| minerals | Native, inorganic or fossilised organic substances having a definite chemical composition and formed by inorganic reactions. They may occur as individual crystals or may be disseminated in some other mineral or rock. (12 Dec 1998) |
|---|---|
| antirachitic vitamins | Ergocalciferol (v. D2) and cholecalciferol (v. D3). (05 Mar 2000) |
| vitamins | For the various vitamins see Vitamins. The word vitamin was coined in 1911 by the warsaw-born biochemist casimir funk (1884-1967). at the lister institute in london, funk isolated a substance that prevented nerve inflammation (neuritis) in chickens raised on a diet deficient in that substance. He named the substance vitamine because he believed it was necessary to life and it was a chemical amine. The e at the end was later removed when it was recognised that vitamins need not be amines. The letters (a, b, c and so on) were assigned to the vitamins in the order of their discovery. The one exception was vitamin k which was assigned its k from koagulation by the danish researcher henrik dam. (12 Dec 1998) |
| fat-soluble vitamins | Those vitamin's, soluble in fat solvents (nonpolar solvents) and relatively insoluble in water, marked in chemical structure by the presence of large hydrocarbon moieties in the molecule; e.g., vitamin's A, D, E, K. (05 Mar 2000) |