Vitamins and Antivitamins 29 



milk, but even small quantities of whole natural milk restored the 

 rate of growth. Much eariier than this, disease in both humans and 

 animals were suspected to be due to deficiencies of diet. Beri-beri, 

 a disease of the Orient, which was prevalent in the Japanese navy 

 up to 1882, was almost eliminated by a change of diet involving a 

 reduction of the amount of rice consumed. Eijkman in 1897 found 

 that hens and pigeons fed on white polished rice developed a type of 

 paralysis, which disappeared when the rice polishings were added to 

 the diet. The inference was that the polishings contained something 

 necessary for health. Such auxiliary substances were named vitamins 

 by Funk, a scientist who tried to separate the essential factor from 

 the rice polishings. 



Following the observations of Hopkins, experiments were made to 

 try to distinguish the factor which was present in raw milk, but was 

 not present in the purified milk constituents. It was found in fact 

 that there were two factors, and the lack of either produced growth 

 disorders. The first, which was present in the fat, was called vitamin 

 A, and the second, present in the watery part of the milk, vitamin B. 

 This was the beginning of the discovery of the vitamins, and since 

 that time at least thirty such substances which are necessary, in 

 small quantities, for the growth of various animals have been 

 distinguished. 



Many of them have been isolated in the pure form and their 

 chemical structures have been determined, and in many cases this 

 has been followed by their synthesis by chemists. The first to be 

 identified and reconstructed in the laboratory was vitamin C. It had 

 been known for many years that people who lived for a considerable 

 time on a diet which contained no fresh vegetables or fruit juices 

 developed scurvy. Vitamin C was identified by Szent Gyorgyi with a 

 substance called ascorbic acid which is present in large amounts in 

 pepper, and it was then synthesized chemically by Sir Norman 

 Haworth and his co-workers. 



Another somewhat similar deficiency disease was pellagra, which 

 was common in the southern part of the United States among the 

 poorer people whose diet was mainly com meal, sugar, molasses, 

 and sometimes pork. Elvehjem discovered in 1937 that pellagra 

 could be cured in a few days by a substance called nicotinic acid or 

 niacin. 



Hopkins suggested, as long ago as 1906, that rickets was a 

 deficiency disease, and it was found that cod liver oil had an excellent 

 effect. The active substance, which was called vitamin D, has been 

 shown to consist of a group of rather similar complex molecules 

 called sterols. Sterols exist in many foods, as well as in skin, in an 



