The name “vitamin” was coined in 1912 by the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk (1884 – 1967). Vita comes from Latin and means life. Amines are derivatives of ammonia.
Scurvy – the disease of sailors
Already in the Middle Ages, the disease scurvy was known, which often appeared in sailors and could be cured by eating fruits and vegetables. Accordingly, it was known to be a nutritional disease, but the word vitamins was still a foreign word at that time.
Life Amine
In 1886, Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman (1858 – 1930) was sent to Java, Indonesia to study a disease now known as Beri- Beri disease. Eijkman correctly suspected that it was a deficiency disease, but could not clarify which food components were responsible.
Later, Casimir Funk and Frederick Cowland Hopkins (1861 – 1947) came to the conclusion that both beri- beri and scurvy were caused by a deficiency of a dietary component that is only needed in small amounts. In beri- beri, the cause is a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B1).
Funk gave these food components, of which only very small amounts are needed, the name “vitamins“. Translated “life amines. Funk assumed that the vitamins are a uniform group of substances.
English perfectionism
But since vitamins are by no means a homogeneous group of substances, the term was renamed – at least in English. From “vitamines” to “vitamins.” Now vitamins in English lack the “e”. Although the word “amine” is still at the end, it no longer refers to the amine group of substances.
However, we still stick to our “vitamins”. Let’s hope that they will still work….
