f The Invention of Nutrients – William Prout, Digestion and Alimentary Substances in the 1820s

The early history of nutrient research leads back to the turn of the 19^th century and the milieu of chemically interested physicians. William Prout, a physician in London, is supposed to be the first who developed a concept of nutrients or alimentary substances as he called them. The paper introduces Prout’s life, states his work and contributions to the development of chemistry and concentrates on Prout’s use of chemical analysis as a way of understanding human digestion. It will be shown in detail how he came to introduce the term “alimentary substance”. The aim of the paper is to show from the point of view of the history of knowledge that nutrients are not so much the building blocks of our food but merely experimental laboratory entities. Hence, as technologically produced objects of knowledge they cannot be considered independently from the style of research, theory or apparatus, which brought them into life.