"The author [sc. C. Funk] states that this publication [sc. Die Vitamine] is the first attempt at a representation of our knowledge about vitamines and avitaminoses.‥ By the word avitaminoses, coined by the author, is understood what is called in English ‘deficiency diseases’" (OED).

"It is now known that all these diseases, with the exception of pellagra, can be prevented and cured by the addition of certain preventive substances; the deficient substances, which are of the nature of organic bases, we will call ‘vitamines’; and we will speak of a beri-beri or scurvy vitamine, which means a substance preventing the special disease" (OED).