Notes

[transcription]

# Only nature has had more experience with citric acid than Pfizer

Making the complex look simple is an art. Here, you see the art of a mater engraver who has worked for months with the purest crystal.

His efforts delight the eye. Yet his subject, the orange and the stages in its growth, is greater than he. Oranges are one of nature’s own masterpieces, evolved over countless eons. They create and protect, in lovely and fragrant form, that complex compound called Citric Acid. 

Exactly how nature produces Citric Acid was long a mystery; the chemistry was too subtle, too sophisticated. But Pfizer was determined to solve that mystery, and set out to find ways to produce bountiful new supplies of Citric Acid through the natural process of fermentation chemistry. 

It took us almost a generation of work, but it was done and done well. Today, Pfizer produces more Citric Acid than anyone in the world. Far more. And we have been working on Citric Acid longer than anyone else. With the sole exception of our teacher, Mother Nature herself. Pfizer commissioned this exquisite crystal piece in appreciation of the models she gave us. 

Pfizer Chemical Division 

[alt text]

An art piece that looks like a bubble container encasing oranges and flowers. It is captioned “‘Les Etapes de l’Orange’ by Lobmeyr of Vienna“.

[additional notes]

The main point of this advertisement is the reliability and longevity of Pfizer’s production of citric acid. The tone used in the ad is more poetic than others I’ve seen from 1983. The artful tone combined with the art piece about the Stages of the Orange also serve to highlight Pfizer’s sophistication and superiority to other citric acid manufacturers. 

(Serena Goeriz)