Diane Wendt

The discovery of vitamins in the early 20th century opened the gates to the flood of dietary supplements we have today. The result has been the marketing of nutritional anxieties against a backdrop of minimal regulation.

Neither medicine nor food, the vitamin pill was born in the early 20th century and came of age during World War II. Now, vitamins are here to stay—and so is the controversy that swirls around them.

Mining magazines, newspapers, comic books, and movies to catch a glimpse of science as imagined by earlier generations.

In the late 19th century cod-liver oil was proclaimed the cure for many ailments. One problem: the oil’s foul taste.