Discovery and Determination of Ascorbic Acid

Abstract

Ascorbic acid (also named vitamin C) has important antioxidant and metabolic functions in both plants and animals, but humans, and a few other animal species, have lost the capacity to synthesize it. Plant-derived ascorbic acid is thus the major source of vitamin C in the human diet. Although the importance of ascorbic acid in human health has been realized for three centuries, the final identification of this essential nutrient molecule came at twentieth century after continuous efforts in medicine, philology and chemistry.