Chemotherapeutic Experiments with Natural Constituents of the Body

Abstract

BORSOOK and co-workers¹, from redox potential measurements, claimed in 1935 to have found that dehydroascorbic acid and reduced glutathione can form an intermediate compound in vitro from which ascorbic acid can be regenerated. The occurrence of this reaction in living organisms was contested by Borsin and others², who considered that the formation of ascorbic acid from dehydroascorbic acid was effected by an enzyme. Neither the supposed intermediate compound nor tho enzyme has so far been actually shown to exist.