January 3, 1969

Dr. Victor Herbert

Department of Medicine

Mt. Sinai School of Medicine

Fifth Avenue and 100th street

New York, N. Y. 10029

Dear Dr. Herbert:

I apologize for the delay in answering your letter of 11 November.

I have been overwhelmed with work. On receipt of your letter I decided to check the many references in the literature to the ineffectiveness of ascorbic acid in treating the common cold, referred to in your letter, and also to check other references in the literature. This literature search is going on slowly. I shall write to you about the results, as soon as the work is completed.

I am fully aware of the tremendous problem of malnutrition, even in our rich country. I do not think that this means that we should ignore the question that I have been emphasizing, as to what the optimum intake of vitamins for human beings is.

Also, I do not think that the way to handle the vitamin quacks is to suppress information about the value of vitamins, or to make it harder to get vitamins, as the Food and Drug Administration is now trying to do. Instead, I think that we need more knowledge about vitamins, more publicity about the proper price to be paid for vitamins, more information generally.

I was asked by the drug manufacturers association to testify in the current FDA hearings. I do not think that I shall do so. I wish that the Government attorneys would ask me to testify.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

January 6, 1969

Dr. Bernard F. O'Hara

North Flagler Drive at 23rd

West Palm Beach, Florida 33H07

Dear Dr. O'Hara:

I am writing in answer to your letter of inquiry about the vitamin study being conducted by the Institute of Child Behavior Research.

I have carried on research on the chemical basis of mental disease for more than twelve years. It is my opinion, as expressed in ray paper Orthomolecular Psychiatry (a copy of which is enclosed), that many patients might be helped significantly by large doses of certain vitamins.

The vitamin study that has been planned by Dr. Bernard Rimland for the Institute of Child Behavior Research bears a close relationship to my ideas. I think that the study has been well planned, and that it should yield some significant information.

My associates and I have been carrying out biochemical studies on the individual variability in the utilization of vitamins by normal subjects and mental patients. The Institute for Child Behavior Research has helped us in obtaining subjects for this study.

I feel that your cooperation in the study being carried out by the Institute ' for Child Behavior Research would be a contribution to the effort to understand mental disease.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

Encl.

January 9, 1969

Dr. Peter J. Pauling

University College London

Chemistry Department Gower

St WC1 London, England

Dear Peter:

I enclose a Christmas card that got included in a batch that I was opening. It was addressed to you here.

Mama and I went to Pasadena the day before Christmas, and stayed until the day after Christmas, when we went to the ranch. Linda had a nice birthday party for mama. We have just come back from the ranch, after two weeks there, during which I worked on some revision of General Chemistry, as suggested by a reader, and on a few figures that I am just getting in, together with the appendices.

I would be grateful to you for the electron micrograph showing molecules arranged in a crystalline array, to replace the old one.

I have changed the discussion of viruses in Chapter 2, by calling them virus particles, rather than virus molecules.

Have you arranged with your book dealer to send the Penguins to the ranch— Salmon Creek, Big Sur, California 93920? Two more packages have come, addressed to Santa Barbara.

Both mama and I have suffered from colds during the last few weeks, never very bad but dragging on. I don't think that we had the flu, because at no time did we have a fever. I judge that many people have been pretty sick with the flu, not only in California but all over the United States.

Much love from,

Daddy

LP:jj

January 16, 1969

Dr. Otto L. Gericke

Superintendent and Medical Director

Patton State Hospital

Patton, California

Dear Dr. Gericke:

I have been interested in the molecular basis of mental disease for twelve years. From about 1955 to 1964 I was a consultant to Pacific State Hospital, and my coworkers and I carried out some investigations in collaboration with Pacific State Hospital, through the courtesy of Dr. George Tarjan.

During the last year Professor Arthur B, Robinson, of the University of California, San Diego, and I have been making some studies of the metabolism of vitamins by normal subjects and acute schizophrenics. We should like to include some chronic schizophrenic patients in this study. I asked Dr. Tarjan for advice, and he recommended that we get in touch with you, in order to see whether we could make an arrangement for carrying out some tests at Patton State Hospital.

What we have in mind is to collect samples of urine from patients, before and after they have ingested some ascorbic acid and nicotinamide. We then subject these urine samples to chemical analysis. The work is being done in connection with the arguments presented in my paper Orthomolecular Psychiatry, a copy of which is enclosed.

If you feel that there is some possibility that we could carry out this work at Patton State Hospital, Professor Robinson and I would be pleased to come to Patton State Hospital at a time that is convenient to you, to discuss the details of the proposed investigation.

I may mention also that my cousin, Richard Morgan, has also recommended to us that we approach you about collaboration along these lines. He sends his best regards to you - he said that it has been several years since he has visited Patton State Hospital.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

January 20, 1969

Mrs. Lucile P. Jenkins Rt.

#2, Box 697 Estacada, Oregon

97023

Dear Lucile:

Thanks very much for the fine Christmas present. Although I have been extremely busy, checking over the manuscript of my book so that the publisher can get to work on printing it, I found that I was so interested in the book about Oregon that you sent me that I read it from cover to cover, following along every route that was described.

I don't know yet how long Ava Helen and I shall be in Oregon. I shall have to wait until about the last day to decide how much time I can take away from my work.

Everything is going along pretty well here. We suffered from colds, which, however, never got very bad. We spent Christmas Day with Linda and her family, in Pasadena; Crellin and his family also were there.

Love from,

Linus

LP:jj

January 27, 1969

Mrs. A. Elconin

4950 Coldwater Canyon

Sherman Oaks, Calif. 91403

Dear Mrs. Elconin:

I thank you for your letter.

I am interested to learn about your use of fresh broiled liver or desiccated liver tablets (with extra B12) as a means of preventing colds.

I can believe that, at least for some people, there may be substances in liver that are valuable in this way. It may be that you and other members of your family have a genetic character such that the liver is especially helpful to you, or perhaps most people would be benefitted.

I feel reasonably sure that large doses of vitamin C are valuable in controlling the common cold. It is very hard, I find, to get physicians interested in this matter. I am sure that it would be just as hard to get them interested in liver tablets for controlling and preventing colds.

It might be worth while for you to write to the director of the National Institutes of Health, describing your experience with liver, and asking whether there is the possibility that the National Institutes of Health could check up on liver tablets as a means of preventing or controlling colds. I should be interested to learn what sort of answer you get.

With best wishes, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

31st January, 1969

Professor Barclay Kamb

Geology Department

California Institute of Technology

Pasadena

Calif. U.S.A.

Dear Barclay,

It was a pleasure to see you but I am sorry I didn't get a chance to see more of you. I apologize for not writing letters, since I have been back I have written no letters at all.

I am not sure that is true. I cannot remember now whether I did it or not, but I certainly intended to write you and ask you about the amounts of gaseous and liquid nitrogen you used per day to cool a crystal on a precession camera. If I did write you would you please answer the letter, and if I did not, how much gaseous and liquid nitrogen do you use per day to cool a crystal on the precession camera? I am looking into the problem of cooling a crystal to liquid nitrogen temperature on my 4-circle diffractometer. One of my problems is that my laboratory is not on a lift and there is going to be a certain amount of trouble humping Dewars down a flight of stairs into the laboratory. I think I shall have to put in an electric hoist.

One of my colleagues, Dr. Pulak Chakravarti, the Chief Programmer on our IBM 360 computer is coming to Los Angeles for the SHARE conference beginning the 3rd March. I think it would be valuable if he were to see a little bit of the computational facilities at Cal. Tech., and would ask that if he contacts you, you could put him in touch with the appropriate people in the Computer Department. I think he is quite good as a Chief Programmer. He may ring up some time and all you have to do I think is to tell him whom to get hold of at the Computer Centre.

Things are going fairly well here. Our diffractometer was out of action for a couple of months while the laboratory was being overhauled, but the boys are now lining it up again and I think it will be going about the beginning of next week. It has taken rather a long time to overhaul the laboratory and get the instrument back into operation. I am very anxious for it to start working again.

Linus has been here for a couple of months and has been great fun, though I have not seen as much of him as I should like. He seems to be rushing around like mad and keeping pretty busy. [...]

Many thanks for your help.

Much love,

Peter Pauling