Discovery and Significance of Vitamins

Abstract

UNTIL the end of the first decade of the present century, official teaching concerning the nutritional needs of the human body was still based on the results of classical studies by Carl Voit and Max Rubner and on the views of the Munich School thence derived. The adequacy of a dietary was measured in terms of calories and protein alone. It was generally believed, alike by the academic physiologist and by those concerned with practical dietaries, that, questions of palata-bility and digestibility apart, so long as the food of an individual provided sufficient potential energy for the activities of his internal organs and for the external mechanical work he might be called upon to do, the only demand of a more specific kind made by his body was for a certain, rather ill-defined, minimum of protein, to subserve the growth and maintenance of its tissues. Beside the carbohydrates, fats and proteins which provide these essentials, natural foods were known, of course, to contain a variety of other substances. These, however, are present individually in very small amount, and except for certain minerals among them, necessary for the formation of bone and for the maintenance of particular physical conditions in the body, they assumed to be without nutritional importance.