Today in Technology History
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March 19
Our subject today is an English scientist who won a Nobel Prize for being the first to synthetically produce a vitamin. He was born exactly 120 years ago, and he died exactly 53 years ago.
Walter Norman Haworth was born in Chorley, Lancashire, England on March 19, 1883. After he finished school at the age of fourteen, he took a job at the linoleum factory his father ran. Unhappy with such work, Haworth decided to attend university to study chemistry -- despite the extreme disapproval of his parents. He entered college in 1903 and by 1910 had the first of his two doctorates.
With the exception of some chemical production he did for the military during the First World War, Haworth spent the bulk of his early career researching carbohydrates. His work made it possible to figure out the structure of carbohydrate molecules, and he found the structures of such important carbohydrates as glucose, lactose and sucrose. His techniques are still commonly used today.
Haworth's methods allowed him to figure out the molecular structure of hexuronic acid -- better known as vitamin C, the substance needed to stave off scurvy. Once Haworth knew the structure of vitamin C, he was able to synthesize it in his laboratory. This was the first time anyone had artificially made a vitamin, and the discovery helped reduce the price of the important substance.
Incidentally, Haworth got to give vitamin C a new name, the name it still bears today: ascorbic (meaning anti-scurvy) acid.
For his work with vitamin C, Haworth was awarded a share of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. During the Second World War, he had a minor involvement in British atomic research, and he was knighted in 1948. Sir Walter died on his 67th birthday, on March 19, 1950.
Related links:
One of Haworth's teachers was William Henry Perkin, Jr., the son of the man who made the first artificial dye.
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