[A vitamin is] a substance you get sick from if you don't eat it.

A nickel’s worth of goulash beats a five dollar can of vitamins.

A substance that makes you ill if you don’t eat it.
[His definition of a vitamin.]

And so, after many years, victory has come, and the romance of exploration, of high hopes and bitter disappointment, will in a few years simply be recorded in the text-books of organic chemistry in a few terse sentences.

But, further, no animal can live upon a mixture of pure protein, fat and carbohydrate, and even when the necessary inorganic material is carefully supplied, the animal still cannot flourish. The animal body is adjusted to live either upon plant tissues or the tissues of other animals, and these contain countless substances other than the proteins, carbohydrates and fats... In diseases such as rickets, and particularly in scurvy, we have had for long years knowledge of a dietetic factor; but though we know how to benefit these conditions empirically, the real errors in the diet are to this day quite obscure. They are, however, certainly of the kind which comprises these minimal qualitative factors that I am considering.

Hormones, vitamines, stimulants and depressives are oils upon the creaky machinery of life. Principal item, however, is the machinery.

I must admit that when I chose the name, “vitamine,” I was well aware that these substances might later prove not to be of an amine nature. However, it was necessary for me to choose a name that would sound well and serve as a catchword, since I had already at that time no doubt about the importance and the future popularity of the new field.

If we sink to the biochemical level, then the human being has lost a great many synthetic abilities possessed by other species and, in particular, by plants and microorganisms. Our loss of ability to manufacture a variety of vitamins makes us dependent on our diet and, therefore, on the greater synthetic versatility of other creatures. This is as much a “degenerative” change as the tapeworm’s abandonment of a stomach it no longer needs, but since we are prejudiced in our own favor, we don’t mention it.

March 15th. Imperial Banquet for Welcoming the English Cruelty to Animals. MENU OF FOODS: VITAMIN A, Tin Sardines. VITAMIN B, Roasted Beef. VITAMIN C, Small Roasted Suckling Porks. VITAMIN D, Hot Sheep and Onions. VITAMIN E, Spiced Turkey. VITAMIN F, Sweet Puddings. VITAMIN G, Coffee. VITAMIN H, Jam.

The inclusion of lemon or lime juice in grog, made compulsory in 1795, therefore reduced the incidence of scurvy dramatically. And since beer contains no vitamin C, switching from beer to grog made British crews far healthier overall.

The word, “Vitamine,” served as a catchword which meant something even to the uninitiated, and it was not by mere accident that just at that time, research developed so markedly in this direction. Our view as to the fortunate choice of this name is strengthened, on the one hand, because it has become popular (and a badly chosen catchword, like a folksong without feeling, can never become popular), and on the other, because of the untiring efforts of other workers to introduce a varied nomenclature, for example, “accessory food factors, food hormones, water-soluble B and fat-soluble A, nutramine, and auximone” (for plants). Some of these designations are certainly not better, while others are much worse than “Vitamine.”

There’s a new science out called orthomolecular medicine. You correct the chemical imbalance with amino acids and vitamins and minerals that are naturally in the body.

When physiologists revealed the existence and functions of hormones they not only gave increased opportunities for the activities of biochemists but in particular gave a new charter to biochemical thought, and with the discovery of vitamins that charter was extended.