Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. rdsemba @ jhmi.edu
Ann Nutr Metab. 2012;61(3):192-8. doi: 10.1159/000343124. Epub 2012 Nov 26.
Vitamin A is essential for normal growth, reproduction, immunity, and vision. The characterization of vitamin A spanned a period of about 130 years. During this long, incremental process, there is no single event that can be called the 'discovery' of vitamin A. The physiologist François Magendie conducted nutritional deprivation experiments with dogs in 1816 that resulted in corneal ulcers and high mortality - a finding similar to the common clinical situation in poorly fed, abandoned infants in Paris. In the 1880s, Nicolai Lunin showed that there was an unknown substance in milk that was essential for nutrition. Carl Socin suggested that an unknown substance for growth in egg yolk was fat soluble. Frederick Gowland Hopkins proposed in 1906 that there were 'unsuspected dietetic factors' that were necessary for life. In 1911, Wilhelm Stepp demonstrated that this essential substance in milk was fat soluble. The following year, Hopkins showed that there were 'accessory factors' present in 'astonishingly small amounts' in milk that supported life. Contrary to the dogma that all fats had similar nutritional value, in 1913, Elmer McCollum and Marguerite Davis at Wisconsin and Thomas Osborne and Lafayette Mendel at Yale showed butter and egg yolk were not equivalent to lard and olive oil in supporting the growth and survival of rats. The growth-supporting 'accessory factor' became known as 'fat-soluble A' in 1918 and then 'vitamin A' in 1920. Paul Karrer described the chemical structure of vitamin A in 1932. Harry Holmes and Ruth Corbet isolated and crystallized vitamin A in 1937. Methods for the synthesis of vitamin A came with the work of David Adriaan van Dorp and Jozef Ferdinand Arens in 1946 and Otto Isler and colleagues in 1947. Further work on the role of vitamin A in immunity and child survival continued until through the 1990s.
维生素 A 对正常生长、繁殖、免疫和视力至关重要。维生素 A 的特征描述跨越了大约 130 年的时间。在这个漫长的、渐进的过程中，没有一个单一的事件可以被称为维生素 A 的“发现”。生理学家弗朗索瓦·马金迪 (François Magendie) 于 1816 年用狗进行了营养剥夺实验，导致角膜溃疡和高死亡率——这一发现与巴黎营养不良、被遗弃的婴儿的常见临床情况相似。19 世纪 80 年代，尼古拉·卢宁 (Nicolai Lunin) 表明牛奶中有一种未知的物质对营养至关重要。卡尔·索辛 (Carl Socin) 认为蛋黄中促进生长的未知物质是脂溶性的。弗雷德里克·高兰·霍普金斯 (Frederick Gowland Hopkins) 于 1906 年提出，存在“未被察觉的饮食因素”，是生命所必需的。1911 年，威廉·斯特普 (Wilhelm Stepp) 证明了牛奶中这种必需物质是脂溶性的。次年，霍普金斯 (Hopkins) 表明，牛奶中存在“数量惊人的微量”辅助因素，支持生命。与所有脂肪具有相似营养价值的教条相反，1913 年，威斯康星州的埃尔默·麦科勒姆 (Elmer McCollum) 和玛格丽特·戴维斯 (Marguerite Davis) 以及耶鲁大学的托马斯·奥斯本 (Thomas Osborne) 和拉斐特·门德尔 (Lafayette Mendel) 表明，黄油和蛋黄与猪油和橄榄油在支持大鼠生长和存活方面并不等效。支持生长的“辅助因子”在 1918 年被称为“脂溶性 A”，然后在 1920 年被称为“维生素 A”。保罗·卡雷尔 (Paul Karrer) 于 1932 年描述了维生素 A 的化学结构。1937 年，哈里·霍姆斯 (Harry Holmes) 和露丝·科贝特 (Ruth Corbet) 分离并结晶了维生素 A。戴维·阿德里亚安·范·多普 (David Adriaan van Dorp) 和约瑟夫·费迪南德·阿伦斯 (Jozef Ferdinand Arens) 于 1946 年以及奥托·伊瑟尔 (Otto Isler) 和同事于 1947 年提出了合成维生素 A 的方法。直到 20 世纪 90 年代，人们还在继续研究维生素 A 在免疫和儿童生存中的作用。
