He gave the world a word - vitamins - and the idea behind it: that invisible molecules in food could stop diseases like pellagra and rickets from killing you.
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Scientists born in the 1880s 6
About this person
Casimir Funk was born in Poland on February 23, 1884, and trained as a biochemist across Poland, France, and the United Kingdom. In 1912 he published landmark medical writing that formulated the concept of vitamins - he called them "vital amines" - building on work by English chemist Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who had reached similar ground first. Funk's analysis showed these compounds were critical in fighting major diseases like pellagra and rickets, and the idea triggered a major shift in scientific thinking about nutrition and illness. In 1920 he became a U.S. citizen and continued his research there until his death on November 19, 1967.
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