Funk, Casimir

Funk, Casimir (kăz`ĭmēr fngk), 1884–1967, American biochemist, b. Poland, Ph.D. Univ. of Bern, 1904. He first came to the United States in 1915 and was naturalized in 1920. Credited with the discovery of vitamins, Funk stirred public interest with his paper (1912) on vitamin-deficiency diseases. He coined the term vitamine and later postulated the existence of four such materials (B₁, B₂, C, D), which he stated were necessary for normal health and for the prevention of deficiency diseases. Funk contributed to knowledge of the hormones of the pituitary gland and the sex glands and emphasized the importance of the balance between hormones and vitamins. He is the author of Vitamines (tr. 1922).

Bibliography

See biography by B. Harrow (1955).