Résumé

Throughout history, civilized societies have devoted a deep interest in, and concern about, the integrity of food supply. Long before the development of the distinct scientific discipline of nutrition, philosophers and later physicians paid close attention to the role of the daily diet in individual and public health. Interestingly, during the last 2000 years, from the time of Hippokrates (460-377 BC) to the dawn of modern medicine, there was little distinction made between food and drugs. The practice of medicine itself consisted largely of the wise choice of natural food products. Hippokrates clearly recognized the essential relationship between food and health and emphasized that „...differences of diseases depend on nutriment“ [1, 2]. Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) found widespread adulteration throughout food and drug supply outlined in his Natural History „... so many poisons are employed to force wine to suit our taste - and we are surprised that it is not wholesome!“ Pliny, also reflected the layperson’s distrust of medical practice that has existed throughout the ages: „Physicians acquire their knowledge from our danger by considering poisons as ... food constituents in our daily nutrition, though the greatest aid to health is moderation in food. Only a physician can commit homicide with complete impunity [3]. In contrast, Galen (131 - 201 AD), a physician, reflected confidence in the knowledge and ability of physicians to establish sound diets that would advance public health [4]. Overstated beliefs in the effects of aliments upon health and disease, appear to be based on magical thinking about food. Utilizing the primeval principle that like makes like, the alchemists pursued their search for the „elixir vitae“. Modern successors of the alchemists employed the same concept. Casimir Funk discovered in the shell of rice grain a nitrogen-containing amine-base (amine); since he thought that this substance is „life-essential“ for the human being, he defined the idiom „Vitamin“ from „Vita = life“ and „amine“ [5]. He also reviewed evidence concerning the etiology of several food-related diseases and proposed that the absence of „vitamins“ caused those diseases. Indeed, it is fascinating that the power we today attribute to vitamins is not unlike that one described to „elixir vitae“ [6].

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