Casimir Funk coined the term "vitamine" in 1912. While he didn't name individual vitamins with letters, his work laid the groundwork for the naming convention that followed. Later researchers assigned alphabetical designations to vitamins as they were discovered.
The Evolution of Vitamin Nomenclature
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1912: Casimir Funk, a Polish-born chemist, first used the term "vitamine" (originally with an "e" at the end, implying an amine-like structure which was later found to be incorrect for many vitamins) for the vital substances he believed were essential for health. His research on the prevention and treatment of beriberi, a disease caused by vitamin B1 deficiency, was pivotal. [Reference: The discovery of the vitamins was a major scientific achievement in our understanding of health and disease. In 1912, Casimir Funk originally coined the term "vitamine".] [Reference: In 1911, Casimir Funk isolated a concentrate from rice polishings that cured polyneuritis in pigeons. He named the concentrate "vitamine" because it appeared to...]
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Post-1912: The "e" was later dropped from "vitamine," resulting in the modern term "vitamin." Cornelia Kennedy, in her 1916 master's thesis, was the first to utilize the 'A' and 'B' designations for vitamins. [Reference: The idea to use the now-familiar lettering system can be traced to Cornelia Kennedy who, in her master's thesis in 1916, was the first to use 'A' and 'B'.] Subsequent discoveries led to the alphabetical naming system we use today, with vitamins being labeled in the order of their discovery (with some exceptions, such as vitamin B complex). [Reference: The letters (A, B, C and so on) were assigned to the vitamins in the order of their discovery. The one exception was vitamin...]
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Examples of Vitamin Discovery and Naming: The discovery of vitamin D provides a clear example. Researchers identified a fat-soluble factor that prevented rickets, naming it "vitamin D" after other fat-soluble vitamins had already been discovered. [Reference: Further work showed that the activity of these fats came from a second fat-soluble factor to be named “vitamin D.” A whole succession of other...] Similarly, the vitamin B complex consists of several B vitamins, each discovered and named separately. [Reference: Vitamin B Complex]
While Funk didn't create the letter-based system, his initial naming of the fundamental concept of vitamins is crucial to the story of how we identify and understand these essential nutrients.
