Medicine: Shots for the Half-Shot

Doctors announced the arrival of vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine), a new member of the prolific B family of vitamins, back in 1934. But like anxious parents of a balky child, they scarcely knew what to do with it. They found B-6 in such various substances as rice bran, liver, yeast, egg yolks and cereals. They even learned how to manufacture it themselves. Working with lab animals, they came to suspect that it might be a control factor in such diseases as hardening of the arteries and even cancer. But nobody found much use for it...

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