HIST 3D Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Christiaan Eijkman, Microorganism, Peripheral Neuropathy
Disease as Vitamin Deficiency: Scurvy, Beriberi, and Pellagra
● Seafaring and Scurvy
- Disease and vitamin C
- European seaborne expansion
- James Lind 1747 and 1753
- Successes and failures to 1900
- Animal model- Holst 1910s
- Isolation: 1930s
● Rice economies and Beriberi
- Disease: Thiamine
- Late 19th century outbreaks
- Indonesia
- Vital aminos and isolation, 1912 and 1930s
● Corn, Poverty, and Pellagra
- Disease and Niacin
- established/recognized in Europe
- Goldberger and background
- US and epidemiology
- Demonstration of causality
- Resistance and breakthrough c. 1940
● Deficiency diseases are diseases produced by the process of civilization; improvements
turn out not to be as beneficial
- Scurvy caused by deficiency in vitamin C
- Beriberi caused by deficiency in thiamine (vitamin B1)
- Pellagra; new processes of milling corn
● Scurvy
- Humans can’t make vitamin C, but they can store it; without vitamin C, humans
get bone manifestations (improper bone growth, detachment of bone joints,
broken capillaries, etc.)
- Cold, fatigue, and depression worsen the disease
- Expansion of long-distance sea voyages
- 1600 onward, with the expansion of ships travelling, ships grew in size and were
at sea for longer time periods
- As a result, the appearance of scurvy rose
- In the 18th century, the large warships lost more men to scurvy than to battle
- Lack of vitamin C due to seaman’s diet
- James Lind (18th century surgeon); conducted a trial in 1747 in which he tried
out giving curatives to certain groups along with their diet
- Giving oranges and lemons was the most experimentally proven way to increase
their condition
- Gilbert Blane (1793); gave each sailor a daily issue of lemon juice; within a few
years, the procedure of issuing lemon or lime juice greatly diminished scurvy
- Breakthrough in 1900; Axel Holst carried out a series of feeding experiments on
guinea pigs in the 1910s
-Seent Gyorgyi discovered effects of the Hungarian pepper
● Beriberi
- Neurological disease
Document Summary
Disease as vitamin deficiency: scurvy, beriberi, and pellagra. Deficiency diseases are diseases produced by the process of civilization; improvements turn out not to be as beneficial. Scurvy caused by deficiency in vitamin c. Beriberi caused by deficiency in thiamine (vitamin b1) Humans can"t make vitamin c, but they can store it; without vitamin c, humans get bone manifestations (improper bone growth, detachment of bone joints, broken capillaries, etc. ) Cold, fatigue, and depression worsen the disease. 1600 onward, with the expansion of ships travelling, ships grew in size and were at sea for longer time periods. As a result, the appearance of scurvy rose. In the 18th century, the large warships lost more men to scurvy than to battle. Lack of vitamin c due to seaman"s diet. James lind (18th century surgeon); conducted a trial in 1747 in which he tried out giving curatives to certain groups along with their diet.
