THE VITAMIN B COMPLEX 



is that of intestinal synthesis. When certain sulphonamides, not 

 readily absorbed from the gut, were given to experimental animals, 

 symptoms of vitamin B complex deficiency developed, and investiga- 

 tion showed that the sulphonamide had checked the growth of the 

 intestinal flora which normally synthesised certain members of the 

 vitamin B complex. Many animals are able to utilise the vitamins 

 thus formed and are therefore independent of external sources of 

 supply. The phenomenon undoubtedly occurs in man, but normally 

 only in respect of certain vitamins, and it is not known what the 

 conditions are for stimulating the growth of the appropriate organisms 

 in man and whether the vitamins so formed are invariably available 

 to the host or are only available under special circumstances. 



The names of those whose labours have contributed to the accumu- 

 lation of the vast amount of knowledge we now possess about these 

 substances, those who, so to speak, have " piled brick on brick on the 

 edifice ", is legion. In some instances, a particular individual may 

 have contributed only one little item of knowledge and then trans- 

 ferred his energies to other spheres. In other instances, the contri- 

 bution of one individual may have extended over a period of years, 

 indeed over a whole life-time. There are others again who have 

 built up large schools of vitamin research and have carried out elab- 

 orate programmes of investigation as leaders of teams of specialists. 

 There are also industrial organisations, who have used their research 

 laboratories and development departments for the improvement of 

 manufacturing processes and testing techniques, and who have often 

 made discoveries of outstanding importance. 



Of those who have thus contributed to the advance of vitamin 

 science, only a few can be referred to specifically. Mention has 

 already been made of Dr. C. Eijkman, the pioneer in the field, who 

 showed that beriberi was a deficiency disease caused by the absence 

 from the diet of the factor we now call aneurine or thiamine ; in 1930, 

 a few months before his death, Eijkman was awarded the Nobel prize 

 in recognition of his discoveries. He shared it with another pioneer of 

 vitamin science, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, one-time President of 

 the Royal Society, who showed that the growth rate of rats maintained 

 on a purified diet rapidly declined until the animals died, and that the 

 addition of milk to the diet, in amounts that supplied only negligible 

 amounts of protein and carbohydrate, checked the fall in growth and 

 enabled the animals to live and thrive. Hopkins* classical experi- 

 ments have been repeated, with appropriate modifications, by all 

 subsequent investigators who have studied growth factors for higher 

 animals. Another name closely associated with vitamin science is 

 that of Casimir Funk, a Pole working at the Lister Institute, London, 

 who in 1912 coined the word " vitamine " to describe the then 



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