The Story behind Time-Release Vitamin C. We launched our time-release formula in 2003. But the vitamin C story goes back many decades earlier. In the 1930s, Hungarian chemist Albert Szent-Györgyi discovered and named ascorbic acid, which literally means “anti-scurvy.” Many sailors had suffered from scurvy on or after long sea voyages without access to fresh produce. Later Szent-Györgyi discovered rutin, a bioflavonoid nutrient that supports vitamin C’s activity. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1937 for his discovery and his description of oxidation. American biochemist and two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling studied scientific literature on vitamin C and became a true advocate for this nutrient, penning Vitamin C and the Common Cold in 1970. Rose plants grow all over the world in the northern hemisphere. Native North Americans ate rose hips in the wild as a dietary staple. During World War II, when citrus fruit was scarce, Britons gathered rose hips and made them into syrup to nourish children.