Intravenous vitamin C has a storied past. Not at the time identified as the active therapeutic component, vitamin C in citrus fruits was demonstrated by James Lind in 1747 to prevent scurvy in sailors. Citrus fruit therapy had been inconsistently utilized for 500 years for the same purpose, but was not officially acknowledged and promoted by the British admiralty until 1785, 50 years after Lind’s great experiment. During that interval multitudes of nutritionally deprived seamen suffered and died from a preventable disease Scurvy caused gastrointestinal, skin and mucous membrane bleeding, skin rashes, loss of teeth, fatigue, depression, and poor wound healing. Oranges and limes, high in vitamin C, were the answer.

Linus Pauling, a world famous chemist and beneficiary of two Nobel prizes, began studying vitamin C in 1966, after discussions with Irwin Stone, another researcher. From his work came the recommendation of vitamin C for the common cold, an idea repudiated out of hand by the medical community. He later studied intravenous vitamin C as a treatment for lung cancer, with survival rates months longer than for patients who did not receive vitamin C. (more…)