Christiaan eijkman biography

He noticed the symptoms of beriberi in some chickens used in his laboratory when their feed had been altered for a few months. During that time, chickens in the laboratory had been fed leftover rice from military rations, until a new cook refused to allow military rice to be fed to civilian animals. Rice was then purchased from another source, and the birds soon recovered.

Eijkman surmised that polished rice lacked a dietary component found in unpolished riceand that beriberi was caused by depriving the body of this component, which he called "the anti-beriberi factor". Subsequently, Eijkman was able to prove that the disease was not caused by blood contamination, respiratory christiaan eijkman biography, perspiration, or seasonal or temperature variation.

He suspected the christiaan eijkman biography was caused by an unknown bacterium. Eijkman was unable to continue his research due to ill health, but a study by his friend Adolphe Vorderman confirmed the link between polished rice and the disease. Eventually it was determined the missing compound that was causing beriberi was vitamin B 1thiamine.

Chemist Casimir Funk shortened the term "vital amine" to coin a new word, vitamin. For his contributions to the discovery of antineuritic vitamins, Eijkman won the Nobel Prize for Medicinesharing the prize with Sir Frederick Hopkins. Funk, perhaps unfairly, was never given full credit for his work. In addition to his work on beriberi, he occupied himself with other problems such as arach fermentationand indeed still had time to write two textbooks for his students at the Java Medical School, one on physiology and the other on organic chemistry.

In he became successor to G. His inaugural speech was entitled Over Gezondheid en Ziekten in Tropische Gewesten On health and diseases in tropical regions. At Utrecht, Eijkman turned to the study of bacteriologyand carried out his well-known fermentation test, by means of which it can be readily established if water has been polluted by human and animal defecation containing coli bacilli.

Another research was into the rate of mortality of bacteria as a result of various external factors, whereby he was able to show that this process could not be represented by a logarithmic curve. This was followed by his investigation of the phenomenon that the rate of growth of bacteria on solid substratum often decreases, finally coming to a halt.

Beyerinck's auxanographic method was applied on several occasions by Eijkman, as for example during the secretion of enzymes which break down casein or bring about haemolysiswhereby he could demonstrate the hydrolysis of fats under the influence of lipases. Eijkman did not confine himself to the University. He also engaged himself in problems of water supply, housing, school hygiene, physical education.

As a member of the Gezondheidsraad Health Council and the Gezondheidscommissie Health Commissionhe participated in the struggle against alcoholism and tuberculosis. He was the founder of the Vereeniging tot Bestrijding van de Tuberculose Society for the struggle against tuberculosis. But the crown of all his work was the award of the Nobel Prize in He was also honorary fellow of the Royal Sanitary Institute in London.

To honor his dedication, the government of Indonesia named his research center on pathology and bacteriology the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology. Inbefore his departure to the Indies, Eijkman married Aaltje Wigeri van Edema, who died in Contents move to sidebar hide. Secondary Literature. See J. Sevensma, ed. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve christiaan eijkman biography time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. Christiaan Eijkman discovered that not all diseases were caused by microorganisms like bacteria and viruses, but that some were due to dietary deficiencies, particularly deficiencies of certain vitamins.

Born in the Netherlands inEijkman received his medical degree from the University of Amsterdam inthen went to Germany to study under the famous bacteriologist, Heinrich Robert Koch Encouraged by Koch, Eijkman joined a commission sent to the Dutch East Indies now Indonesia in to investigate the disease beriberi and begin the work that was to make him famous.

At the time, beriberi was a widely prevalent disease, characterized by polyneuritis, the kind of nerve damage that causes numbness, paralysis and in many cases, death. Because Louis Pasteur 's germ theory of disease had already led to so many successful cures, physicians now assumed that all diseases must be caused by microorganisms.

But the scientific commission found no microorganism that caused beriberi. Disappointed, most of the group returned home inbut Eijkman remained behind to serve as director of a new bacteriology lab set up in a medical school constructed for native doctors. It was there that around Eijkman helped solve the problem of beriberi, partly by accident.

When a group of laboratory chickens suddenly developed a strange disease — one with symptoms that resembled polyneuritis — Eijkman promptly commandeered the chickens and once again tried to find the causative germ, without success. Moreover, he was unable to transfer the disease from sick chickens to healthy ones. To add to his frustration, the disease vanished as suddenly as it had started.

Fortunately, Eijkman refused to give up. He stubbornly continued to try to figure out this peculiar vanishing disease. Before long, he learned that, for a brief period of time, one of the cooks had been feeding the lab chickens boiled rice from the hospital's own stores. A second cook, however, decided it was wrong to feed rice meant for people to mere chickens, and switched back to cheaper unpolished rice.

Oddly enough, Eijkman learned that the chickens had developed their illness while eating the polished rice. To determine whether the polished rice was actually responsible for causing the sickness, Eijkman began feeding it to other chickens which quickly developed the beriberi-like illness. Eijkman could then cure this new illness by switching the sick chickens back to unpolished rice.

Eijkman had discovered a dietary deficiency disease. At first, he did not fully understand the meaning of his findings, assuming that there must be a toxin poison in rice grains that could be neutralized by something in the hulls. But others would quickly clarify his results. A younger colleague, Gerrit Grijns, took over the nutrition studies when an illness forced Eijkman to go home in In Grijns proposed that beriberi was caused not by germs, but by the lack of some natural substance present in rice hulls and other foods this substance turned out to be thiamine, a vitamin.

Over the next decade, a number of investigators — most notably, England 's Frederick Gowland Hopkins — came to similar conclusions about a number of diseases and a new era in medicine was launched. Eijkman, whose work served as the basis for the modern theory of vitamins, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine with Hopkins in InPolish chemist Kazimierz Funk isolated a substance from rice bran that prevented the development of beriberi.

This substance, now known as thiamine or vitamin B1, was absent in polished rice. Funk coined the term "vitamine" later changed to "vitamin" to describe these essential substances. Eijkman's research in Java laid the foundation for the discovery of methods to treat many diseases associated with nutrient deficiencies. InEijkman and Frederick Gowland Hopkins were awarded the Nobel Prize for their contributions to the discovery of vitamins.

However, Eijkman was too ill to personally receive the award. He retired in and passed away in Utrecht in Christiaan Eijkman was born on August 11,in a Dutch village called Nijkerk. He is the seventh of ten children. From the beginning, Eijkman had an interest in studying medicine. Despite financial constraints, he worked hard to realize his dream of studying medicine, enrolling in the Military Medical School of the University of Amsterdam, funded by the Dutch Ministry of War in Jansen, 3.

Christiaan Eijkman joined the army in the Dutch East Indies after completing his medical studies to earn his Ph. InEijkman sailed to the Dutch East Indies. Meanwhile, the Aceh war was in full swing. Arriving in the Dutch East Indies, Eijkman was immediately stunned by the large number of soldiers paralyzed by beriberi, known in colonial medical circles as polyneuritis endemica perniciosa.

Beriberi is a peripheral nerve disorder that causes pain and paralysis that can lead to death if left unchecked. In his place of duty, he discovered that beriberi had become endemic. Both local and European soldiers contracted the disease. This finding led to the preliminary conclusion that beriberi must have an infectious origin. So he decided to conduct further research to find the source of the bacteria.

After two years in the Dutch East Indies, Eijkman was granted permission to return to the Netherlands because his wife was ill.

Christiaan eijkman biography

However, his wife died after his return to the Netherlands Verhoef, After his wife left, Eijkman devoted his energy to researching the causes of beriberi. He visited Robert Koch in Berlin to learn some basic bacteriological techniques. There he met Professor Cornelis Pekelharing, a bacteriologist, and Professor Cornelis Winkler, a neuroscientist responsible for beriberi research Carpenter, After a year of research, Pekelharing and Winkler returned to the Netherlands.

Both believe beriberi is an infectious disease caused by micrococcus bacteria that cause nerve cell degeneration.