives were being sacrificed senselessly by a few war criminals in high position. 1 became deeply disgusted with military life and saw no merit in dying. I thought I could serve my country better alive \t the same time I was overcome by a burning desire to return to science. So one day, in the Russian front in Poland, I took my gun and shot through the bone of my left underarm. This was very difficult to do, not because I would have been hanged on the spot if discovered, but because this was contrary to what was ingrained in me. After healing of my wound I received my medical degree and went back to the army where I was placed in a bacteriological laboratory on the Italian GET ACQUAINTED With the people of Kodály, Bartók, Liszt and Professor Szentgyorgyi! LEARN ALL ABOUT Yhe fascinating land of the Magyars, their great contributions to the common treasure of mankind in all fields of art, science and literature. 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