![]() ![]() Eijkman was stationed in the Dutch colony of Java in the 1880s studying beriberi, a paralyzing and ultimately fatal disease endemic to much of South and Southwest Asia. The research of Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman involved a disease as horrific as scurvy but less well known in the Western world. ![]() He published his findings in 1754 in A Treatise of the Scurvy, but it would take another 150 years before the idea of “vitamin C” was established. Lind was not the first to treat scurvy with diet, but he was the first to carry out a systematic experiment on his suffering crew, thus proving the dietary value of citrus fruits. Perhaps best known is the story of 18th-century English naval surgeon James Lind, who treated his bloody-gummed, emaciated sailors with oranges and lemons to cure them of scurvy-a disease that often killed half a ship’s crew on long sea voyages. The early history of nutrition-in particular the discovery of those micronutrients we call vitamins-includes stories of near mythic proportion, pitting “men of science” (and they usually were men) against ignorance and dread disease. Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |