Christiaan Eijkman

<p>Christiaan Eijkman was born on November 8, 1858, in Nijkerk, Netherlands. After graduating from the University of Amsterdam medical school, he served as a medical officer in the Dutch East Indies. In 1886, he was assigned to investigate the crippling nerve disease beriberi in Batavia (Jakarta).</p><p>Eijkman discovered that laboratory chickens fed white polished rice developed polyneuritis mimicking beriberi, but recovered when fed unpolished brown rice containing the outer rice bran. His work established that the disease was caused by a dietary deficiency rather than a pathogen, leading to the discovery of Vitamin B1 (thiamine) and earning him the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.</p>