More than two million sailors may have perished from scurvy over the centuries
“Vasco da Gama began his expedition to India in 1497 and when his ships arrived on southeast coast of Africa, most of the crew were afflicted with scurvy…
vitamins
How the visual function of Vitamin A was discovered
The discovery of vitamin A’s visual function presents a good example in the history of science of the step-wise nature of discovery, according to George Wolf.
How About a Vitamin D-Enriched Beer?
In 1936, capitalizing on the demand for vitamin-fortified foods, the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, introduced a vitamin D-fortified canned beer. Evidently it wasn’t popular, since Schlitz discontinued the product about two years later. See the Wisconsin Historical Society’s article Schlitz ‘Sunshine Vitamin D Beer Can’
Linus Pauling: I owe my work on vitamin C to Victor Herbert
“I perhaps owe something in a sense to Victor Herbert,” Linus Pauling disclosed in an interview a few years before his death. “I probably never would have written the several books that I’ve written about nutrition and health and disease if it had not been for Victor Herbert.” Victor Herbert was a hematologist and a …
Linus Pauling: I owe my work on vitamin C to Victor Herbert Read More »
Two most prominent U.S. nutritionists in 1917 accept importance of vitamins
“…the importance of the vitamine hypothesis has been forced upon us…”
George Minot describes discovery of diet cure for pernicious anemia
“The idea that something in food might be of advantage to patients with pernicious anemia was in my mind in 1912, when I was a house officer at the Massachusetts General Hospital…”
Lydia Roberts writes draft of first RDAs overnight in 1941
“There was great uncertainty at that time regarding the adequacy of our food supply as consumed by either the civilian population or the rapidly growing military forces. Accordingly, there was intense pressure on the Board to act quickly and reliably…
Casimir Funk sums up scientific evidence for “vitamines” in 1912
Deficiency diseases “were considered for years either as intoxications by food or as infectious diseases, and twenty years of experimental work were necessary to show that diseases occur which are caused by a deficiency of some essential substances in the food. Although this view is not yet generally accepted, there is now sufficient evidence to convince …
Casimir Funk sums up scientific evidence for “vitamines” in 1912 Read More »
Vitamin D “Not as Toxic as Was Once Thought”
Michael F. Holick: “…the concept that vitamin D is one of the most toxic fat-soluble vitamins has been instilled in the psyche of health regulators and the medical community…The evidence is clear that vitamin D toxicity is one of the rarest medical conditions…”
Victor Herbert induces a folate deficiency in himself
By following a special diet almost completely lacking in the B vitamin folate, Victor Herbert (1927-2002) demonstrated during a 5-month study in 1961-1962 that a deficiency of this B vitamin leads to a particular kind of anemia called megaloblastic anemia.
Henrik Dam (1895-1976)
Henrik Dam (1895-1976) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1943, along with Henry Doisy, for discovering vitamin K and elucidating its role in blood coagulation. At the time, Dam, a Danish biochemist, was staying in the United States, which he had been visiting when Nazi Germany invaded his country. During the late …
Vitamin A toxicity from Polar Bear Liver
“It has long been known among Eskimos and arctic travelers that the ingestion of polar-bear liver by men and dogs causes severe illness. It has also been reported that the liver of a certain seal (Phoca barbata) is poisonous, although opinion on this point, is less unanimous…
How vitamin E was named tocopherol
Herbert McLean Evans, who discovered vitamin E in 1922, invited a faculty colleague to lunch to help him name this alcohol that was necessary for laboratory animals to bring their offspring to birth.
Herbert McLean Evans discovers vitamin E
Here is Herbert McLean Evans’ account of his discovery of vitamin E when he was professor of anatomy at the University of California at Berkeley in 1922.
Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994)
Dorothy Hodgkin was a British biochemist whose mastery of X-ray crystallography helped her elucidate the three-dimensional structures of complex organic molecules, such as cholesterol, penicillin, and insulin. Her work on the structure of vitamin B-12 earned her the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
History of the Discovery of Vitamin D by Anthony Norman
It is largely through historical accident in the interval of 1920-1940 that vitamin D became classified as a vitamin rather than as a steroid hormone. The formal definition of a vitamin is that it is a trace dietary constituent required to produce the normal function of a physiological process or processes.
Joseph Goldberger (1874 – 1929)
Joseph Goldberger was an outstanding investigator of infectious disease outbreaks for the U.S. Public Health Service, studying the causes of yellow fever, typhoid fever, denge fever, diphtheria, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and measles.
How Vitamin D and the Sun Came to Be Linked by R.W. Chesney
The seminal discovery that sunlight was important in the prevention of nutritional rickets was made in 1890 by Theobald A. Palm, a medical missionary who contrasted the prevalence of rickets in northern European urban areas with similar areas in Japan and other tropical countries.