History of Vitamins: Who Discovered Them, When, and How They Got Their Names.

Who discovered vitamins, when did it happen, and how did each vitamin get its name?

Vitamins were found because people got sick on certain diets and got better when the diet changed. No single person discovered them. Several researchers worked on different diseases over about 100 years, and many of the foods involved were plants: citrus fruit, rice, yeast, and the green parts of plants. My training is in plant science, so I look at this history from the plant side.

This article answers the questions people ask most about the history of vitamins: who found them, when, how they were named, how each main vitamin was discovered, and when vitamin supplements started. Each fact has a link to its source. The sources are from the National Institutes of Health, the Nobel Prize organization, and journals indexed by PubMed.

Quick Answers

Who discovered vitamins first?

Gerrit Grijns, a Dutch physician, wrote in 1896 that natural foods contain essential substances. The Nobel Prize site calls this the first clear statement of the vitamin concept, and says it was published only in Dutch. He worked after Christiaan Eijkman, who had linked polished rice to beriberi.

Who named them?

Casimir Funk. He proposed the name “vitamine” in 1911, from “vital amines.” Some sources give 1912 for the name, so the year depends on the source.

When were vitamins discovered?

The work ran from the early 1800s to the 1940s. Most of the main vitamins were identified between 1910 and 1948.

How were they discovered? A disease was linked to a diet, researchers fed animals different foods to find what protected them, and later chemists isolated the compound.

What Counts as a Vitamin

A 2025 review in PMC says there is still no generally accepted definition. It says a substance has to be both biochemically essential and nutritionally essential to count as a vitamin in the classical sense. Vitamins are organic, unlike minerals, and each one covers a family of related compounds. The review also says some substances once seen as vitamins, such as inositol and adenine, are no longer classified that way.

The Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University lists 13 vitamins: vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, biotin, folate, and vitamin B12. Its working definition is that a compound is a vitamin if a lack of it in the diet causes overt deficiency symptoms.

Before the Word Existed

A PubMed article on vitamin A gives the early steps. In 1816, François Magendie fed dogs restricted diets, and they developed corneal ulcers and died at high rates.

In the 1880s, Nicolai Lunin showed that milk contained an unknown substance needed for nutrition. The 2025 review above names Lunin and von Bunge as early researchers who pointed to unknown factors in milk.

Scurvy and Citrus Fruit

Scurvy is a disease caused by too little vitamin C. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements says that before the late 1700s, many sailors on long sea trips got scurvy or died from it. In the mid-1700s, a British Navy surgeon named James Lind found that citrus fruits or juices could cure it. Scientists did not confirm ascorbic acid as the active compound until 1932.

The Nobel Prize site says Charles Glen King isolated the anti-scurvy vitamin from lemon juice in 1932. In 1937, Albert Szent-Györgyi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on the biological combustion processes linked to vitamin C, and Walter Haworth received the Chemistry prize for work that included the structure and synthesis of vitamin C. The 1929 Nobel presentation speech adds that Holst and Frölich helped clarify scurvy.

The ODS fact sheet says signs of scurvy can appear within 1 month of very low vitamin C intake, below about 10 mg a day. Citrus fruits are major sources of vitamin C. One medium orange has 70 mg. Red and green peppers, kiwifruit, and broccoli are also good sources. Plants make vitamin C themselves, and humans have to get it from food or supplements.

Beriberi and Polished Rice

Beriberi is a disease caused by too little thiamin, vitamin B1. The Nobel presentation speech says Eijkman noticed that laboratory hens in Java developed a paralysis like the human disease after being fed polished rice. He found the protective substance in rice bran and showed it was soluble in water and alcohol. In prisons, beriberi was about 300 times as common where inmates ate polished rice.

Rice (Oryza sativa) is a grass, and polishing removes the outer layers of the grain. That is the plant part involved here. The speech says Grijns, who took over after Eijkman, showed that the body uses the substance directly and that a healthy diet needs such substances in addition to the known basic nutrients.

The Nobel Prize site says Jansen and Donath obtained pure crystals of the rice polishings factor in 1926 and 1927. Eijkman shared the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Frederick Gowland Hopkins.

Hopkins and the Growth Factors

Hopkins fed young rats a purified diet, and their growth stopped. The 1929 Nobel speech says a very small amount of milk restored growth, and that the same effect was found in yeast and in the green parts of plants.

He published preliminary results in 1906, gave lectures in 1909, and published the full work in 1912. The speech says at least two growth vitamins exist, one fat-soluble and one water-soluble.

Casimir Funk and the Word “Vitamin”

A review on Casimir Funk in PubMed calls him the “father of vitamin therapy.” He built on Eijkman’s work with birds and looked at how the same kinds of dietary factors affect people. He coined the name in 1911 from “vita” (life) and “amine” (a nitrogen-containing substance), and the scientific community accepted the name in 1912. The review lists beriberi, scurvy, rickets, and pellagra as the deficiency diseases linked to these factors.

The 2025 PMC review says Funk believed these substances were “vital” and “amines,” but that “he was wrong in both aspects.” That is why the spelling was shortened to “vitamin.”

How the Vitamins Got Their Names

The Nobel Prize site says Elmer McCollum used the letters A and B in 1914 for a fat-soluble factor in butter fat and a factor in rice polishings. A PubMed article dates “fat-soluble A” to 1918 and “vitamin A” to 1920, so the dates differ by source. The letters came into use before anyone knew the chemistry.

The 2025 PMC review says vitamins were first classed by solubility, A as fat-soluble and B as water-soluble. When vitamin B turned out to contain several different compounds, they were given the names B1, B2, and so on before their chemical identities were known.

The Nobel Prize site says Henrik Dam chose the letter K because it was the first letter not yet used, and because it matched the Danish word for coagulation. It also says vitamin C was used for the anti-scurvy factor and vitamin D for the factor that prevents rickets.

There is no vitamin F, G, or P on the list of 13 vitamins. I did not find a source that explains why those letters were dropped, so I do not explain it here.

History of Vitamin A

The PubMed article on vitamin A says it has no single moment of discovery, and that working out what it was took about 130 years. In 1911, Wilhelm Stepp showed that the essential substance in milk was fat-soluble.

In 1913, Elmer McCollum and Marguerite Davis at Wisconsin, and Thomas Osborne and Lafayette Mendel at Yale, showed that butter and egg yolk supported growth and survival in rats better than lard and olive oil.

Paul Karrer described the structure in 1932. Harry Holmes and Ruth Corbet isolated and crystallized it in 1937. Chemists made it in the lab in 1946 and 1947. The Nobel Prize site adds that George Wald showed vitamin A is directly involved in the light response of the eye.

History of Vitamin D

A review by Hector DeLuca describes how rickets was so common in Britain that it was called “the English disease.” In 1919, Edward Mellanby fed dogs an oatmeal diet kept away from sunlight, and they developed rickets. Cod liver oil cured it. Between 1919 and 1921, researchers in Vienna and England found that sunlight or ultraviolet light could cure rickets in children.

In 1922, McCollum’s group showed that the factor in cod liver oil that cures rickets was a new vitamin, which they named vitamin D. Vitamin D2 was isolated in 1932, and Adolf Windaus and Bock identified vitamin D3, the natural form made in skin, in 1937. Windaus received the 1928 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on sterols and their connection with vitamins.

History of the B Vitamins

Thiamin (B1).

This is the beriberi story above.

Niacin.

The Nobel Prize site says Joseph Goldberger linked pellagra to diet between 1914 and 1935, and that yeast was active against it. Others identified the compound as nicotinic acid in 1935.

Riboflavin and B6.

Richard Kuhn received the 1938 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on carotenoids and B vitamins, including riboflavin and pyridoxine (B2 and B6). He could not accept it until after World War II.

Vitamin B12.

Whipple, Minot, and Murphy used liver therapy for pernicious anemia and received the Nobel Prize in 1934. B12 was isolated in 1948, and Hodgkin received a later Nobel Prize for its structure.

History of Vitamin K and Vitamin E

Dam found vitamin K while studying bleeding in chicks. He and Edward Doisy, who worked out its chemical nature, shared the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

For vitamin E, the Nobel Prize site says Karrer received the 1937 Chemistry prize for the structures of riboflavin and vitamins A and E. I did not find a source for the first identification of vitamin E, so I leave it out.

The Plant Side of Vitamins

The history above is about people and dates. This section is about the plants. It uses the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets for each vitamin.

Vitamin A and plant pigments.

The vitamin A fact sheet says plants do not supply vitamin A in its ready-to-use form. They supply provitamin A carotenoids, mainly beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, and beta-cryptoxanthin, which the fact sheet calls plant pigments that the body converts into vitamin A in the intestine. Other plant carotenoids, such as lycopene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, are not converted to vitamin A.

This explains the 1913 rat studies. Butter and egg yolk are animal foods, and they contain vitamin A already formed. Plant foods give you the pigment instead, and the body has to convert it. The fact sheet gives these amounts in mcg RAE per serving: 1 baked sweet potato 1,403, half a cup of boiled frozen spinach 573, and half a cup of raw carrots 459. It also says the body absorbs 10% to 30% of beta-carotene from foods in most cases, and that cooking can increase beta-carotene absorption.

Vitamin K and the leaf.

The vitamin K fact sheet says phylloquinone, also called K1, is found mainly in green leafy vegetables and is the main dietary form of vitamin K. It says the phylloquinone in plant foods is tightly bound to chloroplasts, the structures inside leaf cells, so it is less available to the body. The fact sheet says spinach provides only 4% to 17% as much absorbable phylloquinone as a tablet.

Half a cup of boiled frozen collards has 530 mcg, one cup of raw kale has 113 mcg, and one tablespoon of soybean oil has 25 mcg. The other form, menaquinone, is mainly made by bacteria. The fact sheet lists natto, a fermented soybean food, at 850 mcg per 3-ounce serving.

Thiamin and the grain.

The thiamin fact sheet lists whole grains as a food source. It says that unless white rice is enriched with thiamin, it has one-tenth the amount of unenriched brown rice. Half a cup of cooked unenriched brown rice has 0.2 mg, and half a cup of boiled black beans has 0.4 mg. This is the same grain that Eijkman’s chickens ate in the beriberi story. The fact sheet also says thiamin dissolves in water, so much of it is lost when cooking water is thrown away.

Vitamin C and the fruit.

The ODS vitamin C fact sheet lists citrus fruits, red and green peppers, kiwifruit, and broccoli as strong sources, with 70 mg in one medium orange.

I read each of these as a plant-part question: pigment in a root, chloroplast in a leaf, outer layer of a grain, juice in a fruit. The part of the plant you eat and how it is processed decide how much of the vitamin reaches you, which is why a supplement label that names the plant source and the part used tells you more than “natural.”

From Discovery to Supplements

Once the structures were known, chemists could make vitamins in the lab. Haworth’s work on vitamin C synthesis was recognized in 1937, and methods to make vitamin A followed in 1946 and 1947. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements says multivitamin and mineral products have been sold in the United States since the early 1940s. It credits Miles Laboratories with introducing the idea of “nutritional insurance” with its One-A-Day line in the 1940s.

The same page says an estimated one-third of US adults take a multivitamin, and that multivitamins have no standard or regulatory definition. Companies choose the nutrients and the amounts, so two products with the same name can differ.

What Research Says About Multivitamins

The ODS consumer fact sheet says most studies, mainly in healthy adults, found little or no effect of multivitamins on cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, lung disorders, psychiatric disorders, or risk of death. Studies are hard to compare because products differ and because people who take multivitamins often eat better and live healthier.

It lists people who may benefit: those who do not get enough nutrients from food, such as people on low-calorie diets or strict vegetarian and vegan diets, and people whose health care provider recommends one. Some groups may benefit from a specific nutrient, such as folic acid for women who might become pregnant and vitamin B12 for adults over 50.

It also warns that a multivitamin can lead to too much iron, vitamin A, zinc, niacin, or folic acid, especially in products with more than the recommended amounts. Your total intake from fortified foods and other supplements should stay below the upper limits.

Timeline Recap

This table puts the main steps in order.

How I Read a Multivitamin Label

Amounts and Daily Value. The label shows the amount and the percent Daily Value (%DV) per serving. The Office of Dietary Supplements says the Daily Value is often, but not always, close to the RDA or AI. I check the percentages with the Daily Value calculator, and I recommend you do the same.

Serving size. Some products set the serving at two or three capsules. The front of the bottle can show the amount in one capsule, while the facts panel shows the amount in the full serving. The dose versus product dose tool shows the difference.

Nutrients that add up. The fact sheet flags iron, vitamin A, zinc, niacin, and folic acid. You should add the amounts from your multivitamin to what you already get from fortified foods and other supplements.

Herbs in the formula. Some multivitamins add plant extracts. Look for the Latin name and the amount on the label. If you see a “proprietary blend” with no amounts, the proprietary blend estimator can help you read it.

You can find more tools on the tools and calculators page, and you can compare labels in the essential vitamins and multivitamins category.

Common Questions

Who discovered vitamins first?

No single person did. Grijns made the first clear statement in 1896 that natural foods contain essential substances, building on Eijkman’s work with polished rice. Hopkins showed in 1906 to 1912 that animals need small amounts of unknown factors in food. Eijkman and Hopkins shared the 1929 Nobel Prize.

Who is the father of vitamins?

A PubMed review calls Casimir Funk the “father of vitamin therapy.” Other researchers share the credit, so the title depends on whether you count the naming or the first experiments.

Who coined the term vitamin?

Casimir Funk, in 1911 according to the Nobel Prize site and a PubMed review. The 2025 PMC review gives 1912. He wrote “vitamine,” and the final “e” was dropped later because not all of these substances are amines.

When were vitamins first discovered?

The first clear statement was in 1896, the name came in 1911, and the main vitamins were identified between about 1910 and 1948.

How were vitamins discovered?

Researchers saw that a disease appeared on certain diets. They fed animals different foods to see what protected them, then chemists isolated the compounds. Eijkman used chickens, Hopkins used rats, and Mellanby used dogs.

What historical experience led to the discovery of vitamins?

Scurvy in sailors, beriberi in people who ate polished rice, and rickets in children. In each case, a change in food ended the disease.

What vitamins were discovered in the 1920s?

From the sources above: McCollum’s group named vitamin D in 1922, “vitamin A” got its name in 1920, and Jansen and Donath crystallized the thiamin factor in 1926 and 1927. Eijkman and Hopkins received the Nobel Prize for their vitamin work in 1929.

How did vitamins get their names?

Researchers used letters in the 1910s and 1920s, and the B group was later split into B1, B2, and so on. Dam picked K because it was the first unused letter. Today only some of those letters are on the list of 13 vitamins.

Why are they called B vitamins?

McCollum used the letter B for the water-soluble factor in rice polishings. Later work found that B was several different compounds, so they were numbered B1, B2, and so on.

Is there a vitamin F?

Not on the list of 13 vitamins from the Linus Pauling Institute. Vitamin F, G, and P are not on that list.

How many vitamins are there?

The Linus Pauling Institute lists 13. The 2025 PMC review says there is no generally accepted definition, so the count can differ between sources.

Who discovered vitamin C?

Lind showed in the mid-1700s that citrus fruit cures scurvy. King isolated the vitamin from lemon juice in 1932, and Szent-Györgyi and Haworth received Nobel Prizes in 1937 for related work.

Who discovered vitamin A?

The PubMed article says it was not a single discovery. McCollum and Davis, and Osborne and Mendel, showed in 1913 that butter and egg yolk contain a factor needed for growth. It was named vitamin A in 1920, and Karrer described the structure in 1932.

Who discovered vitamin D?

Mellanby showed in 1919 that cod liver oil cures rickets in dogs. McCollum’s group named vitamin D in 1922, and Windaus and Bock identified vitamin D3 in 1937.

Who discovered vitamin B12?

Whipple, Minot, and Murphy used liver therapy for pernicious anemia and received the Nobel Prize in 1934. B12 was isolated in 1948.

Who invented the multivitamin, and when were vitamin supplements invented?

According to the Office of Dietary Supplements, multivitamin and mineral products have been sold in the United States since the early 1940s, and Miles Laboratories introduced the idea of “nutritional insurance” with its One-A-Day line in that decade. Chemists had learned to make some vitamins in the lab a few years earlier.

Why were vitamins invented?

Vitamins were not invented. They were found in food. Supplements came later, when chemists could make vitamins and companies began to sell them.

Are vitamins and minerals the same thing?

No. Vitamins are organic compounds made by plants and animals. Minerals are elements, such as calcium, magnesium, zinc, and selenium, that plants take up from the soil. Multivitamin and mineral products contain both.

What is the difference between a vitamin and a supplement?

A vitamin is a nutrient. A supplement is a product, such as a tablet, capsule, or powder, that can contain vitamins, minerals, herbs, or other ingredients. A multivitamin is one type of supplement.

Do all multivitamins contain the same nutrients?

No. The Office of Dietary Supplements says there is no standard multivitamin and no standard list of ingredients. Two products with the same name can have different nutrients and different amounts. I compare the facts panel, not the front of the bottle.

What did research find about multivitamins in healthy adults?

The Office of Dietary Supplements says most studies, mainly in healthy adults, found little or no effect on cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, lung disorders, psychiatric disorders, or risk of death. A few studies in older adults looked at memory and thinking skills over 1 to 3 years, and the fact sheet reports improvements in some of them.

Who may benefit from a multivitamin?

The fact sheet lists people who do not get enough nutrients from food, such as people on low-calorie diets, people with a poor appetite, and strict vegetarians or vegans. It also lists people whose health care provider recommends one.

Can you take too much from a multivitamin?

Yes, if the total from the multivitamin, fortified foods, and other supplements goes above the upper limits. The fact sheet names iron, vitamin A, zinc, niacin, and folic acid as the ones to watch.

What does the percent Daily Value on a label mean?

The %DV shows how much of a nutrient one serving gives compared with the Daily Value, a reference amount used on labels. The Office of Dietary Supplements says it is often, but not always, close to the RDA or AI.

Which vitamins come from plants?

Plants supply vitamin C directly, provitamin A carotenoids that the body converts to vitamin A, phylloquinone (vitamin K1) from leafy greens, and thiamin from whole grains and legumes. Vitamin B12 is not in the sources I checked for this section, and the vitamin K form menaquinone is mainly made by bacteria.

Why does it matter that so many vitamin discoveries involved plants?

Citrus fruit, rice bran, yeast, and the green parts of plants all appear in the history above. A nutrient in a supplement first came from something a plant or another organism makes or stores. What a plant food gives you depends on which part you eat and how it is processed.