Eijkman

Christiaan Eijkman
Christiaan Eijkman
Born	(1858-08-11)11 August 1858 Nijkerk, Netherlands
Died	5 November 1930(1930-11-05) (aged 72) Utrecht, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Known for	Beriberi, vitamins
Awards	Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (1929)
Scientific career
Fields	Physiology

Christiaan Eijkman (Dutch: [ˈkrɪstijaːn ˈɛi̯kmɑn]; 11 August 1858 – 5 November 1930) was a Dutch physician and professor of physiology whose demonstration that beriberi is caused by poor diet led to the discovery of antineuritic vitamins (thiamine). Together with Sir Frederick Hopkins, he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1929 for the discovery of vitamins.

Christiaan Eijkman was born on 11 August 1858, at Nijkerk, Netherlands as the seventh child of Christiaan Eijkman, the headmaster of a local school, and Johanna Alida Pool. His elder brother Johann Frederik Eijkman (1851–1915) was also a chemist.

A year later, in 1859, the Eijkman family moved to Zaandam, where his father was appointed head of a newly founded school for advanced elementary education. It was here that Christiaan and his brothers received their early education. In 1875, after taking his preliminary examinations, Eijkman became a student at the Military Medical School of the University of Amsterdam, where he was trained as a medical officer for the Netherlands Indies Army, passing through all his examinations with honours.

From 1879 to 1881, he was an assistant of T. Place, Professor of Physiology, during which time he wrote his thesis On Polarization of the Nerves, which gained him his doctoral degree, with honours, on 13 July 1883.

In 1883, Eijkman left the Netherlands for The Indies, where he was made medical officer of health, first in Semarang, then later at Tjilatjap, a small village on the south coast of Java, and at Padang Sidempoean in Western Sumatra. It was at Tjilatjap that he caught malaria, which later so impaired his health that he, in 1885, had to return to Europe on sick-leave.