Infantile scurvy appeared almost as a new disease toward the end of the 19th century by which time the heating of raw milk had become commonplace to kill germs such as Listeria which had been a cause of infant morality. However the process had unknowingly destroyed the vitamins C in raw milk. Commercially prepared baby foods had become accepted by the upper socioeconomic classes based on the manufacturers assertions it was as nutritious as breast milk. It was not however and contributed to infantile scurvy.

In 1912, Holst and Frolisch induced and cured scurvy in guinea pigs by controlling diet and with this an animal model could now be used for experimentation.

In 1914, Alfred Hess, a pediatrician practicing at the Hebrew Asylum in New York, observed an increase in scurvy among the infants at the asylum. This increase in scurvy coincided with the introduction of pasteurized milk and exclusion of orange juice from the infants' diet. Modifying the infants' diet, with the provision of raw milk or orange juice or potatoes, Hess reversed the scurvy and effected a cure. Hess had demonstrated that pasteurization results in the loss of vitamin C. He recommended the provision of fresh fruit or vegetable juice for the prevention of scurvy in infants fed on heated formulas. This practice of supplementing the diet of infants receiving heated formulas with fresh fruit or vegetable juices eventually led to the eradication of infantile scurvy in the United States.

In 2016 it was recognized vitamins can improve brain function. Some 75 years after Pauling and Hoffer first published this.

Functional Brain Activity Changes after 4 Weeks Supplementation with a Multi-Vitamin/Mineral Combination: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial Exploring Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials during Working Memory.

This study provides preliminary evidence of changes in functional brain activity during working memory associated with 4 weeks of daily treatment with a multi-vitamin and -mineral combination in healthy adults, using two distinct but complementary measures of functional brain activity

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00288/full