I had no idea that an effective anti-viral was discovered in the 1930s or any practical antibiotic for that matter that could be easily obtained and used. I thought Penicillin ushered in the antibiotic age in the mid 1940s, once it was able to be mass produced and that there is still no good anti-viral out there. How wrong I was!

     This is about the most amazing anti-microbial which you have never heard of-yet it is of a substance everyone has known since childhood. Vitamin C is as common place as dirt, purchasable everywhere and anywhere and taken orally by millions of people and, yet, not really known. It has been studied for years in such volume and veracity that it is surprising that it is not better appreciated. Only a few physicians and men of science have championed the amazing properties of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and to these stubborn gentlemen, we owe great gratitude. It is only they who have deciphered the secrets of how to best prescribe this common substance and turn upside down Vitamin C protocol as we know it. On the other hand, there have been many detractors of Vitamin C whose criticisms range long and loud. Take heed dear reader that you are not easily misled by their clouds that hide the truth even to this day. For the most part, these critics have only performed work with low level dosages and short protocol durations declaring trial outcomes, unsuccessful. Perhaps they have some bias, too? I don't know. Unless one uses adequate amounts of Vitamin C and for long enough duration, failure is inevitable. Vitamin C seems the only exception to the general rule that more is not better which I can think of! Mostly the more the better will get you killed in the medical world-not so with Vitamin C! Probably one of the best ways to analyze a medical substance is to study how it was discovered, by who, and how profitable it is to those touting it and how it might damage those that criticize it. Much insight can come from this simple point of view to the casual researcher. Below, I will try to delve into the history of Vitamin C, who championed it, and why it never seemed to take hold in medicine as a viable antimicrobial.

     Why has Vitamin C been so ignored by the medical profession in this capacity as an antimicrobial? Lynn Margulis describes science to be a study of the NOW. She states that as with MIT's library where any article older than 8 years is transferred from the science department to the humanities-the world of science seems to put the highest value on new discoveries. They generally seem to discount old concepts in favor of the newest thing. Dr. Thomas Levy in his book, Curing the Incurable, writes similarly. In it, he feels that physicians fear peer pressure and criticism more than anything else and since most physicians are unappreciative of Vitamin C as an antibiotic in the first place, criticism is easily directed at those few who do. They want you to be loyal to the accepted thought of your field and not delve into what they perceive as unrelated studies or controversial thoughts. They also tend to view any older, particularly radical data as somehow less valuable than that which has been published in the last few years. It is the kiss of death to put much stock in medical discoveries or views written more than 10 years ago unless they are well planted in the common professional literature. Also, "anecdotal" cases reported on by the average physician seem to be somehow suspect in these modern times as of little value. However, Dr. Levy correctly suggests that the much respected "case reports" commonly listed and referred to in published journal articles are just as anecdotal as any other individual case, so why the difference in appreciation? And finally, probably most important of all, you have what Levy calls the "Power of the Textbook". If no current medical textbook describes Vitamin C as an antimicrobial then most Doctors will discount Vitamin C as unimportant. It is little appreciated that most medical textbooks are written by only one or two authors, who often fail to do exhaustive studies taking all known work into consideration. Basically, medical texts are brief summations of what is commonly known and not much else is often included. Vitamin C has long gone unacknowledged in the medical texts written for the medical student and practicing residents. If an important discovery or concept is not immediately grasped and written about in a contemporary text book, chances are it will never get into a later one and that concept will be lost to all practicing physicians in the future. So seems the fate of Vitamin C.

     Vitamin C has some very innate problems to begin with when it comes to therapeutics. Most physicians are trained from the get-go to deal only with prescription medicines. That is all they know and all they normally prescribe. Vitamin C has the unfortunate and probably erroneous distinction of being called a "vitamin". That in itself is enough to relegate it to nutritional science and promote it being easily turned off by the average physician as less than vital in the general scheme of their practice. Vitamin C also is little understood and accordingly, the suggested daily requirements are woefully misjudged, particularly in states of disease. It is generally not appreciated that the success of Vitamin C antimicrobial protocols are vitally dependent on correct dosage and how long the regime is carried out, identical to how modern antibiotics are prescribed! Massive doses of Vitamin C are generally not ever considered as clinically necessary in mainstream medicine. Vitamin C is probably the only substance in which one can probably not overdose. This goes against everything a physician has been taught! Generally, more is never better, but in the case of Vitamin C, more is not only better but vital to success! Give less and your patient will fail to respond. This has been cited over and over again.

     What is a live healthy cell? Understanding this may be a key to appreciating why Vitamin C is so beneficial to our health. Dr. Szent-Györgyi, a team discoverer of Vitamin C has a theory on why it seems to work so well for health. He proposed that the basic essence of a live cell versus a dead cell was merely a matter of electron transfer. A healthy live cell has an artificial imbalance of electrons within it. A dead cell does not. It is balanced. Health is stimulated by a free, easy exchange of electrons from within the cell to without. Electron flow stops with death. Bio-utilization of vitamin C appears to be the aid this flow of electrons. Vitamin C depletion seems to be a major reason why disease starts in an organism and once a disease starts, it tends to metabolize huge quantities of even more Vitamin C. So for all practical purposes one can never have too much Vitamin C. This is why large mega-doses can be tolerated so easily and be of so much benefit. The recommended dietary allowance requirements of C never take into the consideration the needs of a diseased cell. The 30-90 mg suggested daily need is woefully too small. Most of the scientific work done to prove or disprove the benefits of Vitamin C does not remotely use adequate larger amounts of Vitamin C in their protocols.

     Humans, apes, and guinea pigs cannot generally synthesize Vitamin C. In contrast, most all other mammals have the capability to synthesize C. Horses have that capability, too. Even so, it is little appreciated among horsemen that the rigorous training regimes of racehorses along with the stress of all types of opportunistic infections can increase a horse's need for far more Vitamin C than he can synthesize. It seems quite likely to me that the pulmonary bleeding seen in many racehorses may be a manifestation of not only a lung biofilm infection, but secondarily, a vitamin C deficiency caused by such an infection. This is the Ahart Hypothesis which can be read else where in this site. Note that scurvy in humans, a disease of Vitamin C deficiency, is characterized by easy hemorrhage of the tissues. It is often thought that many disease syndromes can produce a sub-clinical case of scurvy. Mega-doses of intravenous Vitamin C may be a valuable therapy for the racing and bleeding horse. It would not only help battle the infection, but guard against hemorrhage. Animals in the wild are generally suggested to be of much healthier stock than our livestock in captivity and part of this may point to the fact that wild animals tend to have such higher capabilities of synthesizing Vitamin C plus live under less stress and capable of obtaining higher Vitamin C foods in the wild. What this all may mean is that simple oral dosing of Vitamin C supplements may not be enough even for those animals that can make their own! The exception might be oral liposomal encapsulated (LET) Vitamin C, but I will not go into this here. This technology is described on another webpage of this site. Generally, when an organism is diseased and in demand of large quantities of Vitamin C, one must pulse high quantities of Vitamin C directly into the blood stream to produce high blood concentrations which can reach the needy tissues. This is why intravenous (i.v.) administration of Vitamin C is the only alternative to effectively treating of many diseases, excepting LET protocols.

     Frederick Robert Klenner, M.D. was the main inspiration for mega-dosage Vitamin C therapy as I describe it here. He was a practicing physician in North Carolina in the 1940s and 50s. He was the inspiration for the work done by Linus Pauling who is better known as the Champion of Vitamin C. Few have heard of Klenner. Dr. Levy points out in his book, Curing the Incurable , that Klenner:   "…always based subsequent dosing on the degree of general clinical response and the extent of which an elevated temperature had been lowered from the previous vitamin C dose."   This may exactly be another reason why modern physicians tend to ignore Vitamin C. They do not want the intensive protocol of continually monitoring the patient for future adjustments in C dosage. This is very much like how herbs should be prescribed and why herbs lost popularity for the modern synthetic medicines. The dose's response dictates the next dosage level. Not a good paradigm for a factory, cookie-cutter medical practice! Some viral infections can easily burn up 300-400 grams of Vitamin C daily. One must give that much to stay even with the fight for health! Levy writes: "The rule of thumb in vitamin C treatment of viral diseases is to continue increasing the dose as long as the clinical response is inadequate or unsatisfactory and to continue the treatment period until all clinical symptoms have disappeared."

     Klenner presented over 20 papers outlining his life's work with Vitamin C. In 1949, he cured 60 out of 60 polio cases. It was probably Claus Washington Jungeblut, M.D. that first give Klenner the idea to employ Vitamin C for polio though he may deny it. Jungeblut published in 1935, his idea that ascorbic acid, Vitamin C, could inactivate bacterial and viral pathogens along with their toxins. Some of his earliest work was with bacterial toxins, such as tetanus, diphtheria, and staph toxins which he found could be inactivated by Vitamin C along with the polio, hepatitis and herpes viruses. Irwine Stone, the biochemist writes:  "Within two years after the discovery of ascorbic acid, Jungeblut showed that ascorbic acid would inactivate the virus of poliomyelitis. This was followed, in 1936-1937, in rapid succession by other workers showing similar inactivation of other viruses: by Holden et al., using the herpes virus; by Kligler and Bernkopf, on the vaccina virus, by Lagenbusch and Enderling, with the virus of hoof-and-mouth disease; by Amato, on the rabies virus; by Lominski, using bacteriophage; and by Lojkin and Martin, with the tobacco mosaic disease virus. Thus, at this early date it was established that ascorbic acid had the potential of being a wide-spectrum antiviral agent."

     After Jungeblut's well known notoriety in the 1930s and 40s in Polio research, he seemed to disappear into anonymity along with all the research of Vitamin C as an antimicrobial. This was mainly due to the efforts of the famous, Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Dr. Sabin was the champion at this time in live polio virus vaccine research. He attempted to repeat Jungeblut's groundbreaking work showing that polio infected monkeys benefited by Vitamin C administration. Sabin could not reproduce Jungeblut's success which was later evaluated by Jungeblut, himself, as Sabin using far too low of dosages on monkeys, who were far sicker than his in the lab trials. Sabin gave one single small dose of 400 mg to only one animal and for only one day. Imagine giving a similar dosage of one of our current antibiotics and hoping for a cure? Impossible. Sabin's resulting negative published results effectively stifled all future work with Vitamin C in the context as an anti-viral compound. Sabin went on to perfect a live virus vaccine, but in the meantime, he came into conflict with Dr. Salk who worked at vaccinating polio from the dead virus perspective. As with Jungeblut's Vitamin C research, Sabin did everything in his power to condemn the work of Salk. He was quoted of being very bombastic and intolerant of new ideas. Here we see how medical history is such a fickle maiden. Salk would mostly have been stopped in his tracks from further work on a dead virus vaccine had it not been for Basil O'Connor, an appointee by Franklin D. Roosevelt. O'Connor was in charge of the goverment grant purse strings in stimulating polio research. Salk and O'Connor met by happenstance and O'Connor was impressed with this young researcher, Jonas Salk! He believed in Salk's work and was a nonfliching supporter of Salk and powerful enough to defy Sabin. In the end. Salk was allowed to complete his successful polio dead virus vaccine merely because he had friends in high places who never stopped funneling money to his lab! Just imagine what might have happened if O'Connor had met and liked Dr. Jungeblut or Dr. Klenner!

     Dr.Klenner in the late 1940s took Jungeblut's work a bit further by administering 20-40 grams of Vitamin C per day with stunning results. Andrew W. Saul writes: "Curiously, the only report on vitamin C and polio that Klenner had at that time read was Sabin's negative one. Klenner writes that his own "observations of the action of ascorbic acid on virus diseases were made independently of any knowledge of previous studies using vitamin C on virus pathology, except for the negative report of Sabin after treating Rhesus monkeys experimentally infected with the poliomyelitis virus."   Then he reviewed the literature, finding:   ". . .an almost unbelievable record of such studies. The years of labor in animal experimentation, the cost in human effort and in grants, and the volumes written, make it difficult to understand how so many investigators could have failed in comprehending the one thing that would have given positive results a decade ago. This one thing was the size of the dose of vitamin C employed and the frequency of its administration. In all fairness it must be said that Jungeblut noted on several occasions that he attributed his failure of results to the possibility that the strength of his injectable 'C' was inadequate. It was he who unequivocally said that ''vitamin C can truthfully be designated as the antitoxic and antiviral vitamin.'"   And so went Dr. Klenner groundbreaking work, who inspired a few other renegades such as Dr. Robert Cathcart, Dr. W. Bellfield, Thomas Levy, but few others.

     Dr.Klenner's life work with intravenous Vitamin C involved treating a number of different syndromes with success beyond his Polio experiences. He found that Virus Pneumonia, Hepatitis, Herpes Simplex & Zoster, Chicken Pox, measles, mumps, Mononucleosis, diphtheria, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Cardiovascular diseases, hypermenorrhea, peptic and duodenal ulcers, postoperative and radiation sickness, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, acute and chronic pancreatitis, tularemia, whooping cough, Tetanus (Lockjaw)., Urethritis, Chronic cystitis, and tuberculosis all responded well. He found that many heavy metal and toxins could be removed or neutralized by Vitamin C. He treated many toxic animal bites with Vitamin C.

     The sad facts are since Linus Pauling's later widely read work on the wonders of Vitamin C resulted in such controversy, the medical establishment has stubbornly closed ranks in their consensus of the minimal value of Vitamin C in medical pathology come hell or high water. They seemed to have deemed it a closed case with little more to be learned from this substance. You can see this strong entrenched bias even to today.

     I would like to champion the use of Ascorbic Acid (VItamin C) for the use on racehorses. It is one therapy little used and which can offer much benefit in fighting obscure diseases in hopeless patients. It could be particularly valuable for the bleeding racehorse.

5.   Digital scales capable of measuring grams in .1 increments

6.   Autoclave or a pressure cooker that can achieve at least 15 psi. I like the All American brand sterilizer pictured below that will go 17-20 psi. For the money ($250-350) and compactness, it is hard to beat and has a good resell value. It can be purchased used on ebay for much savings.

7.  Sterile rubber gloves


8.   Optional, though highly recommended, a sterile .22 micron syringe filter or a nalgene media bottle filter. The Nalgene filter on the right can screw directly on the above described glass media bottles for easy formulation. The .22 micron filter will filter out most known bacteria and particulates.

First, one needs to make a stock solution of Sodium Ascorbate.

     Sterilize by placing your empty 500 ml glass media bottle or appropriate glass vial into an autoclave or pressure cooker to sterilize, along with a stainless steel funnel and spoon. If you use a kitchen type of pressure steam cooker, make sure that this utensil can achieve at least 15 psi. You will place your bottle or bottles on their side, the funnel, autocalvable bottle caps, and spoon---all above the water line via some type of metal rack. One should not attempt to sterilize bottles sitting straight up, plus caps should not be on them. Jars standing upright tend to trap air and are hard to sterilize. They should either be inverted or placed on their sides. Place the empty bottle on its side along with the funnel, a spoon and cap. Seal the cooker and heat until a steady stream of steam comes out of the top outlet. It is important to make sure that steam pushes all trapped air out of the cooker before beginning the sterilization cycle. Once you get a steady stream of steam, seal escape valve and place on the weight or start monitoring temperture with steam at 15-21 psi for 30 minutes depending on system mechanics. Be sure to allow for cooling before opening. As soon as the seal is cracked, you should hurry and use as aseptic technique as possible under the circumstances, i.e. speed with gloved hands and sterile forceps in a dust free environment. Prolonged contact with outside air will open up chances of contamination. Condensed water on the bottles, funnel, spoon and caps should be no big problem.

     Remove the sterilized bottle from the cooled pressure cooker via rubber gloves or forceps and place on your gram scales. Insert the funnel in your bottle neck and readjust your digital scales to zero. Add 990 miligrams (approx 1 gram) of EDTA into the empty bottle. Next, take your sealed bottle of sodium ascorbate, open and gently pour or spoon the crystals into the bottle and watch your scales. Stop at 250 grams. If you have 8 ounce sodium ascorbate bottles, it will take two to fulfill 250 grams. Once you have 250 grams of sodium ascorbate in your bottle. Next take your 500 ml sterile water vial, remove the top cap and pour in enough water to reach the 500 ml water mark which you had previously felt tipped, if no mark exists on the media bottle itself. Immediately cap with a sterile bottle cap. This will produce for you a 500 ml stock solution of Sodium Ascorbate at .5g sodium ascorbate per cc. Shake the bottle. If crystals remained undissolved, add an extra amount of water to match the crystal amount in the bottom. Sodium ascorbate is soluble at exactly 50% concentration at room temp.

     Dr. Cathcart says he does not worry that much about the sterility of this homemade solution in that Sodium Ascorbate is in itself, bactericidal. He writes that the pH of this solution turns out to be 7.4. He thinks it is not necessary to filter further for particulates or sterility, but I say, if you have the appropriate filters, why take the chance? Use a .22 micron filter like this one that screws right on your media bottle and is vacuum driven, neat, easy, efficient:

     He also said that his nurse discovered if one does not shake as previously suggested, but put the solution directly into the refrigerator, there will be less chance of it turning yellow. He writes: "I presume that this is good because sodium ascorbate is clear and dehydroascorbate is yellow. The made up solutions are always a little yellow but refrigeration before mixing results in a far less yellow mixture."

     Preparation of IV bottle: Dr. Cathcart recommended the above stock solution be added to lactated Ringers at a concentration of 60 to 120 cc to make a total of 500cc for an iv drip. This means that you would be adding 30-60 grams of Sodium Ascorbate to the 500 cc Ringers solution depending on how much stock you added. 

      There has been some thought provoking work done on administering Sodium Ascorbate via simple IV-push. Refer to my message board in the forums section for more information:

     IM injections are recommended for infants and small animals and is made from the above stock solution, diluted 50% in sterile water giving a 25% solution. This is given in 2 cc dosage at two separate sites, given every hour or so until the fever subsides.

     Dr. Cathcart writes that he has never had one problem from making his own Sodium Ascorbate injectable. He suggests that one should avoid Ascorbate Acid USP, but use only Sodium Ascorbate USP, since he has heard some strange stories from those that used the former. He said Dr. Klenner also only used sodium ascorbate powder.

     He further cautions: "I watch patients for hypocalcemia (although I have not seen it), hypoglycemia (I encourage patients to eat while taking the IV), and dehydration (I encourage water and slow the IV down.) I also see headaches afterward but not so much since I have been emphasizing the continuing high doses of oral ascorbic acid as soon as the IV is over. Actually I give oral ascorbic acid while the IV is going to get a double effect. Bowel tolerance goes up while the IV is running but one has to be careful to stop giving oral C about an hour before the IV stops or else you may get diarrhea as soon as the IV stops. The oral ascorbic acid is then started again 1/2 to 1 hour after the IVC stops."

EDTA . . . . . . . . . . . . . My basic directions come from the instructions of Dr. Cathcart's work and he used "edetate disodium injection, USP" 150 mg/ml in which he added 6.6cc to make a 500cc solution. That would be equal to 990mg or almost 1g. Of course, to get this one in injectable form, one would have to go through a physician or vet for a prescription which may be rather difficult. So, I improvised and suggested using the powder form of disodum EDTA. Thus, I am talking about edetate disodium anhydrous which is what is contained in Cathcart's injectable. I would think a "Edetate disodium" EDTA would be what you should use in powder form. In a perfect world, I would try to purchase "Edetate Disodium, Dihydrate, Reagent, ACS" (C10H14N2O8Na2•2H 2O) Also known as Disodium (Ethylenedinitrilo) tetraacetate; EDTA, Disodium; Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid Disodium Salt

EDTA has no bacteriostatic effect in and of itself. It's often functionally classified as a "preservative" (in the sense that it prevents metal ion-catalyzed oxidation in the formulas of many injectables. Dr Steve Hickey's comments on Injectable Ascorbic Acid Additives: "Ascorbate (vitamin C) in solution can combine with metal ions such as iron or copper in a Fenton reaction. The result is the gradual oxidation of the solution. A solution of ascorbate in water will discolor with time as the oxidation progresses. Use of distilled water can lower the concentration of free metal ions and slow the oxidation of ascorbate. However, practically there are still metal ions present to promote oxidation."A chelation agent will bind free metal ions and prevent them from reacting with the ascorbate in solution. Both EDTA and calcium gluconate can act as chelation agents. EDTA is the better-known chelator."

Ascorbic Acid . . . . . . . (from wikipedia) is a sugar acid with antioxidant properties. Its appearance is white to light-yellow crystals or powder, and it is water-soluble. One form of ascorbic acid is commonly known as vitamin C. The name is derived from a- (meaning "no") and scorbutus (scurvy), the disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. Ascorbic acid has a molecular weight of 176.12 g mol¥-1 with the formula of C6H8O6.

Sodium Ascorbate . . . .(from wikipedia) is a more bioavailable form of vitamin C that is an alternative to taking ascorbic acid as a supplement. The molecular formula of this chemical compound is C6H7NaO6. As the sodium salt of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), it is known as a mineral ascorbate. Sodium ascorbate normally provides 131 mg of sodium per 1,000 mg of ascorbic acid (1,000 mg of sodium ascorbate contains 889 mg of ascorbic acid and 111 mg of sodium). Molecular weight: 198.11 g mol¥-1.

Here is an Aussy farmer after my own heart, who has taken the above Vitamin C knowledge and used it in her work for treating all types of toxic bites from poisonous animals, along with Tetanus:

This is an interesting video documenting how a New Zealand farmer with swine flu and later whiteout pneumonia and leukemia came back from the brink of death via Vitamin C in both iv and liposomal forms. Watch:

Here is an interesting story of a wife that brought her husband back from the brink using Vitamin C on his osteomyelitis from a cat scratch: