Abstract
BARELY two decades have elapsed since the concept of ‘vitamins’ first began seriously to attract the attention of investigators. Scurvy had been recognised as a clinical entity for a couple of centuries, and the treatment of it, by means of fresh vegetables and fruit juices, was well known. But the idea that disease might be caused by the deficiency of some factor in the diet was, for many, too novel to be accepted without question, and much work was necessary before the reality of the accessory food factors or vitamins was generally admitted. Recognised at first solely by the effects produced on experimental animals when absent from their carefully purified diets, it was not long before chemical investigations began to define their properties, from which tentative conclusions as to their chemical nature might be drawn. With the discovery that ultra-violet light could cure rickets, and was also capable of making a diet, previously inactive, protective against this disease, a new key was provided for the unlocking of the door which led to the chemical constitution of the anti-rachitic vitamin, or vitamin D, as it is also called. At this stage the work came into contact with other investigations on a group of compounds of widespread distribution in Nature, but of almost unknown biological significance, the sterols. At the present time it is certain that vitamin D, if not actually a member of this group, is closely related to one, and it is extremely probable that vitamin A, or the fat-soluble growth-promoting vitamin, is also of a similar nature.
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Fat-soluble Vitamins. Nature 119, 787–788 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119787a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119787a0