Ascorbic acid facts for kids

Ascorbic acid, in crystalline form

Ascorbic acid is a sugar acid. It is white to light-yellow in colour, and comes in the form of crystals or powder. It is water-soluble. Ascorbic acid is one form of vitamin C, and was historically the first chemical compound to be synthesized, and identified, as vitamin C. The name is derived from a- (meaning "no") and scorbutus (scurvy), the disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C.

Images for kids

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  Vitamin C supplements at a drug store.

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  The Nobel prizewinner Linus Pauling advocated taking vitamin C for the common cold in a 1970 book.

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  Citrus fruits were among the first sources of vitamin C available to ships' surgeons.

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  James Lind, a British Royal Navy surgeon who, in 1747, identified that a quality in fruit prevented scurvy in one of the first recorded controlled experiments.

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  Albert Szent-Györgyi wrote that he won a Nobel Prize after he found a way to mass-produce vitamin C for research purposes when he lived in Szeged, which had become the center of the paprika (red pepper) industry.

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  Albert Szent-Györgyi, pictured here in 1948, was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid".

See also

In Spanish: Ácido ascórbico para niños