Among the modern life sciences, physiology trails only the evolutionary sciences in the attention it has received from historians. Lamarck, Darwin, and Mendel may be better known than the heroes of modern physiology, but names such as François Magendie (1783–1855), Johannes Müller (1801–1858), Claude Bernard (1813–1878), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), and Charles Sherrington (1857–1952) require little introduction for those who read more than occasionally in the history of science. Physiology may have attracted such attention because it has been widely viewed as the first of the modern biological disciplines to emerge from traditional approaches to the phenomena of life embodied in medicine and natural history. Furthermore, physiology allowed historians of science of the first generation after World War II to develop a series of narratives that reflected their broader concerns about the nature and significance of modern science and about how to write its history. If the historiography of the physical sciences in the 1950s and 1960s found its normative models in the “Scientific Revolution” of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so, too, in those decades did historians of the life sciences locate their normative models in nineteenth-century physiology.

The concept of supplementary food substances made its appearance earlier in this century. It was then clearly established that both fat- and water-soluble substances can prevent deficiency disease (DeLuca, 1981; DeLuca & Schnoes, 1983). A fatsoluble substance with antirachitic activity termed ‘vitamin D’ was identified in cod liver oil. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that ultraviolet light could heal rickets (DeLuca, 1981; DeLuca & Schnoes, 1983) by inducing antirachitic activity in the sterol fraction of food (DeLuca, 1981; DeLuca & Schnoes, 1983). This pioneering work provided the means for the prevention and elimination of rickets as a major medical problem.

It is now recognized that the role of vitamin D is much broader than regulation of calcium metabolism as reflected by its effects on the proliferation and differentiation of a variety of cells, including normal, malignant and immune cells (Holick, 1995).

Classical actions of vitamin D

A deficiency of vitamin D results in one of two diseases: either rickets in children or osteomalacia in the adult. The major target tissues of vitamin D in the regulation of calcium metabolism are the intestine, bone and kidney. Parathyroid hormone (PTH) is required for calcium mobilization from bone and for renal conservation of calcium, but vitamin D itself, stimulates intestinal calcium absorption.

The European Community countries appear to be locked into a process that may eventually lead their economies to full monetary unification. Although the road to monetary union in the EC is bound to be bumpy, all countries appear committed to the final goal, with the possible exception of Britain. According to plans under negotiation at the inter-governmental conference that started in December 1990, the currencies of twelve European economies, which include a number of leading international currencies such as the Deutschmark, sterling and the French franc, will ultimately be replaced by a new currency, likely to be called the ‘ecu’.

European monetary union, when and if it occurs, is bound to have important international implications. The new currency will be issued on behalf of a large economic area, by a new Central Bank which will be responsible for the joint monetary policy of the EC. Other international institutions such as the G-7, the IMF and the OECD will have to adapt (see Alogoskoufis and Portes, 1990), but, more importantly, there will be a major shock to the existing international monetary and exchange rate system. The ecu will be a serious challenger for the role of the US dollar as the dominant international means of payment, unit of account and store of value, and the monetary policies of the new European Central Bank will have far more important international spillovers than those of any of the existing central banks of the EC countries.