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Transcription: [00:00:14]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Our Adventures in Science guest today is Dr. Robert R. Williams; Chemist and synthesizer of vitamin B1 or thiamine. Dr. Williams, you're one of the people that have revolutionized some of our eating habits, you've put into food throughout the world and you're planning to do it still further, at least one of the very essential elements that prevent disease, that is, thiamine; one of the vitamins.

[00:00:49]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
And we want to hear about that, we want to hear what's happening. Now, thiamine is- is one of the many kinds of food factors necessary for health, what are some of the others?

[00:01:02]
{SPEAKER name="Robert R. Williams"}
Well, the total number of vitamins today recognized is about 14. In addition to these 14 vitamins, there are at least 8 amino acids, which are absolutely necessary for human nutrition, and there are something like 12 or 14 mineral elements, which are also required.

[00:01:24]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
We really need these, do we, In order to be healthy?

[00:01:25]
{SPEAKER name="Robert R. Williams"}
Yes, indeed, the problem is far, far more complex than we once supposed it, uh, when we believed that merely a supply of any kind of fat, carbohydrate and protein would do the trick! We now realize that the intricacies of the nutrition of any living thing are extremely complex and difficult.

[00:01:49]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Dr. Williams, when was it that you made this thiamine synthetically and in such a way that it can be actually manufactured?

[00:02:00]
{SPEAKER name="Robert R. Williams"}
It was produced first in milligram amounts in 1936, by 1937 it was being produced in kilo amounts, and since that time its risen to a production of about 100 tons a year! Now, this large increase in production has largely been due to the use of thiamine to restore to white bread and flour the vitamin, the thiamine, which it lost in milling.