 Polish Born Biochemist Casimir Funk Introduces The Name Vitamin As the nation witnessed one of the worst maritime disasters in history, the sinking of the Titanic, a biochemist named Casimir Funk was advancing the age of modern nutrition. It was Funk who came up with the term “vitamin,” a word he chose based on his research into how vitamins work to keep the body healthy. Earlier research had shown that small amounts of some organic compounds were needed for normal metabolism and growth, and disease states could result when they were deficient in the diet. At the turn of the 20th century, Dutch bacteriologist Christiaan Eikjman discovered that a disease in chickens fed polished rice could be cured by adding the rice hulls to their diet. Studying prisoners on the island of Java, Eikjman concluded that rice hulls would cure the disorder. In the early 1900’s, Sir Frederick Hopkins performed his own nutrition research. The British researcher fed mice a diet that was considered at the time to contain all the necessary elements to live: carbohydrates, proteins, fats and mineral salts. He found that the mice stopped growing unless their diet was supplemented with milk. Hopkins concluded that the milk contained small amounts of what he called “additional food factors.” Funk, working as a chemist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris continued the work of Eikjman and Hopkins on these additional food factors. It was already known that scurvy was caused by a deficiency that could be prevented by eating fresh citrus fruit, while beriberi resulted from a deficiency in thiamin (vitamin B1). In 1911, Funk demonstrated that a disease of pigeons similar to beriberi in humans could be cured by feeding the birds shavings from polished rice. He also found that the element that cured the disease was an amine, an organic compound derived from ammonia. The following year, Funk suggested vitamin deficiencies that caused beriberi, rickets and scurvy were diseases could be prevented with “vital amines,” or “vitamines.” He published his research under the title “The Vitamines.” Funk’s term later proved to be misleading. Subsequent research showed that not all “additional food factors” are amines, and the term was shortened to “vitamins.” Once the benefits of vitamins for deficiency states became known, nutritional supplements, which mistakenly gained the reputation of being able to cure diseases. Vitamin makers exploited the myth, that vitamin supplements could cure other diseases, provide energy and generally improve well being. Hungry consumers began gobbling up vitamins. However, vitamins A and D can actually poison the body when too much is ingested. | 
