280 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 



didn't matter much what these were called. We might 

 have adopted Hopkins' term, "accessory food factors," 

 or McCollum's phrases, "unidentified dietary factors 

 fat-soluble A and water-soluble B," but Funk's term at 

 least provided brevity and by common consent these 

 factors have become vitamins A and B. 



It now became fashionable to suspect diseases of 

 hitherto unknown cause to be matters of vitamin de- 

 ficiency. Scurvy had been known for years and its 

 prevention by the use of lime juice had earned a name 

 for the British mercantile navy of "lime juicers." Two 

 workers in Europe, Hoist and Frohlich, published in 

 the years 1907-1912 a series of brilliant studies which 

 appeared to demonstrate this disease to be due to the 

 absence of a specific vitamin, unlike the anti-beri-beri 

 type and carried in abundance by substances such as 

 lemon and orange juice. McCollum, however, re- 

 ported in 1918 certain observations on experimental 

 scurvy in guinea pigs which seemed to him to prove that 

 this disease was explicable as a result of the absorption 

 of toxic products from the intestines of the animals. A 

 new controversy arose. Partisans of the two views 

 arose also, but in time the truth confirmed the view- 

 point of Hoist and Frohlich and vitamin C was added 

 to the list. This matter was barely settled when a new 

 controversy began, this time over the causes of rickets. 

 Mellanby in England, working for the British Medical 

 Research Committee, arrived at a viewpoint which the 

 Committee published and to which they gave their 

 support. This view was in brief that vitamin A, in 

 which cod-liver oil is especially rich, is not only a growth 



