alt text:
half of a shrimp in the top left.
transcription:
Vitamin A in a shrimp’s eye
We used to make vitamin A out of fish liver oils. Europe still gets much of its vitamin A from Antarctic whales with the help of radar, explosive harpoons, and highly efficient factory ships.
But, modern as it is, that is still the hard way.
In 1948 we brought out the first man-made vitamin A available in America in commercial quantities. It started something. The whole American industry turned to synthetic vitamin A.
Yet, our scientists keep eyeing those whales. For the whale – and other creatures of the sea – still harbors secrets about vitamin A we’d like to know more about.
We are interested, for example, in the fact that the whales feed interminably on shrimp. Running it back a step, we find that shrimp manufacture vitamin A in their eyes, and in great quantity - as much as 12,000 International Units of vitamin A per gram, dry weight, for large specimens of Meganyctiphanes norvegica.
Running it back still another step, the potency of vitamin A oil in these deep sea crustaceans measures two or three times higher chemically than it does biologically. The answer to such an anomaly might some day help all of us obtain better, more versatile synthetics.
So we keep inquiring about it – even though we’ve left the shrimp and the whale far behind as economical producers of vitamin A.
Vitamin A is a fast-breaking subject. If you use it in your product, it’s nice to be able to feel that you won’t be caught in the backwash of developments. You enjoy that feeling by keeping in touch with the makers of Myvax Vitamin A and Myvapack Vitamin A – both immediately available from stock so that you can keep your vitamin A inventory at any level you like. Distillation Products Industries, Rochester 3, N.Y. (Division of Eastman Kodak Company).
additional notes:
Seems to be appealing to companies or consumers who would buy their product in bulk rather than for individual wholesalers. (Chiara Benedetti)
