VITAMINE-VITAMIN - THE EARLY YEARS OF DISCOVERY

In 1905, Cornelius Adrianus Pekelharing found that animals fed purifie d proteins, carbohydrates, fats, inorganic salts, and water would thri ve only if small amounts of milk were added to the diet. He concluded that the milk contained some unrecognized substance that in very small quantities was necessary for normal growth and maintenance. In 1911, Casimir Funk isolated a concentrate from rice polishings that cured po lyneuritis in pigeons. He named the concentrate ''vitamine'' because i t appeared to be vital to life and because it was probably an amine. A lthough the concentrate and other ''accessory food substances'' were n ot amines, the name stuck, but the final ''e'' was dropped. In 1913 tw o groups discovered a ''fat-soluble'' accessory food substance. Initia lly believed to be a single vitamin, two separate factors were involve d. One, effective against xerophthalmia, was named vitamin A; the othe r, effective against rickets, was named vitamin D. The factor that pre vented scurvy was isolated in 1928. Known as ''water-soluble C,'' it w as renamed ascorbic acid.