— 1940 —

“... with leukemic lymphadenosis, even if the illness is not yet very life-threatening, a substantial vitamin C deficit is already present... this demonstrable deficit warrants the application of vitamin C, particularly in the treatment of the lymphatic forms of chronic leukemia...The treatment of chronic myeloid and lymphatic leukemias only with vitamin C does not lead to satisfying success. Nevertheless vitamin C favorably affects the general state, and is indicated in hemorrhagic tendencies.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: This report showed on the one hand that in the context of x-ray irradiation of leukemia patients’lymph nodes — the “modern” treatment of the era — ascorbate improved the general condition of patients and checked the leukemia-related tendency to hemorrhage. On the other hand, the ascorbate dosages used were very modest by 21st-century orthomolecular standards, and were employed only during physiologically stressful and damaging x-ray treatment.

Acting conservatively, the clinicians were unwilling to set aside the standard treatment protocols with which they were comfortable, and indeed on which they had built reputations and a profitable industry — a situation no different 70 years later! Had the ascorbate dosages been rather larger and/or had the patients taken sufficient amounts outside the clinical setting, the author’s experience and conclusions might have been different.]

— 1942 —

“The writer succeeded in ten cases in checking a pronounced x-ray leukopenia, which had appeared in connection with protracted x-ray treatment of cancer of the stomach, by means of large intravenous doses of vitamin C.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: This report is noteworthy in that the clinician made the leap from observing blood cell improvement in a leukemia patient receiving ascorbate, to using ascorbate to good effect in x-radiation-induced pseudo-leukemia. Out of economic necessity, and possibly out of ignorance of its nontoxicity in larger amounts, he used rather small 500 mg injected doses of ascorbate, and administered it less frequently than other clinicians and researchers would in the years following.]

—

“Strangely enough, [two] patients showed very good vitamin C levels before starting treatment, yet they were greatly benefited by adequate dosage.  [Another] got almost immediate relief after a single dose of 1,000 mg ... Apparently there was distinct gain with 88 per cent of the patients.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: While the positive results of this study were encouraging, these authors typically were operating with the conviction that ascorbate “tissue saturation” and “urinary spillage” somehow prove that higher doses are  unnecessary and not beneficial.  Bizarrely, against much contrary evidence, the saturation and spillage arguments are still used today as justification for not taking large doses.

Even though the authors were puzzled that  patients with “very good” ascorbate spillage responded to “adequate” (i.e. enough extra to alleviate symptoms) dosage, perhaps their idee fixe prevented them from accepting their own evidence that something else was going on.  It could be that if they had measured blood ascorbate levels, their conclusions might have been different.]

—

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: This is a sad, horrifying account of the deaths and autopsies of three non-breastfed infants who had been fed — on the advice of “experts” — diets all but totally deficient in ascorbate. Significantly, all died in a SIDS-like manner. Today the deaths would certainly have been classified as SIDS, the causative or contributory factors of which are still declared as unknown by orthodox Western medicine. Fortunately the reader may know better, especially after reading The Answer to Crib Death: “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome”]

— 1943 —

“...the excellent therapeutic action of immediate daily intravenous injections of 10—50 cg of ascorbic acid is stressed. The eruption rapidly subsides and the very distressing pains which frequently follow the eruption are largely avoided... In the cases where the pain is slow to disappear, the addition of ... vitamin B1 to the last ascorbic acid injections hastens the cure.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: Highly successful treatment of shingles (herpes) without patent antivirals during wartime in Geneva; is this first you’ve heard of it? Of course this fits with Klenner’s later concurrence that ascorbate is a specific, potent antiviral, as well as his use of thiamine (vitamin B1) to protect and accelerate the healing of nerves.]

— 1944 —

“[Ascorbate’s] immediate use has resulted in the prevention of [pulmonary] complications and there has not been a single death in these aged patients from pulmonary complications since November 1939. ... Irrespective of the blood levels or deficiency of vitamin C, ascorbic acid is a valuable adjunct in tiding these aged patients over their critical postoperative period.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: This one is interesting because it shows the utility of ascorbate in handling immediate post-operative vulnerability. Considering the miniscule doses employed — 25 to 100 mg — it seems likely that the patients under consideration were already on the verge of scurvy and suffering other illness as a result. The astonishment of the clinicians at the improvement in the ascorbate-treated patients shows just how bad normal clinical treatment was at the time. Use of pre-operative ascorbate was apparently not deemed appropriate or necessary!]

—

“Ascorbic acid was ... able to reduce the [patient’s] exquisite sensitivity to ragweed pollen antigen.”

— 1946 —

“Vitamin C,... if given orally within the hour before operation, materially decreases traumatic shock as shown by much clinical evidence...
In the minor surgery of teeth extraction, oral administration of ... vitamin C within the hour before operation is remarkably successful in preventing shock or postoperative weakness...

“Immediate administration of... vitamin C to 35 assorted cases of accidents at coal mines seemed to increase shock resistance and to improve the condition of the patients upon arrival at a distant hospital...

“Intravenous injections of ... vitamin C in sterile, buffered solutions was used preoperatively and postoperatively in a series of 50 major abdominal operations with excellent results.”

— 1947 —

“The availability of the sodium salt of ascorbic acid for oral use represents a marked advance in the therapeutic approach to allergy.
In refractory cases of allergy and asthma sodium ascorbate was more effective than ascorbic acid.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: The use of sodium ascorbate in allergies instead of ascorbic acid may seem like a fine point, but the author of this study presents ample clinical evidence with a sound biochemical basis.  Anywhere from 300 to 1500 mg/day gave great relief to the patients, whose case histories and comments are interesting to read.  One young patient received iron injections for anemia; we know today (see 1995 Sharma study) that ascorbate so enhances dietary iron absorption that supplemental iron salts would probably have been unnecessary.

At any rate, most current allergy “remedies” have potentially dangerous side-effects and raise significant toxicity issues ... unlike sodium ascorbate.]

—

“If the large dose of vitamin C is given very soon after onset of the cold, it is aborted in the majority of cases.... if vitamin C is adequately taken, patients who used to suffer the torments of a dry, rasping throat growing increasingly worse for three days or so, no longer suffer throat torture, and nasal secretion appears within a day or so, often within a few hours.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: Markwell’s report on treating colds with ascorbate was not the first, but differed from most of its predecessors by specifying doses of 750-1250 mg/day, with such relatively large dosages continuing for the duration of the illness.  Earlier researchers, too timid to give doses larger than 200-500 mg/day, observed only limited, inconsistent improvement in the symptoms and duration of colds.

Even though Markwell insisted on treating ascorbate as a medication to be administered in “large” doses only during illnesses, the vital concept of taking “megadoses” was introduced, thereby setting the stage for more intensive research in the following years.  He also called on pharmaceuticals manufacturers to make available tablets of ascorbic acid in larger (350 mg) dosages.]

— 1948 —

“Since it is common knowledge that there are definite individual variations in absorption of vitamin C ... the I. V. [intravenous] and I. M. [intramuscular] routes were used ... three to seven injections gave complete clinical and x-ray response in all of our [42] cases.

“In almost every case the patient felt better within an hour after the first injection and noted a very definite change after two hours.  Nausea was relieved by the first injection as was the headache ... and it was the rule to find a [fever] drop of 2°F. several hours after the first 1000 mg.”

—

“No case of heat prostration has developed in any worker who has taken vitamin C, 100 mg. daily since this program was instituted in 1939.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial: This article is interesting in that it exemplifies (see Discussion) the typical disbelief and skepticism by peers who cannot accept obvious clinical results, preferring instead to pursue their own pet theories and prejudiced explanations. Note the tiny amounts administered.]

— 1949 —

“... sixty patients, given Vitamin C during the ragweed hay-fever season, showed an improvement of 50 per cent or more in about half of the patients who took 250 mg. three or four times daily.”

[AscorbateWeb Editorial The principal author of this study performed “an extremely skeptical analysis” of the subjects’ reactions and impressions and had to conclude that ascorbate was indeed of value in the treatment of seasonal pollen allergies. This was before the widespread insistence on “scientific” double-blind testing methodologies, which effectively rendered unpublishable any observations by practicing physicians and others not within the sphere of agendized pharmaceutical trials subsidized by governmental and corporate entities.]

—

“The treatment employed [in the poliomyelitis epidemic in North Carolina in 1948, 60 cases]  was vitamin C in massive doses... given like any other antibiotic every two to four hours. The initial dose was 1000 to 2000 mg., depending on age. Children up to four years received the injections intramuscularly ... For patients treated in the home the dose schedule was 2000 mg. by needle every six hours, supplemented by 1000 to 2000 mg. every two hours by mouth ... dissolved in fruit juice ... All patients were clinically well after 72 hours. ...Where spinal taps were performed, it was the rule to find a reversion of the fluid to normal after the second day of treatment.

“In herpes zoster... [eight] cases were treated in this series, all of adults.  Seven experienced cessation of pain within two hours... drying of the vesicles within 24 hours and were clear of lesions within 72 hours.

“In herpes simplex it is important to continue the treatment for at least 72 hours..... In several cases 10 mg. of riboflavin by mouth t.i.d. in conjunction with the vitamin C injections appeared to cause faster healing.

“Chickenpox gave equally good response, ... vesicles were crusted after the first 24 hours, and the patient well in three to four days.

“The response of virus encephalitis to ascorbic acid therapy was dramatic. Six cases ... were treated and cured with vitamin C injections.

“During [a measles] epidemic vitamin C was used prophylactically and all those who received as much as 1000 mg. every six hours, by vein or muscle, were protected from the virus.

“Of mumps, 33 cases were treated with ascorbic acid. When vitamin C was given at the peak of the infection the fever was gone within 24 hours, the pain within 36 hours, the swelling in 48 to 72 hours.”


[AscorbateWeb Editorial: Oops! Didn’t Sabin’s wretched, underdosed monkeys prove 10 years earlier that ascorbate was useless against the polio virus? Another thought-virus/meme to struggle against?]

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