Fitness

Dr. Klenner, Chief of Staff at the Memorial Hospital in Reidsville, North Carolina, appears to have given the largest quantities of this vitamin to date, usually by injection.” It was my good fortune to visit with Dr. Klenner recently and hear him lecture. He showed slides of hospital records and fever charts and told of case after case of meningitis, encephalitis, polio, virus pneumonia, and serious complications following scarlet fever and other diseases treated with massive amounts of vitamin C. Many patients had not been expected to live; often penicillin, aureomycin, and other antibiotics had been given without success; in most instances, fevers ranged from 103 to 105° F. Within a few minutes after the vitamin was injected, fevers started to drop and temperatures often reached normal within a few hours. Usually the patient enjoyed the next meal and was ready to be discharged from the hospital in two or three days. The amount of vitamin given varied with the severity of the illness. The initial dose was usually 2,000 to 6,000 milligrams .( 2 to 6 grams), Iollowed four and eight hours later by a second and a third injection of 2,000 to 4,000 milligrams if the temperature did not remain normal; injections were continued around the clock when needed.

Dr. Klenner told of an eighteen-month-old girl suffering from polio. The mother reported that the child had become paralyzed following a convulsion, after which she soon lost consciousness. When Dr. Klenner first saw the child, her little body was blue, stiff, and cold to the touch; he could neither hear heart sounds nor feel her pulse; her rectal temperature was 100° F. The only sign of life he could detect was a suggestion of moisture condensed on a minor held to her mouth. The mother was convinced that the child was already dead. Dr. Klenner injected 6,000 milligrams of vitamin C into her blood; four hours later the child was cheerful and alert, holding a bottle with her right hand, though her left side was paralyzed. A second injection was given; soon the child was laughing and holding her bottle with both hands, all signs of paralysis gone. Dr. Klenner quite understandably speaks of vitamin C as “the antibiotic par excellence.” A physician who has obtained striking results in treating polio with vitamin C at the Los Angeles County Hospital matched Dr. Klenner’s enthusiasm with the remark, “If anything should be called a miracle drug, it is vitamin C.”

With his extremely ill patients, Dr. Klenner found that no vitamin C whatsoever could be detected in the blood only a few minutes after massive doses were injected; nor was any vitamin C found in the urine. It is his belief that this vitamin combines immediately with toxins and/or virus, thus causing the fever to drop. In cases where the fever rises again later, he believes that too little vitamin C has been given in the initial dose; that virus not destroyed multiplies and again causes the temperature to increase. For this reason, he emphasizes that if the original dose is sufficiently large, no further massive amounts need be given.

Many other investigators have studied the effect of massive doses of vitamin C. In an attempt to saturate the tissues, physicians have recommended as much as 1,000 milligrams every hour during the day from 1 to 3 days to persons suffering from arthritis, gout and almost any infectious disease, infection, or allergy, the same amount being repeated during subsequent acute attacks. They have also recommended that this quantity be taken immediately at the onset of a cold or any infection and that the vitamin be stopped as soon as the symptoms have disappeared. On the other hand, satisfactory results have been reported when an allergy or lead poisoning has been treated with as little as 300 milligrams daily. These problems, however, are medical ones; our problem is prevention.

Physicians have pointed out that patients with polio, for example, have often been sick several days before a doctor is called in and a diagnosis made. By the time such cases are cleared by a social worker and a March-of-Dimes committee and are actually checked into a hospital, they are in what has been described as “a sorry state.” Vitamin C has proved to be most effective when taken at the onset of an infection, at which time a patient rarely sees his physician. Relatively smaller amounts are needed than those required after an illness becomes serious. If sufficient quantities of the vitamin are obtained, often serious illness may be prevented. It appears desirable, therefore, for persons to learn when large amounts of vitamin C should be taken and how much should be taken. Such information has great comfort value.

I asked 15 physicians if they felt it wise to recommend that families keep high-potency, vitamin-C tablets in the medicine chest and use them at the onset of any illness. The most frequent reply was, “They are certainly safer than aspirin.” Several physicians remarked, “Tell people to take them when they need to, but the rest of the time to stick to orange juice and natural sources.” Others pointed out the importance of advising large initial doses rather than smaller frequent ones, the total of which might be larger than would be needed if the original dose were sufficient.

When persons are too ill to eat or retain food and/or to digest or absorb it easily, as were Dr. Klenner’s patients, injections of vitamin C are obviously advantageous. If the vitamin is taken immediately at the onset of an illness, however, such difficulties rarely arise. Occasionally undissolved tablets can be seen in the stools, particularly if diarrhea occurs. For this reason I usually tell people to bring one cup of water to a boil, add to it 50 tablets of vitamin C of 500 milligrams each or 100 tablets of 250 milligrams each, stir until the tablets are dissolved, pour the solution into a glass jar, and keep it refrigerated. Since tablets do not contain the enzymes found in natural foods, the synthetic vitamin is quite stable to heat. Each teaspoon of this solution would contain 500 milligrams; one or two tablespoons added to any sweet juice are quite palatable. Less vitamin C is needed if the solution is taken in fresh, canned, or frozen orange juice to which are added the juice of a lemon, sugar to taste, and perhaps W teaspoon of a calcium salt 3 (p. 181); the fresh citrus juices supply vitamin P, or rutin, which prevents vitamin C from being destroyed in the body by oxygen; the calcium helps to prevent the toxic substances from entering the cells. An adult can take tablets of both vitamin C and calcium. Since the vitamin is an acid, large amounts can cause severe burning of the throat and stomach. When more vitamin C is taken than is needed, the acid being thrown off in the urine usually causes a burning sensation when voided.