Early Research into the Vitamins: The Work of Wilhelm Stepp

Wilhelm Stepp has been described in Germany as the “founder of the science of vitamins” (Schröder 1964). The purpose of this article is to reexamine his work first in the context of the knowledge and beliefs in 1907, the time at which he began his experiments, and then in the light of present-day knowledge. For the 50 years previous to 1907, German scientists had been recognized as the leaders in the field of nutrition, and their laboratories were the places to which many Americans and other Europeans would go for postgraduate training.