Learn about the life and work of Casimir Funk, the discoverer of vitamins, and his lasting impact on nutrition and health.
Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk was one of the first to understand that for the body to function normally, the human diet must include certain organic substances. However, he was not the first to obtain vitamins from natural sources. We have prepared a short, fascinating article for our readers about the history of vitamins, or rather, when and how they were discovered.
Nowadays, it is probably difficult to find a person who does not have at least a basic idea of what vitamins are and how they affect our lives. Some of us have developed such a good understanding of their effect on the body that we almost never go to doctors to prescribe these substances. But even then, we generally get positive results.
Today Polomedia will tell about a man who saved millions of lives. Regardless of war or peace. He snatched them from death thanks to his mind. His name does not sound on the screens. Hollywood does not make films about him, although his name is quite “cinematic” – Kazimir Funk. Those who were cured of a number of diseases with the help of vitamins should thank Kazimir Funk, a Polish Jew, who systematized the assumptions about the existence of a certain element in food and gave it the now well-known name – Vitamin.
But it’s not just the name. Although it is widely believed that the Pole is the only one in this. It is worthwhile to briefly puzzle over the problem of analyzing this issue, and one can say with confidence that the version of “just the name” does not stand up to criticism.
Kazimierz Funk (February 23, 1884, Warsaw – November 19, 1967, Albany, USA) was born in 1884 in the family of a Warsaw dermatologist. From an early age, Kazimierz showed extraordinary mental abilities, thanks to which – with the help of private tutors – at the age of 16 he passed the matriculation exam and went to study in Switzerland.
In Bern, he had the opportunity to work under the guidance of the outstanding chemist, Professor Stanislav Kostanetsky, the creator of the theory of plant dyes. Four years later, Funk defended his PhD thesis under his guidance and began his own research.
Undivided nutrition
In the years 1904-1906 he worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and then at the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Berlin (1906-1910). There he became familiar with reports of studies on mice that were fed exclusively carbohydrates and proteins. As a result of such a diet, the mice… stopped growing. Inspired by these attempts, he began similar studies on larger animals. The choice fell on dogs.
Having confirmed the correctness of the phenomenon observed in mice, Funk added milk to the diet of his pets. It turned out that the animals that received even a very small amount of milk began to grow again.
Funk thus proved that milk contains substances necessary for normal growth. Today we know that these components are the vitamins A and D found in milk.
From 1910, Funk worked at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, where he began research into the causes of the severe and, at that time, incurable disease beriberi.
During his research, Casimir Funk used the experience of the Dutch doctor Christiaan Eijkman, who showed that chickens fed only white rice often suffered from limb lesions characteristic of the disease beriberi. It was also noted that those birds that received rice bran in their feed remained healthy. Funk came to the conclusion that bran contains a substance that is vital for the healthy development of animals. Consequently, humans too.
At the London Institute, Funk tested rice bran for many months and conducted numerous experiments on pigeons. As a result, in 1911, he succeeded in isolating a substance containing the amino group NH2. As it turned out later, it was precisely this “life-giving” component, necessary for the normal functioning of humans and animals.
Amin of life
In 1912, the scientist gave his discovery the name “vitamin” – from the Latin words vita – life and amine – that is, a chemical compound that includes an amine group. The substance discovered by Funk was the vitamin B1 known today. It is found, in particular, in milk. It was milk that “started” normal metabolic processes and helped to assimilate proteins and carbohydrates, which in their pure form did not cause growth in the subjects.
Thus, the substances necessary for normal life – “life-giving amines” – were discovered and classified. As we now understand, this caused a real revolution in world medicine.
In this regard, Funk stated that vitamin deficiency (avitaminosis) can lead not only to beriberi, but also to a number of other diseases, such as scurvy or rickets. With his statement, the Polish native undermined the prevailing opinion at that time that diseases were caused exclusively by pathogenic organisms.
The evidence was still being collected to become an obvious fact, but the theory had begun. The postulate of the “privilege” of bacteria in the onset of disease was questioned. Scientists of that time did not all and not immediately agree with the fact that diseases can be caused not only by unwanted microorganisms and substances present in the human body, but also by a lack of substances. It is worth noting that instead of endless debates, science at the beginning of the 20th century was more inclined to verify the proposed facts. Funk’s correctness was confirmed quite quickly.
Of course, we could have stopped there. But if real science was content with discoveries and not their applications, we would live in a different world. Thanks to the further work of the discoverer of vitamins, we not only know that vitamins exist, but most importantly, where to look for them. Funk studied and compared human food products. He managed to create a classification of products according to their vitamin content, based on which we can adjust our diet today. At the time of the emergence of such a classification, it was difficult to overestimate it. A person’s life often depended on it. Many were saved from vitamin deficiency with severe consequences.
World wars and world victories of vitamins
Funk’s discovery brought recovery not only to those suffering from a vitamin deficiency at home. The beginning of the 20th century was overshadowed by one of the most revolutionary wars, which would later become known as World War I. Even before the war, the scientist developed the first vitamin concentrate obtained from cod liver.
Having moved to the USA, Casimir Funk continued his research on vitamins there. He proved that they can not only prevent disease, but also protect the body from infections and bacteria, significantly increasing its immunity.
The scientist also took an active part in hormone research. He is the first to synthesize adrenaline.
In 1923, Ludwik Rajchman, a physician and bacteriologist, came to America and offered Funk a job at the State Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw. The discoverer of the vitamin returned to independent Poland and became the head of the Department of Biochemistry. They continued research on vitamins and hormones there. The result of the research was the isolation of insulin and digestive enzymes.
During the interwar period, the scientist published scientific publications, including the revolutionary Die Vitamine of 1914. He took part in numerous symposia and scientific conferences. Danish scientists, impressed by his innovative achievements, nominated Funk for the Nobel Prize. Casimir Funk was nominated for the Prize four times – twice in chemistry and twice in medicine, but he never received the award.
In 1927, Funk left for France. There, the scientist isolated, in particular, vitamin B3, also known as nicotinic acid. His studies of hormones yielded new results in the discovery of the properties of estrogens and testosterone.
On the eve of World War II, Casimir Funk and his family returned from Europe to the United States and became the chief consultant of the American Vitamin Society in New York. In the United States, Funk conducted further research on hormones and insulin, as well as the possibilities of their therapeutic use in medicine.
Heritage
The scientist spent the last years of his life studying the causes of cancer. Casimir Funk received well-deserved worldwide recognition and the universal respect of his colleagues. Thousands of people suffering from severe vitamin deficiency and diseases caused by the consequences of vitamin deficiency were cured. Subsequently, millions of people, thanks to Funk, never even knew the word “avitaminosis”.
They did not know about pellagra, scurvy or rickets.
Dr. Funk’s observations and works served as a foundation for further research by the scientist’s successors.Casimir Funk’s legacy is of inestimable importance for modern medicine.
The discovery of vitamins revolutionized nutritional science. Not only did it neutralize many deadly diseases that plagued people in every corner of the planet, but it also greatly expanded the prospects for using diet as a preventive measure.
Despite his revolutionary achievements in science and his remote participation in the daily diet of most literate inhabitants of the Earth, Casimir Funk and his discoveries are poorly remembered today. Polish students can easily name the discoverer of Radium and Polonium, but answering the question of who discovered the substance that stares at them from the packaging of hundreds of products, including milk at breakfast, requires a considerable effort.
In fact, it is important to remember that wherever we talk about vitamins, we are dealing with the discovery of the outstanding Polish scientist Kazimierz Funk. Thanks to the “Amin of Life” in the long term, and in the short term too, he saved millions of people.