Vitamin C Szent-Györgyi was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine, and Haworth shared that year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1957, J.J. Burns showed that some mammals are susceptible to scurvy as their liver does not produce the enzyme -gulonolactone oxidase, the last of the chain of four enzymes that synthesize vitamin C. American biochemist Irwin Stone was the first to exploit vitamin C for its food preservative properties. He later developed the theory that humans possess a mutated form of the -gulonolactone oxidase coding gene. In 2008, researchers at the University of Montpellier discovered that in humans and other primates
Scurvy boiling pans, then a common practice in the Navy. In contact with air the copper formed compounds that prevented the absorption of vitamins by the intestines. The first major long distance expedition that experienced virtually no scurvy was that of the Spanish naval officer Alessandro Malaspina, 1789–1794. Malaspina's medical officer, Pedro González, was convinced that fresh oranges and lemons were essential for preventing scurvy. Only one outbreak occurred, during a 56-day trip across the open sea. Five sailors came down with symptoms, one seriously. After three days at Guam all five were healthy again. Spain's large empire and many ports