title: The emergence of vitamins as bio-political objects during World War I.
abstract: Biochemists investigating the problem of the vitamins in the early years of the twentieth century were working without an object, as such. Although they had developed a fairly elaborate idea of the character of the 'vitamine' and its role in metabolism, vitamins were not yet biochemical objects, but rather 'functional ascriptions' and 'explanatory devices'. I suggest that an early instance of the changing status of the object of the 'vitamins' can be found in their stabilization, through the course of World War I, as bio-political objects for the British and Allied war effort. Vitamins emerged as players, active agents, in Britain's wartime bio-political problems of food distribution and population health and because of this they became increasingly real as bio-political objects, even prior to their isolation as bio-chemical molecules. I suggest that the materiality of our biology has agency in the development of political regimes and schemes.
authors.affiliation: Department III: Experimental Systems and Spaces of Knowledge, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany. robyn4@ualberta.ca
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D005523:Food Supply / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011057:Politics; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history*; D014815:Vitamins / Q000266:history*; D047828:World War I
chemical_list: D014815:Vitamins