Related Articles
Boron
A mineral that helped preserve Egyptian mummies also sits at the heart of a modern cancer drug—and may nudge your bones, vitamin D, and inflammation in subtle...
Calcium
In 1808, a young Humphry Davy hooked his new battery to a paste of "lime," boiled off the mercury, and—against all expectations—pulled a silvery metal from...
Magnesium
On a summer day in 1618, a farmer in Epsom, England led his cows to a spring. They refused to drink—too bitter. But when he splashed the water on a rash, it...
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
Picture a sailor in 1747, gums bleeding, legs spotted, morale sinking. Six days after eating two oranges and a lemon, he's back on duty. Two centuries later, a...
Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol)
Berlin, winter of 1919. A pediatrician wheels a mercury-vapor lamp beside a child with bowed legs; weeks later, the bones harden and straighten....