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hrough the decades, scientists

at UW-Madison have made

many remarkable discoveries —

among them, how fish find
their way back to their spawning
grounds, how antibiotics can be mass
produced, how butterflies create wings,
and how synthetic genes are made.

But in one area Wisconsin scientists
have consistently excelled, leaving us a
legacy of vastly improved health, the
extirpation of disease, and an under-
standing of the components of diet that
make our bones strong and give our
bodies the ability to ward off what were
once common diseases.

The story of vitamins — their dis-
covery, how they are produced, and
their impact on human and animal
health — is a remarkable chronicle
rooted in the agricultural traditions of
nineteenth century Wisconsin. The tale
continues today in a handful of UW-
Madison labs, where the remaining
mysteries of these essential compounds
are yielding to the increasing technical
power of modern science.

But the story of vitamins is not sim-
ply one of noteworthy scientific discov-
ery. In many ways it also reflects the
history of the university itself and, some
would say, is inseparable from the
developments that forged UW-Madison
into an international research power-
house. The plot is fleshed out by singu-
lar and sometimes eccentric characters
who, while demonstrating their genius
in the lab, engaged variously in politics,
philanthropy, and business.

The scientific discoveries made by
the predecessors of today's UW-Madi-
son vitamin researchers literally
changed the world. By finding and then
elucidating the roles of some vitamins
in human health, pellagra and rickets —
chronic and debilitating ailments that
once afflicted tens of millions of people
in this country alone — disappeared in a
flash. The eradication of rickets in the
1920s was described in one popular
account as “a public health victory as
complete as any in history."

Like the showman that he was, Karl Paul
Link, the inventor of Warfarin, stands
before a poster proclaiming the virtues of
his novel rat poison. Acting as an
antagonist to the blood-clotting properties
of vitamin K, Warfarin also served as an
important blood-thinning drug. It was
secretly administered to President Dwight
D. Eisenhower after he suffered a heart
attack in 1955.

UWS