Who Found Vitamin B1, and How Polished Rice Taught Science a Lesson
The history of thiamine starts with rice. Takaki's 1884 navy diet ended beriberi in the Japanese Navy decades before anyone isolated the missing factor. Eijkman's chickens, the 1929 Nobel and the 1936 synthesis complete the story.
The history of vitamin B1 starts with a rice ration. In 1884, a Japanese naval surgeon named Kanehiro Takaki put his sailors on barley, meat, milk, bread and beans instead of polished white rice, and according to PubMed, that diet eliminated beriberi in the Japanese Navy ([Raichurkar et al., 2024](https://doi.org/10.1097/AS9.0000000000000422)). The missing factor was not isolated for another four decades ([Carpenter, 2012](https://doi.org/10.1159/000343109)). ## What did polished rice have to do with beriberi? Polished white rice had lost its bran layer, and beriberi became far more common in Asia as rice milling changed in the late 19th century ([Yamashita and Aikawa, 2017](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30549780/); [Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02130-1)). Jukes put the trade-off plainly: milling kept rice from going rancid, but it also removed the vitamin B1 ([Jukes, 1989](https://doi.org/10.1016/0091-7435(89)90023-6)). In the Dutch East Indies between 1890 and 1900, Christiaan Eijkman found that chickens fed polished rice developed a polyneuritis resembling beriberi, and that adding back the silverskin removed in polishing prevented it ([Carpenter and Sutherland, 1995](https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/125.2.155)). The Nobel account says he noticed by chance that hens fed milled rice showed similar symptoms, and that in 1897 he concluded a substance in the rice husk counteracted the illness ([NobelPrize.org, Eijkman](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1929/eijkman/facts/)). Other deficiency stories from the same decades follow a similar order. The [history of vitamin B12](/blog/history/history-of-vitamin-b12-from-liver-cure-to-cobalamin) starts with liver extracts in the 1920s, and the vitamin itself was isolated in 1947 ([Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02130-1)). ## Who showed that a food factor, not a germ, caused beriberi? No single experiment settled it. Researchers first blamed microbes. In 1886, Sugenoya and Cornelissen concluded that a beriberi bacillus existed, and Pekelharing and Winkler thought they had isolated a micrococcus ([de Knecht-van Eekelen, 1997](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9380156/); [Carpenter, 2012](https://doi.org/10.1159/000343109)). Eijkman and Winkler still refused to rule out a bacterial infection until the early 1920s ([de Knecht-van Eekelen, 1997](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9380156/)). The deficiency idea came through Gerrit Grijns, who succeeded Eijkman in Java. By 1901 he suggested a dietary deficiency explanation, after eliminating deficiencies of known dietary components and excluding a toxic effect ([Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02130-1)). Takaki's navy results came first, and they did not explain the mechanism. Horiuchi and colleagues wrote that Takaki prevented beriberi by changing the diet, but the primary cause had yet to be elucidated ([Horiuchi et al., 2015](https://doi.org/10.1265/jjh.70.110)). The Lancet praised Takaki's research, although Eijkman was very critical of his methods ([Yamashita and Aikawa, 2017](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30549780/)). The Japanese Army did not change its white rice rations until March 1905 ([Raichurkar et al., 2024](https://doi.org/10.1097/AS9.0000000000000422)). ## Why did Casimir Funk coin the word vitamine? Casimir Funk introduced the word "vitamine" in 1912 ([Maltz, 2013](https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.112.171827)). He thought a group of trace dietary factors caused beriberi, scurvy, rickets and pellagra ([Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02129-5)). The name came from "vita," meaning life, and "amine," a nitrogenous substance essential for life ([Piro et al., 2010](https://doi.org/10.1159/000319165)). The amine part rested on a mistaken notion ([Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02129-5)), and Cecil Drummond changed the ending to "vitamin" in 1920 ([Maltz, 2013](https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.112.171827)). The Nobel account says Frederick Gowland Hopkins reported around 1910 that unknown substances were needed in small amounts for life processes, and that these came to be known as vitamins. The 1929 Nobel Prize went to Eijkman "for his discovery of the antineuritic vitamin," and Hopkins shared it "for his discovery of the growth-stimulating vitamins," with each taking half ([NobelPrize.org, Eijkman](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1929/eijkman/facts/); [NobelPrize.org, Hopkins](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1929/hopkins/facts/)). ## When was thiamine isolated and named? Barend Jansen and Willem Donath crystallized a substance from rice polishings in 1926, and it treated polyneuritis in pigeons ([Carpenter, 2012](https://doi.org/10.1159/000343109); [Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02130-1)). Robert Williams synthesized thiamin in 1936, a step Lanska credits to Williams and Cline ([Carpenter, 2012](https://doi.org/10.1159/000343109); [Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02130-1)). The Nobel account says the substance that counteracts beriberi was later designated vitamin B1 ([NobelPrize.org, Eijkman](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1929/eijkman/facts/)). ## Why do some people need extra thiamine? Several known conditions raise the risk of low thiamin, according to the NIH. Up to 80% of people with chronic alcoholism develop thiamin deficiency, because alcohol reduces absorption, liver stores and the body's conversion of thiamin to its active form ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). Bariatric surgery can cause severe deficiency through malabsorption, which can lead to beriberi or Wernicke's encephalopathy, and supplements that include thiamin are almost always recommended afterward ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). Research has linked loop diuretics such as furosemide to lower thiamin levels through urinary loss, and the published literature includes several cases of beriberi or Wernicke's encephalopathy after treatment with fluorouracil ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). Studies have found poor thiamin status in 21% to 98% of people with heart failure ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). People who take medications that can affect thiamin levels on a regular basis should discuss their thiamin status with their health care providers ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). ## How do modern thiamine supplements compare with food sources? In the U.S. diet, thiamin comes from food. About half of it comes from foods that naturally contain thiamin, and the rest from foods where it was added. Cereals and bread are the most common sources, and pork is another major one ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). Cooking and processing cut into it. Bread has 20% to 30% less thiamin than its raw ingredients, and unless white rice is enriched, it has one-tenth the thiamin of unenriched brown rice ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). Supplements are most useful when food alone cannot meet a need. A typical multivitamin or mineral supplement with thiamin provides about 1.5 mg, and the most common forms are thiamin mononitrate and thiamin hydrochloride. Benfotiamine, a synthetic derivative, is converted to thiamin in the body ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). The adult RDA is 1.2 mg a day for men and 1.1 mg for women aged 19 to 50, rising to 1.4 mg during pregnancy and lactation ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). For the energy-metabolism side of thiamin's job, see the [NAD longevity guide](/health/nad-longevity-complete-guide) and the [mitochondrial health guide](/health/mitochondrial-health-complete-guide). By the 1950s, synthetic thiamin was cheap enough to allow both treatment and prevention through food enrichment ([Lanska, 2010](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0072-9752(08)02130-1)). Breads, cereals and infant formulas in the United States and many other countries are fortified with it today ([NIH ODS](https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Thiamin-HealthProfessional/)). **Next reads** - [Mitochondrial health complete guide](/health/mitochondrial-health-complete-guide): the cellular energy side of the story, where thiamin plays a critical role in energy metabolism. - [History of vitamin C, from scurvy to ascorbic acid](/blog/history/history-of-vitamin-c-from-scurvy-to-ascorbic-acid): another deficiency story from the same era, where a different vitamin was the answer. ### Related reading - [The B-complex from one factor to eight](/blog/history/history-of-the-b-complex-from-one-factor-to-eight) - [The history of vitamin B2 from the yellow enzyme](/blog/history/history-of-riboflavin-b2-from-yellow-enzyme) - [The history of vitamin B3 from pellagra to flush](/blog/history/history-of-niacin-b3-from-pellagra-to-flush)