Tony Swain (chemist)
Tony Swain was a chemist known for his definition of a plant polyphenol with Bate-Smith, Haslam and White, which includes specific structural characteristics common to all phenolics having a tanning property. It is referred to as the White–Bate-Smith–Swain–Haslam definition.
The discovery in 1943 by Martin and Synge of paper chromatography provided for the first time the means of surveying the phenolic constituents of plants and for their separation and identification. There was an explosion of activity in this field after 1945, none more so than that of Bate-Smith and Tony Swain. He worked with Edgar C. Bate-Smith at Cambridge University.
Tony Swain was one of the first editors of Phytochemistry with Jeffrey Harborne. He started the sister journal Biochemical Systematics in 1973, renamed Biochemical Systematics and Ecology in the next year.Works
- Chemical plant taxonomy, 1963
- Plants in the Development of Modern Medicine, Harvard University Press; First U.S. Edition, 1972
- Chemistry in Evolution & Systematics: Plenary Lectures Presented at the International Symposium, Butterworths, 1973
- Secondary Compounds as Protective Agents - Annual Review of Plant Physiology, Vol. 28, pages 479-501, 1977,
- Biochemistry of Plant Phenolics, Plenum Publishing Corporation, 1979
