Such a seemingly familiar thing - vitamins. But until the end of the XIX century, people did not realize that food contains not only nutrients, but also something else.
In the XIX century, scientists have already become aware of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Many were confident that this is the main value of food. If these substances are there, and in a certain ratio, then nothing more is needed. However, life has invariably refuted the seemingly so logical scientific theory. Many attempts were made to get to the bottom of the truth. But the Nobel Prize was awarded for the greatest contribution to the discovery of vitamins. True, the choice of these "heroes" does not seem to everyone to be justified to this day ....
From sailors to mice.
One of the main refutations of the "vitless" theory were English and Spanish sailors. During a long sea trip, they regularly received protein-fat ... but lost their teeth. They were scared of scurvy. Of the 160 participants in the famous expedition Vasco da Gama to India, 100 people died from this disease. It quickly turned out that a daily portion of decoction of needles or lemons iron prevented scurvy. There was a question: what in these plants such miracle?.
Japanese seamen had another scourge - beriberi disease, that is, inflammation of nerves, from which a person stopped walking and died. Buryi-Beri persecuted and the population of Indochina, including the European military and especially prisoners in prisons. The commander of the Japanese fleet solved this problem: in addition to the usual polished rice and fish, he ordered the sailors to give meat and milk. And again the question: why did it work?.
The first attempt to find out what is in food, except for proteins, fats and carbohydrates, was undertaken by the Russian scientist Nikolai Lunin. He fed laboratory mice with milk, only not real, but assembled as a designer: separately milk protein, fat, milk sugar and minerals (they knew about minerals then). So, all the components are obvious, and the mice died! Unlike the control group, which was given a normal milk. In 1880, Lunin concluded: if it is impossible to ensure the life of proteins, fats, sugars, salts and water, it follows that milk, in addition to casein, fat, milk sugar and salts, contains other substances that are irreplaceable for nutrition. However, then this idea of ??recognition was not received, and the experience itself was almost forgotten.
Chicks according to rice count.
In 1889-1896 in Indonesia, a doctor Christian Aikman, on instructions from the military, tried to overcome beri-beri. He put experiments on chickens. Nothing came out until. the worker in the henhouse did not change. The chickens suddenly began to recover themselves. Accidentally, the doctors found out that the former worker fed the chickens with cleaned (polished) rice - the same as that given to military food on ships and prisoners in prisons. And the new employee transferred the birds to brown rice. Now we know that rice bran contains vitamin B1 (thiamine), the lack of which leads to inflammation of the nerves. And then Eikman and his colleagues were at a loss. In the end, it was decided that in purified rice there is some kind of infection or toxins. Nothing like this was found, but the admirals ordered the purchase of brown rice, and this all calmed down.
In 1911-1913, a real boom among scientists to search for "something else" in food. And it was possible to the young Polish biochemist Kazimir Funk. He isolated a crystalline biologically active substance from rice bran, then from yeast. Subsequently it became clear that it was not even vitamin B1, and a mixture of B vitamins. Since nitrogen was present in them, Funk came up with the name "vitamin": from the Latin vita - "life", and amin - "nitrogen". Later it was found out that nitrogen is not in all vitamins, but the term was no longer refused.
The way to the pedestal.
Immediately several studies were carried out in different countries. Perhaps the most notable was the work of the English biochemist Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who, in fact, repeated the experience of Nikolai Lunin, but more carefully and with more purified substances. His experiments on rats confirmed that in milk there are some special substances, without which growth and development are impossible. However, do not take Hopkins plagiarist. He, for example, discovered the amino acid tryptophan (from it the "hormone of joy" is formed in the body, responsible for mood and appetite). In 1912, he said that there are additional factors in products that are extremely important for health.
Year after year, groups of scientists and individual luminaries added to the list of new vitamins. By 1929 it was already clear that this is an extremely important discovery. It is difficult to name a process in the body where vitamins did not participate: from the birth of a new life to the prevention of aging. They are needed for both prevention and treatment. Then, in 1929, for vitamins it was decided to give the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
After a long and stormy debate, the winners were Christian Aikman and Frederick Gowland Hopkins. Why them? More precisely, why only them? This question has caused a lot of discussions in the scientific community, disputes and quarrels.
Perhaps, in fact, it would be possible to mention other scientists whose contribution to the discovery of vitamins was at least not less than those of the two. But ... history does not know the subjunctive mood.
Vitamins opened a new era in all branches of medicine, and until now new and new ways of their application are being revealed. In some cases, they treat serious diseases, in others - they increase the effect of drugs and allow for much lower doses. If there were no vitamins in our food, we would get sick more often and more seriously.
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