- Person
- Casimir Funk
- Lived
- 1884–1967
- Field
- Biochemistry
- From
- Polish-American
The story
After the First World War, Poland regained its independence, and its new institutions needed scientists. Casimir Funk, the Warsaw-born Jewish biochemist who had coined the word “vitamine” in 1912, was by then living in the United States. He had arrived in 1915, worked for industrial laboratories in New York and New Jersey, taught at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1918 to 1923, where he worked on the synthesis of adrenaline, and became a US citizen in 1920.
Funk had trained in Geneva, Bern, Paris, Berlin and London, and he chose to bring that experience home. In 1923, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, he returned to Warsaw as chief of the Department of Biochemistry at the State Institute of Hygiene, the country's main public-health laboratory. Some accounts describe him as leading the institute itself during these years.
Insulin had only recently been discovered, and producing it reliably was a technical challenge. For people with diabetes the hormone meant the difference between life and death. While at the institute, Funk increased the quality of the insulin produced in its laboratory, an important step toward giving Polish patients access to the new treatment. His interest in hormones ran through his career, and he published research on diabetes as well as on sex hormones.
Political unrest in Poland led him to leave for Paris in the late 1920s. There he took a part-time post with a pharmaceutical house, worked as a biochemist for the Roussel company and founded a private laboratory, Casa Biochemica, which produced biochemical products. In 1936 he determined the molecular structure of thiamine, vitamin B1, and published Vitamin and Mineral Therapy.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939 he returned to New York for good, working with the U.S. Vitamin Corporation and later heading the Funk Foundation for Medical Research. He spent his last years studying the causes of cancer. His years in Warsaw showed how a scientist trained across Europe could help a young nation build its public-health system.
Why it matters
Funk's work in Warsaw helped bring a newly discovered, life-saving medicine to patients in Poland and strengthened the country's young public-health system.
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.
More about Casimir Funk
- Casimir Funk discovered the idea of vitaminsIn 1912 the Warsaw-born biochemist Casimir Funk coined the word "vitamine" and proposed that missing nutrients cause diseases such as beriberi, scurvy, pellagra and rickets.
- Casimir Funk's book Die Vitamine launched a research boomCasimir Funk's 1914 book Die Vitamine drew scientists into the new field, and within 35 years of his work all 13 known vitamins had been discovered.
- Casimir Funk linked pellagra to how corn was milledCasimir Funk was an early investigator of pellagra and suggested that a change in how corn was milled lay behind outbreaks, an idea largely ignored at the time.
- Casimir Funk made the first AMA-accepted vitamin productAfter moving to the United States, Casimir Funk developed Oscodal, a vitamin A and D concentrate that was the first vitamin preparation accepted by the American Medical Association.
- Casimir Funk warned of hidden vitamin shortagesIn his 1936 book Vitamin and Mineral Therapy, Casimir Funk warned that mild vitamin shortages could weaken the body's resistance to infection long before obvious disease appeared.
Sources
- Casimir Funk Encyclopedia.com
- Casimir Funk Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.