August 1, 1968

Dr. Irwin Stone

208 Winchester Avenue

Staten Island, N. Y. 10312

Dear Dr. Stone:

Thank you very much for your letter.

I shall be interested to learn how great a success Dr. Hoffer has in his use of ascorbic acid in treating schizophrenia. I know that some of his patients have shown a good response to ascorbic acid alone - he sent me a report on one of them, last year.

We find ascorbic acid in the urine of everybody that we test, but in much smaller amounts for a good number of schizophrenics than for the average of other people.

In answer to your question, I can report that both my wife and I have been less troubled by colds during the last two years, during which we have been taking 3 to 5 grams of ascorbic a day, than we had been before beginning your regimen.

I would be interested to know what your arguments are about megascorbic therapy in leukemia. I suppose that one might argue that leucocytes are known to require ascorbic acid, to be effective, and that if the concentration of ascorbic acid is too low, so that they are ineffective, the body tries to make up the deficiency by manufacturing more of the leucocytes. Perhaps you would send me a copy of your unpublished paper, to satisfy my curiosity about your arguments - that is, why should megascorbic acid therapy be recommended for leukemia, and not for other diseases.

Thanks very much for the copy of your fourth paper.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

August 5, 1968

Professor Jerry Donahue

Department of Chemistry

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pa.

Dear Jerry:

I was pleased to read your recent contribution to Field theory.

I think that there is the possibility that your paper should be submitted to Science, because so many people are interested in DNA. You should, however, include a statement as to what you think about Watson-Crick pairing. In your final section you make it clear that you do not think that the Fourier evidence provides verification of the structure. I suppose that you think that the Watson-Crick structure has a high probability of being correct. Whatever your feeling is on this point, you should, I believe, make a statement about it, in this paper.

If you do submit it to Science, you should, I think, revise it to make it somewhat more interesting to the general reader. You might, for example, include a drawing of the molecule in beta selenium, as reported by Burbank, and the molecule as we found it. Also, you could point out that the structure was reinvestigated by us because the Burbank molecule made such poor sense from the standpoint of chemical bonding. You probably could introduce some additional discussion, along these lines, for the other cases that you treat.

In many places in the manuscript I have changed the verb "was" to "is". For example, in the sentence beginning on page 2, paragraph 5, you have written "It was later discovered that the correct structure was disordered". Presumably you believe that the structure is disordered. I think that, in such a case, you should write "It was later discovered that the correct structure is dis-ordered." This error appears in two other places on the same page.

Sometimes I use an infinitive, writing, for example, "The structure was first thought to be ordered, but it was later discovered that it is disordered."

Together with one of my students, I am writing a paper now on the compressibility of selenium.

By the way, how is your book on the structure of the elements coming along? I want to get out a fourth edition of The Nature of the Chemical Bond, and I should like very much to have your book at hand while I am preparing this edition.

Cordially,

Linus Pauling

P.S. I don't think that you should try to make your book perfect. It is better to have an imper- fect book published that a perfect one in a drawer in your desk, not yet perfected.

August 8, 1968

Dr. Daniel Simon

1009 Miller Avenue

Berkeley, Cal. 94908

Dear Dr. Simon:

Your letter of 27 July has been forwarded to me.

I am pleased to hear from you again. Also, I am interested to learn about your ideas on the pathogenesis of arteriosclerosis.

I have not been involved at any time in work on arteriosclerosis, and it seems unlikely that I shall be. I have only a small amount of laboratory space available in La Jolla, and my appointment is on a year-to-year basis —I am on leave of absence from the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. My future is so uncertain that I doubt that you should consider the possibility of working with me during your year or two of basic research.

You no doubt know about Dr. A. Hoffer's work on nicotinic acid and arteriosclerosis. I have not met Dr. Hoffer, but I have been rather favorably impressed by his work, in general. Dr. Walter Alvarez has written to me about him, saying that he knows him and likes him. I don't know that you would be interested in going to Saskatoon, or whether it would be worthwhile for you.

With best regards, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

August 15, 1968

Mr. Philip Jay Hodes

144 Keer Avenue

Newark, New Jersey 07112

Dear Mr. Hodes:

I thank you very much for your letter. I think that there is a possibility that brain-damaged children can be helped by nutritional supplementation as you suggest.

Under separate cover, I am sending to you a copy of my recent paper entitled Orthomolecular Psychiatry and some other material.

I would be grateful to you if you would send to me a copy of your manuscript when it is ready.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

August 16, 1968

Dr. Ashley Montagu

321 Cherry Hill Road

Princeton, N. J. 08540

Dear Ashley:

I'm sorry that circumstances prevented me from answering your letter (and a large number of other letters, too). I have been pretty depressed by the world situation, especially by the course of events in the United States.

Sincerely,

Linus

August 19, 1968

Professor Art Campbell

Harvey Mudd College

Clairmont, California

Dear Art:

I am writing to suggest that you reconsider the matter of the designation of state of aggregation of substances.

I have suggested earlier that the state of aggregation be attached to the chemical formula by using parentheses and a suitable letter on the same line as the formula, with the letter in Roman type, rather than italics. You are using parentheses and an italicized letter, and putting the whole thing in as a subscript.

The matter of whether the letter should be in Roman type or italics is not very important. In my books in the past I have used italics, but I have decided now to use Roman, since the trend of usage seems to be in this direction.

The matter of having the parentheses as a subscript is different. Here there is no doubt about the weight of usage. I pointed out that about 95 percent of books put the parentheses on the same line. An example is Chemistry, an Experimental Science. One exception is Wall's book.

Unless there is a good argument for deviating from convention, I think that a textbook should follow the convention—the convention is used in the student's high school text and used in the standard reference books and other textbooks that he will have contact with later.

It seems to me that it is illogical to put the parenthensis as a subscript. For example, if you have the formula for molecular oxygen, 0 , with (G) as a subscript, it looks as though the parenthetical letter is intended to modify or describe the subscript to which it is attached, which is the number 2. It is, instead, intended to describe the substance itself, which is C> ; and accordingly the logical place to have it is on the same line as the formula itself, not as the subscript numeral.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

cc: Mr. Stanley Schaefer

August 20, 1968

Mr. H. Simons

10 Devonshire Rd.

New Rochelle, New York

Dear Mr. Simons:

I have received your two letters.

I do not know any way to harness the electromagnetic energy of matter, other than the ways that are being used at the present time.

You discuss some aspects of resonance, especially acoustic resonance. So far as I am aware, these phenomena are well understood, and there is no conflict with the law of conservation of energy.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

August 26, 1968

Miss Michele Hochman

12 Waddington Avenue

West Orange, N.J. 07052

Dear Miss Hochman:

Thank you for your inquiry about my paper on Orthomolecular Psychiatry.

My ideas about your paper topic are discussed in my paper.

The most active research team in New Jersey is that of Dr. Humphry Osmond, Director, New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, Box 1000, Princeton, New Jersey 08540. Dr. Osmond has been very active in the testing of niacin and ascorbic acid for therapy of schizophrenia, and I suggest that you contact him.

With best wishes to you , I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling