Nutrition / [Burroughs Wellcome & Co. (The Wellcome Foundation Ltd.)].

  • Burroughs Wellcome & Company
Date:
[1937?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nutrition / [Burroughs Wellcome & Co. (The Wellcome Foundation Ltd.)]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    At that time investigations by new and more complex experimental methods were initiated in increasing numbers. Prior to these the work of physiologists and chemists had consisted only in the separation of the living animal or plant into its larger components of proteins, known to be essential for growth and for replacing ‘‘ wear and tear,’’ and into fats and carbohydrates, valued solely as providers of heat and energy, and in the study of the chemistry of these groups. Later, the fats and lipins and the process of saponification were studied and the relation of the simple sugars to the more complex carbohydrates was recognised. The New Era It was, however, during the present century that there began a new era in the knowledge of -the nutritive needs of the body and the essential characters of foodstuffs. It is difficult now, in the light of present knowledge, to find a reason why the belief that the dietary value of foodstuffs rested solely on a chemical knowledge of proteins, fats and carbohydrates; or why it should have been accepted for so long without experimental proof especially in face of much evidence to the contrary. But the didactic influence of the chemists continued to the end of the nineteenth century. There had been for many years abundant evidence of the fact that a diet may be sufficient and of appropriate chemical constitution and yet fail to meet the full nutritional needs of man. It had been known for centuries that certain foods produced scurvy in soldiers,
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