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Tadeusz Reichstein was born in Wloclawek (Poland) into a Polish-Jewish family. His family emigrated to Switzerland, and he was educated in the Technical University of Zurich, becoming an engineer of chemistry. Thus he started his scientific career, firstly in Zurich and later in Basel. In his very busy life, he developed a method of vitamin C synthesis enabling industrial production of this important compound. Later, Reichstein isolated and synthesized such important adrenocortical hormones as cortisone, desoxycorticosterone and aldosterone. He received several awards but the most important was a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1950). Reichstein spent the last years of his life in his own botanical garden and laboratory working on fern cytogenetics and the relations between different species of this archaic plant. Despite extraordinary and still valuable scientific achievements, he was always a very modest man with a humanistic attitude.

Classroom discussion of scientific articles can be an effective means of teaching scientific principles and methodology to both undergraduate and graduate science students. The availability of classic papers from the American Physiological Society Legacy Project has made it possible to access articles dating back to the early portions of the 20th century. In this article, we discuss a classic paper from the laboratory of Dr. James O. Davis on the regulation of aldosterone synthesis from the adrenal zona glomerulosa cell. Dr. Davis has conducted much of the seminal research investigating the renin-angiotensin system and the regulation of aldosterone release by angiotensin II. In addition to a characterization of the effects of ACTH on aldosterone regulation, this study is useful for discussing the basic principles of negative feedback pathways of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. This study also provides examples of early bioassay techniques for the detection of angiotensin II and of the importance of quantitative measurements when investigating physiological responses. Three figures and one table are reproduced from the original article along with a series of discussion questions designed to facilitate discovery learning.

The paper describes the impact of mineralocorticoid substances on water regulation from Theophrastus (IV century B.C.) to Thomas Addison (1849). It also opens to the missed discovery of aldosterone of I.A. Macchi.