Dutch physician Gerrit Grijns (1865-1944) from the University of Utrecht. Courtesy of the Journal of Nutrition.
At the end of the 19th century, Dutch physician Gerrit Grijns (1865-1944) from the University of Utrecht, working in Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), developed a dietary deficiency explanation of the nutritional neuropathy beriberi that presaged the “vitamin doctrine.” Although Grijn’s work was overshadowed by that of Christiaan Eijkman (1858-1930), his predecessor, Grijns developed a new pathophysiological concept — dietary deficiency of a micronutrient causing neurological disease, while Eijkman recognized a role of dietary factors, but never fully moved beyond increasingly improbable bacteriological mechanisms. [Read more…]
