Dam unit

A unit of quantity of vitamin K, 1/300th of the amount of vitamin K found in a gram of dried alfalfa, about 1/20 Ansbacher unit.

It is named for the Danish biochemist Carl Peter Henrik Dam (1895 – 1976), who discovered vitamin K.

H. Dam and J. Glavind.
Biochemical Journal, volume 32, page 1018 (1938).

Henrik Dam.
Fat-Soluble Vitamins.
in Annual Review of Biochemistry, volume 9 (1940), pages 353-382.
Palo Alto (CA): Annual Reviews, 1940.

Pages 366 to 369 give a brief critique of the state of the art in biological assays for vitamin K in 1940.
Page 368: “Ansbacher has compared his unit and the unit used by Dam and Glavind [above citation--ed.] by testing a sample of their standard by means of the Ansbacher procedure. The Ansbacher unit was found to equal twenty Dam units.”