SAH, PETER P. T.

(Sa Bentie; courtesy name: Bide) (b. Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China, 3 February 1900; d. Davis, California, 19 September 1987), organic chemistry, physiology, pharmacology.

Sah gained international recognition for his work on the analysis and synthesis of a wide variety of organic compounds, including vitamins and medicines for leprosy and tuberculosis. During his more than forty years of research career he contributed more scientific papers than other China scientists of his day, assuring his status in the eyes of academic world. Among his nearly 200 treatises published, more than half have continued to be cited since the mid-1950s, even in the early twenty-first century. A prolific researcher, he served as mentor for students who became famous in their own right.

Family Background Sah was born into the prominent Sa family of government officials in Minhou (the present-day Fuzhou), in Fujian Province. His paternal grandfather was Sa Duowen, and his father was Sa Fusui. Peter, the eldest of four siblings, had one brother and two sisters. His brother, Adam Pen-tung Sah (Sa Bendong), was a physicist, electrical engineer, and educator. Peter and Adam both studied in the United States and both returned to China and took up posts at Tsinghua University, Peter as a professor of chemistry and Adam as a professor of physics. Adam went on to become the president of Xiamen University, chief administrative officer of Academia Sinica, and head of the academy’s Institute of Physics.

Overview of Career In his youth Sah studied in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. There he was taught the Chinese classics, including Confucian philosophy, poetry, and history. He was also a very talented tennis player. In 1920, after he graduated from Tsinghua College (Qinghua Xuetang), he was selected for study in the United States. From 1920 to 1922 he studied at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then studied chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in 1923, a master’s degree in food chemistry in 1924, and a doctorate in organic chemistry under the guidance of Richard Fischer in June 1926, following which he briefly conducted research at Yale University. In 1928 he returned to China to teach at Peking Union Medical College (1928–1929) and Tsinghua (Qinghua) University (1929–1937). On Academic leave in 1934–1935, he went to Germany for studying sterols and sex hormones in the laboratory of Adolf Windaus, and then to England where he visited Xxford and Cambridge universities. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Tsinghua University relocated in the southwest, but Sah remained in Beiping (now Beijing), teaching at Fu Jen Catholic University and the National Peking University, which was controlled by the Japanese, and for a time serving as the chair of the Chemistry Department at the latter university. (In 1947 Academia Sinica selected its first members, but Sah and another famous chemist were disqualified from the selection process because they performed some university administrative duties under the Japanese occupation.)

In 1946, after the Japanese surrender, the educational ministry of the Chinese government declared that those who had assumed duties at institutions controlled by Japanese during the war would not be in the employ of national institutions for two years. In this situation, Sah and his family emigrated to the United States, where he first worked for the pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company and later served as a visiting lecturer and research associate in the School of Medicine of the University of California at San Francisco. There, he helped Hamilton H. Anderson to reorganize the university’s Department of Pharmacology. Sah then conducted research at the medical schools of both Yale University and Halle University in Germany. In 1953 he was appointed a professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of California at Davis. He retired as Professor Emeritus of Physiological Sciences there in 1967. Sah continued his research after his retirement; he had a home research laboratory for cancer studies, which principally used tropical fish. His wife was Ethel Tsi Hua Hsia Sah (Xia Zhihua), from Jiangzhen County in Sichuan Province, whom he married in 1932. She died in the United States in 1997. They had four sons and two daughters.

Early Research in China During his long scientific career of more than forty years, Sah published around 200 papers. His research interests during his academic years in China (1928–1946) were extremely broad, but his primary contributions were in the analysis and synthesis of organic compounds. His work on various types of esters and on reagents for identifying organic compounds proved important in the field of organic chemistry, and his research data have been frequently cited by scientists in Europe and North America. Between 1932 and 1940 Sah and his assistants and students determined the composition of a series of organic compounds and measured their melting points. Soon after these data were published, chemists in the United States and Europe took notice: Ralph L. Shriner and Reynold C. Fuson, in The Systematic Identification of Organic Compounds: A Laboratory Manual (1935, 1940, 1948), the most popular U.S. textbook for organic chemical analysis, cited Sah’s data numerous times, far more than those of any other chemist. Ernest H. Huntress and Samuel P. Mulliken also extensively cited Sah’s work in Identification of Pure Organic Compounds (1941). And in the second edition of F. Wild’s Characterisation of Organic Compounds (1960), Sah is the most cited author.

Research on Vitamins Sah also did research on pharmaceuticals, hormones, and the composition of vitamins. He did exploratory work on the artificial synthesis of steroid hormones (though the steroid compounds that he manufactured were not biologically active). He proposed the hypothesis that l-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) has the same origin in plants as the sugars to which it is structurally related, and on the basis of this hypothesis he suggested a number of methods for synthesizing l-ascorbic acid in the laboratory, using as the starting materials compounds easily produced in the laboratory in large quantities. He used naphthalene and products readily available in China to synthesize vitamin K (a blood coagulant) and estrone (a female hormone with many pharmacological uses). In addition, Sah also studied nutritional chemistry, biological chemistry, and fermentation chemistry. At Yale University he measured the vitamin content of Chinese lychees, and after returning to China he determined the vitamin content of fruits and vegetables in the Beiping market, measured the vitamin C intake in the diet of Beiping residents, and performed detailed analyses of the nutrients in citrus fruits (such as vitamins A, B, and C, essential oils, sugars, and organic acids).

Syntheses of Medicinals Late in his career Sah became famous for synthesizing medicines for treating tuberculosis and leprosy. Much of his work in these fields was done during his fifteen years at the University of California at Davis. For example, Sah discovered D-glucuronolactone isonicotinyl hydrazone (INHG), which became one of the leading drugs used (under various trade names) to treat human tuberculosis in France, Germany, England, and Japan. Through his research, Sah found that INHG was more active than streptomycin and less toxic than isoniazid and that INHG successfully treated resistant strains of mycobacterium tuberculosis, H376HV, whereas several other drugs did not. He also made a significant contribution to the treatment of human leprosy and animal paratuberculosis when he synthesized a vitamin C derivative of bis-(4-aminophenyl)-sulfone. This drug became an effective alternative in treating infectious organisms that developed resistance to other drugs.

Sah also developed alternatives to drugs used in agriculture and in medicine. His tetrahalogenated quinones, which include Isochloranil and Isobromanil, proved to be twenty times more effective than the compounds in use for treating fungal infection in plants, and was active against athlete’s foot and ringworm as well. In addition, he found that psoriasis could be treated by a 0.5 percent Isochloranil or Isobromanil ointment, instead of the 10 percent chloranil ointment that physicians in the southern United States were using. While at the University of California at Davis and the University of San Francisco, Sah synthesized other drugs that are effective against tuberculosis, leprosy, experimental leukemia, malaria, rheumatoid arthritis in children, and carcinoma in mice.

Role in the Scientific Community Sah devoted himself to his scientific research even in times of war and, by his wide range of research interests and prodigious number of high-quality papers, he became one of the most productive Chinese chemists of the twentieth century. For example, from 1939 to 1941, during the Sino-Japanese War, he published roughly eighteen papers in Recueil des travaux chimique des Pays-Bas, three papers in Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, and one paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Of the thirteen papers published in volume 13 (1946) of the Journal of the Chinese Chemical Society (also titled Zhongguo huaxuehui huizhi), eight were written by Sah, and of the fifteen papers appearing in volume 14 (1946–1947), two-thirds were contributions by Sah.

Moreover, by international chemistry standards, his research was at the forefront of the time. Even after fifty years—in some cases seventy years—researchers still cited many of his nearly 200 papers. Among his cited papers, the earliest concerns the condensation of ortho esters, excerpted from his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin and published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, volume 53 (1931), a paper that was still cited seventy years after publication. Another early paper, also widely cited, is one on a method for synthesizing the compound 2-methyl-1,4-naphtho-hydroquinone and its derivatives, published in Recueil des travaux chimique des Pays-Bas 59 (1940), a paper still cited some sixty years after publication. One paper, on how to prepare thiosemicarbazone, written with T. C. Daniels and published in Recueil des travaux chimique des Pays-Bas 69 (1950) after Sah emigrated to the United States, has been cited 108 times from the inception of the Science Citation Index to 2004, with the latest citation in 2003. The reason for the frequent citations of this paper is that thiosemicarbazone can be used to produce sulfur- and nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds—an important result in chemical and pharmacological research.

In his research, Sah maintained good working relationships with other scientists. For example, with Hsichün Chang (Zhang Xijun, 1899–1988), professor at Peking Union Medical College, he carried out research on the vitamin C content of various vegetables on the Peiping market. With Hamilton A. Anderson, also professor of Peking Union Medical College, he studied the preparation and properties of three isomeric n-hexyl cresols and their chlorinated derivatives. With Tzu-ching Huang (Huang Ziqing, 1900–1982), professor of chemistry at Tsinghua University, he published research on the parachor of hexamethylenetetramine. With Chung-hsi Kao (Gao Chongxi, 1901–1952), professor of chemistry at Tsinghua University, he carried out research on azides. In this way he not only broadened his individual research horizons but also served as a model for his students.

Among the papers published by Sah are a number that list his students as the primary authors. Many of his students in the 1930s in the Chemistry Department of Tsinghua University later went on to achieve notable results. On the Chinese mainland, several of his students were elected as members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, including Chen-heng Kao (Gao Zhenheng, class of 1934, former head of the Chemistry Department of Nankai University), Jun Shi (Shi Jun, class of 1934, former head of the Department of Chemical Engineering of Nanjing University), Hsin-min Chen (Chen Xinmin, class of 1935, the first president of Central South College of Mining and Metallurgy), Teh-si Wang (Wang Dexi, class of 1935, former vice director of the China Institute of Atomic Energy), Chi Wu (Wu Chi, class of 1936, former vice director of the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing and chief engineer), and Sing-tuh Voong (Feng Xinde, class of 1937, professor of polymer chemistry of Peking University).

In Taiwan, many prominent scholars and statesmen were once Sah’s students, including Ssu-liang Ch’ien (Qian Siliang, class of 1931, former president of Academia Sinica and former president of National Taiwan University), Ming-cheh Chang (Zhang Mingzhe, class of 1935, former president of Tsinghua University and minister of the National Science Council), Kwang-shih Chang (Zhang Guangshi, class of 1935, former minister of economic affairs), and Zhu Shugong (class of 1936, former dean of academic affairs of Tsinghua University). One of the first two students to receive graduate degrees from Tsinghua University in 1934 was Sah’s advisee, Tsu Sheng Ma (Ma Zusheng). In 1931 Tsu Sheng Ma finished his bachelor’s dissertation and published it in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He then accepted Sah’s suggestion to continue his studies at Tsinghua University as a graduate student studying organic chemical analysis. Later he was selected for further study in the United States. At Sah’s recommendation he entered the University of Chicago, where he studied the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and began his study of organic microanalysis. He later achieved much renown in the fields of microchemical technology and applied chemistry, becoming a professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and a famous overseas Chinese chemist.

Sah was the recipient of many academic honors and awards. At the launch of the Journal of the Chinese Chemical Society (Zhongguo huaxuehui huizhi) in 1933, Sah served on its editorial board. In 1937 he was elected to the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (German Academy of Natural Scientists). In the United States he was feted with many honors. In 1951, for example, he was invited to present his work at the Twelfth International Congress of Pure Chemistry, at which he presented eight papers in the division of Medicinal Chemistry. Sah was awarded the American Pharmaceutical Association’s Ebert Prize for his work with fungi, yeast, and vitamin K-5.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY SAH

Qinghua Daxue xiao shi bianxie xiaozu, ed. Qinghua Daxue xiao shi gao (A Sketch of the History of Tsinghua University). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1981. Lists representative works of Sah in the fields of organic chemistry and biochemistry.

Zheng Ji, ed. Zhongguo zaoqi shengwuhuaxue fazhan shi (A History of the Early Development of Biochemistry in China). Nanjing: Nanjing Daxue Chubanshe, 1989. Lists representative works of Sah in biochemistry.

Zhongguo Huaxue Hui, ed. Journal of the Chinese Chemical Society; Acta Chimica Sinica: Collective Author and Classified Subject Indices to Vol. 1–20, 1933–1954. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 1958. Lists all of Sah’s papers published in the Journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.

OTHER SOURCES

Liu Guangding. “Jian gu yi jin: Cong Sa Bentie xiansheng de xueshu chengjiu tan kexue fazhan” (Viewing the Present through the Lens of the Past: A Discussion of the Development of Science Based on Mr. Sah’s Academic Achievements). Paper presented at a symposium on Tsinghua University and the history of Chinese science and technology, April 2004. Available from http://rwxy.tsinghua.edu.cn/xisuo/kjs/thykj.htm. Using citations from the Science Citation Index, the author compiled statistics on the frequency of citations of Sah’s published papers. He also summarizes Sah’s academic career.

Reardon-Anderson, James. The Study of Change: Chemistry in China, 1840–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. A brief summary of Sah’s life and academic research.

University of California. “In Memoriam: Peter Sah.” Available from http://content.cdlib.org.

Zhang Li. “Peter P. T. Sah and the Synthesis of Vitamin C in Europe and China.” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine. 20 (2003): 92–98. The author focuses on Sah’s hypothesis of the origin of vitamin C and on its synthesis.

———. “Sa Ben Tie De Qian Ban Sheng, 1912–1946” [Peter

Pan Tieh Sah’s early career in China: 1912–1946]. The Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology 27, no.4 (2006): 287–1304. This article, compiled from the archives, periodicals of the 1920–1940s, Sah’s published papers, and correspondence between the author and Sah’s nephews, draws a closer picture of his studies, research, and teachings in different periods before 1946 and academic achievements after emigrating to the Unite States. It attempts to proceed from societal, personal, and family information to look into decisions that Dr. Sah made during those few critical moments in his life as an initial step; and to construe the mixed feelings that Sah had gone through in his character and religious beliefs.

Li Zhang