160 E. 38th Street,
New York, N.Y. 10016.
This tribute was given by Dr. Cott at the symposium of
the Academy of Orthomolecular Psychiatry
just after Dr. Stone’s death.
Dr. Irwin Stone, a biochemist and chemical engineer, born in 1907, was educated in the public schools of New York City, and the College of the City of New York. He considers as part of his “education” his employment from 1924-1934 at the Pease Laboratories, a then well-known biological and chemical consulting Laboratory, first as assistant bacteriologist, then as assistant to the Chief Chemist and then finishing his tenure as Chief Chemist.
In 1934 he was offered the opportunity of setting up and directing an Enzyme and Fermentation Research Laboratory for the Wallerstein Company, a large manufacturer of Industrial Enzymes. In 1934 he invented the process of utilizing the antioxidant properties of the newly discovered substance, ascorbic acid, which had been described by Albert Szent-Györgyi only two years earlier, in 1932. He employed ascorbic acid to stabilize foodstuffs against the undesirable and deteriorating effects of exposure to air and oxidation. Three patent applications were filed in 1935 and the patents were granted in 1939 and 1940. Thus, Dr. Stone obtained the first patents on an industrial application of ascorbic acid, while Albert Szent-Györgyi went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1937.
Dr. Stone’s research in ascorbic acid continued and led to his interest in the disease, scurvy. He found many flaws in the research results published by the nutritionists, who had dominated this field since 1912.
By the late 1950’s, Dr. Stone’s research on the genetics of scurvy had progressed to a point where it could be said that scurvy was not a dietary disturbance, but was a potentially fatal problem in Medical Genetics. Ascorbic acid, thus did not behave like trace vitamin C but was a stress-responsive liver metabolite produced endogenously in large daily amounts in the livers of most mammals, but not in humans.
Between 1965 and 1967 he produced four papers describing a human birth defect existing in 100% of the population due to a defective gene in the human gene pool, the potentially fatal genetic liver enzyme disease, which he named “Hypoascorbemia”, as the cause of scurvy. He had difficulty publishing his Hypoascorbemia work because the ideas were so advanced and contrary to the existing theories of the etiology of scurvy.
Publication difficulties were so great that further publication had to await his retirement from Wallerstein in December of 1971 so he could devote his full time and his meager finances to pursuing this work. From his “retirement” to the present, he has published about fifty additional medical papers and a 1972 book, The Healing Factor. In his professional career, 1924-1984, he has published over 120 scientific papers and was issued 26 U.S. patents and countless foreign patents.
Dr. Stone’s work has established the rationale for Megascorbic Prophylaxis and Megascorbic Therapy as new medical modalities in Orthomolecular Preventive Medicine and Therapy. His work explained the startlingly successful clinical results of Dr. Frederick R. Klenner who had been reporting his pioneering case histories since the polio epidemic of 1947, which was summarized in a classic 1974 paper.
It also provided the rationale for the confirmatory thousands of successfully treated serious viral disease cases managed by Dr. Robert F. Cathcart III, in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In the 1960’s when Stone’s work was brought to the attention of Nobel Laureate, Linus Pauling, he became an ardent investigator in megascorbic therapy, which he described in his books on the common cold and cancer, and led to the establishment of the Institute for Science and Medicine.
In the opinion of Drs. Stone, Klenner and Cathcart, the medical technology of the megascorbic therapy of serious viral infections has advanced to a point where any viral infection can be rapidly and effectively eliminated and we now have within our grasp the means for wiping out the threat of viral diseases. Dr. Stone believes that if the same megascorbic dosages used in viral disease treatment were applied to cancer therapy, the same successful results would be obtained, especially in the case of the rehabilitation and giving a new lease on life and health in terminal cancer. All these are achievements of Dr. Stone’s new robust human sub-species, Homo Sapiens Ascorbicus.
Dr. Stone, the research which you have done in nutrition and preventive medicine, especially regarding viral diseases, cancer, degenerative diseases and aging, is of the greatest importance.
The results of your research are contributing to the health of all of us here today and to all mankind.
The goal of your work to decrease human suffering and to increase the value of life has been achieved.
Your exciting and promising research on aging and the degenerative diseases gives the promise of two current lifetimes of experience to many aging individuals who still have the prime of life vitality. Through your work which has spanned six decades of research and led to discoveries ranging from the relative simplicity of nutrition to the complexities of molecular engineering, you have given to us and the world the gift of great improvements not only in the quantity but in the quality of our lives.
With gratitude for your pioneering work and with the deepest appreciation and admiration, we give you this award. It is my honor to present it to you — it is with grief and sadness that it is presented posthumously.
From Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1984, Volume ??, Number ?, p. 150
[Note: Due to a source reproduction error, the journal volume (it is probably Volume 13, however) and number of this article are currently unknown. - AscorbateWeb ed.]
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