Casimir Funk's book Die Vitamine launched a research boom

Person: Casimir Funk
Lived: 1884–1967
Field: Biochemistry
From: Polish-American

The story

In 1912 Casimir Funk, a Polish-born Jewish biochemist working at the Lister Institute in London, published a paper arguing that beriberi, scurvy, pellagra and rickets were each caused by the lack of a particular substance in food. He called these substances “vitamines,” or vital amines. The idea was bold. Many doctors still blamed such illnesses on germs or toxins, and only a handful of researchers, such as Christiaan Eijkman and Frederick Gowland Hopkins, had found hints that diet alone could make the difference.

Funk did not stop at a single paper. Two years later he expanded his ideas into a full book in German, Die Vitamine. It gathered the evidence that certain illnesses were caused by missing nutrients and set out his theory that each vitamin, needed only in minute amounts, had the power to prevent or cure a specific disease. In his words, a beriberi or scurvy vitamine meant a substance preventing that particular disease. The book was translated into English in 1922 by his collaborator H. E. Dubin.

The book attracted the interest of the medical and scientific community at a time when many researchers were still sceptical. Laboratories around the world began hunting for the specific substances Funk had predicted. According to a 2013 article in the Australasian Medical Journal, his work led to the discovery of 13 vitamins within 35 years, which together make up all the vitamins known today: eight forms of vitamin B, vitamin C and the four fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

Funk himself took part in the work. He confirmed the existence of vitamins B1, B2, C and D, showed that vitamins were linked to the working of the hormonal system and, in 1936, determined the molecular structure of thiamine, vitamin B1. His original model was simpler than reality: many vitamins turned out not to be amines at all, and some, like vitamin D, act in many ways at once. But his framework gave researchers a clear question to ask.

Each discovery made it possible to prevent a particular deficiency disease cheaply, through diet, food fortification or supplements. Funk's insistence that only small amounts were needed also remains an important corrective in an age of high-dose supplements.

Why it matters

By giving the vitamin idea a full scientific case, Funk helped set off the research that identified every vitamin known today and made deficiency diseases preventable.

About Casimir Funk

Warsaw-born biochemist of Jewish descent who coined the word ‘vitamine’ in 1912 and argued that beriberi, scurvy, pellagra and rickets were deficiency diseases.

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Casimir Funk

1884–1967 · Biochemistry

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