A vitamin is an
organic substance found in many
foods for normal functioning of the body and must be obtained through the food we ingest. Excluding trace minerals there are thirteen of these essential substances. Only small amounts are required for good health, eleven vitamins have to be supplied by diet these are
vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B12, C, E, K,
folate,
biotin, and
pantothenate. The remaining two are
niacin and
vitamin D and created by the body if there is enough of the
amino acid,
tryptophan, and
sunlight in the order given. They are comparable to enzymes in that they are both organic compounds essential in small quantities for the normal functioning of the body. At first scientist speculated that they were
accessory factors and part of incidental “
ingredients” in food. Almost all vitamins are converted into
coenzymes and these act similar to the way enzymes do in the body by changing the location of groups of atoms. This process is understood as a
donor-acceptor exchange because of the way vitamins move them from one type of molecule to another. This is important in the for the storage and generation and energy needed for the body’s normal functioning and growth.
A Polish-American biochemist Casimir Funk coined the word in 1911. Trying to find the cure for or a way to prevent the nerve damaging illness known as beriberi and what he knew was a closely related disease scurvy . At the time he called the substance vitamine meaning “live amine.” From Latin vita for "life" and amine, a word formed from am(monia) meaning it is of a nitrogenous base, he then added the suffix ine because he thought they contained amino acids. An amine is a simply generic term for compound ammonias. Even though it was later determined that many vitamins do not contain an organic group known as an amine, the name stuck. Studying in England, Funk wrote an article on The Etiology of Deficiency Disease. In his submission to the widely read Journal of State Medicine in 1912, he first introduced and explained what he meant by his catchword, "vitamine."
It is now known that all of these diseases (beriberi, polyneuritis, epidemic dropsy, scurvy, experimental scurvy in animals, infantile scurvy, ship beriberi, pellagra), with the exception of pellagra, can be prevented and cured by the addition of certain preventive substances; the deficient substances, which are of the nature of organic bases, we will call "vitamines;" and we will speak of a beriberi or scurvy vitamine, which means a substance preventing the particular disease (Funk 1912a, p. 164).
In his 1912 essay he collected data and formed his theory. He noted that with the grouping of humans and experimental beriberi, scurvy, and ship beriberi he put them under the general category of "
deficiency diseases," and shrewdly argued that
pellagra and possibly
rickets as well belonged to this class although the vitamines involved were probably not the same as those with regards to beriberi and scurvy. He founded his ideas with what he already knew from the experiments by Osborne and
Gregor Mendel and by
Frederick Gowland Hopkins with simplified diets supplemented by milk, Funk postulated "
that the substance facilitating growth found in milk is similar, if not identical, with the vitamines described by me." (Funk 1912a, p. 169).
A few weeks later an article appeared in the Lancet which confirmed Funk's theories about vitamins and their relation to specific diseases. A German explorer in New Guinea had successfully prevented beriberi among the members of his expedition by eating a thick soup of red rice and Katjang idjoe beans cooked together every day.
However, Funk's ideas raised a lot of controversy and he spent the next ten years campaigning for support for this word he coined and its use as a scientific expression. In 1916 the term was gaining some acceptance as evidenced by this article from Science
The word "vitamine" has come into our vocabulary since the latest dictionaries were published. Etymologically it means an amine that is essential to life, and it was coined by C. Funk as a generic name for a group of substances, of unknown chemical composition, small quantities of which appear to be a necessary constituent of a wholesome human diet . . . An absence or insufficiency of vitamines in the diet brings on diseases now known as "avitaminoses" or "deficiency diseases," of which scurvy and beriberi are the principal representatives. Science already recognizes two vitamines - viz., antiscorbutic vitamine, which prevents scurvy, and antineuritic vitamine, which prevents beriberi in man and polyneuritis in birds. There may be others:
The investigation of the vitamines has made great strides in the past two years. The subject is beginning to crop up in the newspapers and in general literature, not to mention the small talk of the dinner table, where everything on the menu invites classification from the point view of the "vitaminologist." (Science 1916 p. 453)
In 1933 the word became a widely used term metaphorically:
"A book . . . . so full of the vitamines of literature," "The vitamines of the spirit and. . . true religion" (Oxford English Dictionary Supplement)
Still Funks vitamines were met with skepticism by the scientific community. It was perhaps because of this dispute over a simple word that more and more scientists became interested in the nature of vitamins and in the practical applications as
"the newer knowledge of nutrition." The word vitamine, despite its wide adoption by 1920, was still hotly contested because "the termination '
-ine' is singularly used to denote chemical
nomenclature to marking them (vitamines in this case) as substances of a basic character. Because, they argued
"there is no evidence which supports his (Funk's) idea that these indispensable dietary constituents are amines"
Finally, in 1920
Jack Drummond arbitrated the disagreements and suggested that the final
e in "vitamine" be dropped. The result, "vitamin," now fit under the Chemical Society's nomenclature rule, which allowed "(a)
neutral substance of undefined composition to bear a name ending in '-in'." In spite of Funks objections to the change, "
I still believe in the nitrogenous nature of these substances."(1922), he continued to call them by the name he had invented until 1937. Drummond 's spelling was quickly adopted and unfortunately for Casimir Funk another scientist, Frederick Gowland Hopkins went on to receive the
Nobel Prize for his work in vitamin theory, his words to Funk were probably of small consolation,
"(Funk) had "not received too much, but too little credit for his vitamin research as a whole."
Sources:
The American Heritage® Book of English Usage:
www.bartleby.com
Essays on Paths of Discovery in the Biomedical Sciences:
newman.baruch.cuny.edu/
Take Our Word For It:
www.takeourword.com
xrefer:
http://w1.xrefer.com