Fysikalisk Kemiska Inst.

Universitet

Upsala, Sweden

May 2, 1948

Professor Linus Pauling

Balliol College

Oxford, England

Dear Professor Pauling,

I was pleased to learn that the British were not actually starving you. We have been very well off indeed and much healthier than in Pasadena except for bad colds at Christmas time when they didn't heat our flat. The only significant food restriction is meat which has been reduced to 50 grams a day, perhaps a vast quantity by British standards. An American friend of ours just returned from Finland where he was hungry all the time though the natives didn't seem malnourished. He said most of the people were quite openly and insultinlgly [sic] against the Russians.

I think this has been a very profitable year, particularly in broadening my viewpoint and interests. From a purely scientific point of view I could prabably [sic] have learned as much or more in America. The most interesting fact discovered so far is that the sample of serum albumin brought from Pasadena denatures from ten to thirty times as fast as the local product, depending on how the denaturation is measured. I don't know why this is so. Stig Claesson is convinced he can measure molecular weights up to 5,000 by isothermal distillations between samples in a closed and evacuated vessel in a manner similar to that used for getting activities of salt solutions. He showed me his apparatus and it looked very pretty in any event, all copper and silver.

Professor Tiselius has offered me an attractive job for the winter '49-50, possibly on the adsorption analysis of proteins and protein hydrolysates if their present experiments along these lines work out satisfactorily. Though I have tentatively accepted this offer, plans so far in the future are subject to change. I do not know, for one thing, what effect, if any, this would have on my standing at Caltech. In any event my wife will probably stay here another year with the children.

This summer we will try to see a little of some other parts of Sweden. I don't expect to see much of continental Europe but will surely visit Denmark and will try to see something of either France or England if I can get a reservation on the Cunard line. I will get back some time in September depending on which of several applications for a reservation comes through.

Sincerely yours,

[Stanley Swingle]