Coventina's History Thread: Take Your Vitamins!!!

What's the deal with food packages listing all the important vitamins the food contains? Even something as sugary-good and delicious as breakfast cereal (my guilty pleasure: Froot Loops!) contains several "essential vitamins." What are those things? Let's turn the time machine back to 1911 and focus on a Polish biochemist by the name of Casimir Funk, the pioneer of vitamins.

The first part of the word vitamin comes from the Latin word for "life"; Funk knew that it would represent these life-giving, ammonia-based chemical compounds that he had discovered. These compounds can prevent diseases, help keep the body working in tip-top condition, and encourage healthy growth. Vitamins are essential for all multi celled life-forms to grow healthy and strong.

In Japan, it was discovered that a disease called beriberi, which attacks the nervous system, the heart, and the digestive system, was less likely to be contracted by those who ate lots of brown rice. No one knew why. Funk began experimenting by feeding rice to two groups of pigeons. He fed one group rice with its outer coating still on, and the other group rice with its coating removed. Funk discovered that the pigeons that ate the rice with the coating removed contracted beriberi, while the others remained healthy. After concentrating the nutrients he found in the coating of the rice, he labeled this concentration a vitamine in 1911.

Funk published a paper on his findings in 1912. His work was well received, especially by those suffering from beriberi and other diseases caused by vitamin deficiencies. He wasn't the only one to publish research on these nutrients at the time, but his was the most thorough and widely accepted.

Here's a photo of the pigeon torturer:


on edit: typo