Effective Natural Arthritis Remedies: Relief & Healing

After some research on the net I was directed to some info that pointed to an acidic body could be the cause and bicarbs was the treatment so I tried it. The effects were immediate and lasting (for a short while anyway) I have stopped and started my own treatment and the problem surfaces again.

I realise that there is damage in my knees so am waiting for my body to heal as I give it the right conditions by alkalising my body. It seems to be working as my knees feel better but not completely healed, yet. It seems that the problem could be a fungus (candida) but there does not seem to be a quick cure for that, but bicarbs does fight/combat and give my body the chance to heal.

I wondered if anyone else has used or heard of anyone using bicarbs to combat fungus or arthritis.

Well, my favorite disease is Arthritis. The reason why I love Arthritis is that it's easy to fix. And when you can fix something as horrible and debilitating and painful and expensive and as miserable as Arthritis, you get kind of excited about this concept of preventing and curing disease with nutrition. And so I tell people about this arthritis thing all the time. So let's have a quick look at arthritis.

Number one, 75-80% of all Americans over the age of 50 get arthritis to one degree or one type or another, and according to the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, 35 to 50 million baby-boomers are going to get arthritis in the next 7 to 10 years and there's not a single medical treatment designed to treat or fix it. Aspirin certainly doesn't fix arthritis, it causes gastric bleeding and death. Tylenol doesn't fix arthritis, there's 50,000 cases of kidney failure each year, 5000 so severe you need a kidney transplant. Then there's Ibuprofen, Advil, and Aleve, these things don't fix arthritis, and they cause liver disease in 2-5% of users including liver sclerosis, even if you don't drink. And then there's metholtrexate(?) and gold shots(?). These things don't fix arthritis, they subdue your bone marrow so that you can't make normal platelets and white blood cells. Then you have the granddaddy of all medical treatments for arthritis, Prednizone and Cortisone. They don't fix arthritis. They subdue your immune system which leaves you open to diseases far, far more horrible than arthritis, and Prednizone and Cortisone accelerates the loss of minerals from your bone. Something you don't want when you have osteoporosis and arthritis.

When these prescription medications and over-the-counter medications don't work anymore to relieve pain and inflammation, the only thing left for you medically is joint-replacement surgery. And I never liked to send my patients in for joint-replacement surgery, cause they never work out well. In fact, many times you are worse off after the surgery than you were before the surgery.

The advantage my patients have always had is that I'm a veterinarian as well as a physician. So I always used to tell my patients "Look, we have all these nutritional formulas designed to prevent and cure disease in animals, including arthritis, and so I tried adapting nutritional arthritis formulas designed to prevent and cure arthritis in pigeons and turkeys, dogs and cats, sheep, pigs, horses, cows, lions, tigers and bears to human use. It was no surprise to me, it works just as well in humans as it does in animals, because it was designed to prevent and cure arthritis in pigs. And of course it has some really nifty stuff in it, which I have been telling people to use for 20 years, and I have literally seen tens of thousands of people who have had a regrowth of cartilage, ligaments, tendons, connective tissue, bone foundation, bone matrix. Doesn't matter if they are 20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90, I've seen people 97 years old regrow cartilage and bone, even if they had bone to bone arthritis. If there's blood supply to that joint and that bone, they will regrow bone and cartilage.

Well, Harvard Medical School goes berserk when you say stuff like that. "Wallach, you can't say those things! And the only thing left when they get bone to bone arthritis is joint-replacement surgery. " And I would agree with him if the only raw materials you are using is Tylenol and aspirin and Prednizone and Cortisone. We have learned over 50 years that you can't regrow cartilage and bones using those things.

Now one of the basic things, of course, that the Harvard Medical School jumped on and said "this is so ridiculous that this couldn't work! " And so they took 29 arthritis patients who had not responded in any way to heroic medical treatment for arthritis over 15 to 20 years. They took them off their medication, it wasn't working anyway, lined them up for joint-replacement surgery, and for 90 days before their surgery they gave them heaping tablespoon of ground up chicken cartilage in their orange juice every morning for 90 days. They were sort of chuckling in their beer saying "nothing is going to happen". Well, here's what happened. In 10 days these people had complete relief of pain inflammation that they hadn't had in 15 to 20 years. In 30 days they could open up a new pickle jar that had never been opened without pain to the fingers, wrists, elbows and shoulders. In 90 days 28 of the 29 were clinically cured. Now this is from the Harvard Medical School and the Boston VA. That meant that they had complete return, 100% return, of the range of motion, all of the pain and inflammation was gone, in their fingers and toes and hips and knees and neck, and certainly many of them still had knots on their fingers, cause it was only 90 days, and you would think they would call me up, these professors from Harvard Medical School and from the Boston VA, and say "Look, Wallach, we have to apologize to you. We've been bad-mouthing you for 20 years and why don't you come up to Boston, let's talk about the whole thing?" Here's what they said, "After 3 months it was clear that the drug was beneficial."

Chicken cartilage had become a drug in 90 days! Now why would that happen? Well, because you can't patten chicken cartilage, and they convinced the US Patten Office that they were using a drug to do this study, and they actually got a use-patten on chicken cartilage. And you, too, for $3500 a month, can get Harvard Medical School's chicken cartilage in a capsule for arthritis. (You can get it for 30 cents a day, ha, ha). That's kind of interesting. And of course, cartilage or gelatine, has chondroitin sulfate in it, glucosamine sulfate, collagen, these are all the basic raw materials to rebuild cartilage and bone. Now again I have been telling my human patients this for 20 years. They've been using gelatine and cartilage for race horses for 100 years for their cartilage and ligaments and joints. And in 1995, a Luke Bucci, an exercise physiologist came out with a great book called "Pain Free", and he talks about the advantages of gelatine and cartilage and glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate and collagen for regrowing cartilage, ligaments, tendons, connective tissue, bone foundation, bone matrix, he does this with nutrition. He does this with glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate and collagen and cartilage and gelatine. Just a couple of months ago, a medical doctor, Dr. Jason Theodisakus, MD, wrote the "Arthritis Cure", subtitle "the medical miracle that can halt, reverse and may even can cure osteoarthritis."

http://www.wallachonline.com/

THANK YOU FOR HAVING SUCH A GREAT WEBSITE..... I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT I WAS ON THE RIGHT TRACK TAKING HONEY FOR MY ARTHRITUS EVERY DAY... NOW YOU HAVE CONFIRMED IT FOR ME.... I TAKE A TEASPOON OF HONEY IN MY COFFEE TWO OR THREE TIME A DAY...ALSO READ AND FOUND HONEY IS GREAT FOR MINOR BURNS AND IT ALSO DISINFECTS THE AREA OF THE BURN. I HAVE TYPE TWO DIABETES AND THE HONEY HAS LITTLE OR NO EFFECT ON MY DIABETES, ALTHOUGH I HAVE READ IN DIABETES MAGAZINE THAT HONEY IS CONSIDERED TO BE JUST ANOTHER FORM OF SUGAR...THEY SHOULD TELL THAT TO THE BEES!!!!!!!!!!!!

An Egyptian king, as early as 1500 B.C., was known to receive routine home enemas by a physician who used them for regular medical treatments. The Egyptians believed that all diseases were caused by tainted, unwanted additions to food, or too much food, and understood how an enema could offer relief to serious situations.

Ancient regions in Africa, Greece, Babylonia, India, and China used enemas. American Indians performed enemas. Louis XIV had almost 2,000 enemas in his lifetime and stayed healthy throughout. And even the vivacious and voluptuous actress Mae West started every day with a morning enema.

When we eat devitalized foods such as sweets, white flours, bread, meat, cooked fruits, processed drinks, and pastas and take in things like coffee, drugs and alcohol our body is stimulated by these products and produces mucous to protect our intestinal tract from the resulting toxins. The more often you ingest these substances, the harder it is on your body and the more layers of mucous are produced. This is one reason why some meals should be all fruits or all vegetables. Mixing fruits and vegetables in the same meal are hard to digest and can give you acid reflux.

One problem with multiple layers of mucous is that the pancreatic fluids which normally keep the mucoid layers stripped and digested off the gut can't keep up. Over time (years usually) these mucous layers build up and harden making the intestines less effective at absorbing what you eat. One sign of this happening is vertical ridges on your little fingernails.

Gradually, the body weakens and our digestive processes become slower. When this happens, food starts to rot in our gut a little bit after each meal creating even more toxins and an imbalanced gut flora (and an overgrowth of yeast). Even the muscular walls of the gut weaken and lose tone creating a pot belly, prolapses, diverticuli, polyps, colitis and smelly gas problems. Eventually these disturbances may lead to cancer and other health problems.

Small bowel pockets and diverticuli are more common than most health professionals realize, and should be taken into account when any low grade infection or decrease in vitality over time are present. Low back pain, menstrual irregularity, ovarian cysts, constipation, bladder problems, heart palpitations, hemorrhoids, tipped uterus, and prostate problems are often a result of a prolapsed (fallen) transverse colon. Fasting and enemas can help these greatly.

Autopsies have shown that the bowel can become lined with accumulated material just like an old sewer pipe, in some cases to the point where the opening is no larger in diameter than a pencil. There is no way to have a healthy body with a bowel like that. At the bottom of this handout are pictures of some bowel ribbons that were released with enemas.

In the 1917 Journal of American Medicine, Dr. Kellogg reported that out of 40,000 cases of gastrointestinal disease, he had adopted surgery in only twenty cases, the rest were helped as a result of cleansing the bowels, diet, and exercise.

When on a cleanse, taking enemas twice daily can help a person get rid of an extra ten feet of mucoid layers in a seven day period. Taking laxative won't do this. Feeling bad on a cleanse means that toxins have been mobilized and have no place to go.

In Gerson Therapy explains that caffeine and palmitates (chemicals in coffee) work synergistically to stimulate and cleanse the liver and blood. Without entering the digestive tract the caffeine is absorbed through the bowel wall, via blood vessels, and makes its way directly to the liver.

The caffeine exposure causes the liver's portal veins and the bile ducts to expand which increases the release of diluted toxic bile. The enema fluid triggers peristalsis (intestinal muscle contractions) and the efficient removal of wastes from the body. As a result of the enema the liver becomes less congested with debris, which makes room for the filtering process of yet more bodily toxins.

For nearly nine decades the coffee enema has proven itself to be effective at cleansing and restoring the liver, reducing and eliminating cancerous debris, and relieving severe pain from countless origins. It is yet another tool in the detoxification arsenal that should not be dismissed by anyone determined to prevent disease, reclaim their health or otherwise impede the ill effects of living in a toxic world.

COLON CLEANSING – CHRONIC ARTHRITIS.

From the Book: Indianapolis Medical Journal, Volume 21, p. 502,1918

The conclusions of Mayhew in the Medical Herald are as follows:

1. Rest. This absolute and in itself leads to a subsidence of many symptoms.

2. Experimental dietetic measures. This consists in feeding alternately low or high carbohydrate or protein foods. I have found some relation in these cases to their skin reactions to injections of

carbohydrate or protein substances (as obtained in urticaria for instance).

3. Thorough daily cleansing of the large bowel by means of soap suds injection followed by a linseed oil or olive oil injection to be retained over night. This latter is taken in knee chest position.

Fourteen cases of chronic arthritis have been treated in this way with 100 per cent. improvement and 100 per cent. symptomatic cures.

I am so impressed with the results of this method that I will certainly utilize it in all cases where other measures have not accomplished results.

I will cite one interesting case, Mr. A. M., forty years. Manager of a large corporation. Had chronic rheumatism nine years. General involvement of joints, especially of hands and knee joints.

Is unable to write or get out of a chair, unassisted. For the last three years has been obligfied to discontinue many of his business activities.

All evidence of focal infection was removed and vaccine treatment institutea. On one occasion it was thought we had discovered the Poynton bacillus in his blood culture. A vaccine from this was of no value. All fluids removed from his joints were sterile. The method outlined was taken up and in a short thirty days the result noted was surprising. He could walk blocks with the use of a cane, was taking up old business interests free from pain and worry and while not apparently cured to my own eyes – he proclaimed himself as such to his friends and acquaintances.

For the first time in six years he could get out of a chair or off the bed without severe pain. Had I not been able through ordinary measures to stop the progress of this case, I would have referred him to a surgeon for operative work on the colon-either a complete colectomy or an ileosigmoidoscopy.

In chronic rheumatism we have a disease that requires every bit of patience of the sufferer and physician. The treatment is constantly discouraging-but results are more promising than ever before.

Do you have an actual diagnosis of arthritis and what type is it? Fibromyalgia can cause joint, spine and muscle pain that can move to most areas of the body. I have not heard reports of borax being helpful for that pain syndrome, but melatonin lotion has helped with fibromyalgia pain.

That was many years ago and it is harder to remember now, but I remember that I felt initial benefit within the first month and reached remission within the first three months. I know people have reported faster benefit, but I always attributed that to the fact that my arthritis was severe. Dr. Newnham who founded the use of boron/borax for arthritis felt that maximum benefit was reached after 3 to 4 months of usage.

What exact dose of borax are you taking? I used the 1/4 teaspoon dose recommended by Ted and still do today.

I didn't have any adverse reactions to borax that I was aware of. You might just try the borax alone for at least one month, so you will know exactly what it is doing or not doing. I didn't experience sore muscles, only joint pain relief.

Btw, are you taking a statin drug? Please keep us posted on how you do with borax.

Art

https://andreaskalcker.com/en/

Never mind what negative press he gets, it is just the usual medical Mafia hit pieces **clinical studies are documented on his site & standard treatment in certain countries in South America**.

You make CDS water the easy way using just a plastic sandwich bag and a glass jar & a cup warmer to speed it up to 12 - 24 hours instead of 48 hrs. Measure the amount of MMS you need per the amount of CDS you are making, put it in the sandwich bag, make sure it is sealed tight so no leakage, put it in the glass jar filled with distilled & filtered water being careful not to break the bag *squeeze out all the air first* if using a cup heater check every so often so it does not get too hot and melt the bag usually about 8-12 hours if it gets too hot turn it off until it cools a bit then turn it on again until done. If you put room temp water, you can time it, so you can do it at bedtime and adjust in the daytime. If you have a small heating pad, you can use it, but remember to put something under the jar between it and any heater to prevent cracking. Also place in an enclosure to keep the heat in, I use a small cardboard box, no fuss no muss, plain and simple & it works.

Any type of heater will do & can get to 100-130-F but not melt the bag. You either have to buy the MMS solution or make it yourself & both are possible.

The dosage I use is straight out of the jar, about 1/2 tsp 1x daily in the morning on an empty stomach. I have just started to use it intranasal using just a 1oz spray bottle. I mix 1/2 oz CDS with 1/2 oz water > saline I think would be better. Likewise, I use it several times daily and no ill effects, no burning, but it does make your nose run until it clears it out of whatever is in it. Gets into the body easily due to the nose being filled with blood vessels and bypassing the GI tract.

Thank you for your post, lovely to hear from you again and learn that you are keeping well.

I can relate to you 'almost becoming a monk' by eating just once a day. I discovered a couple of years ago that I was pre-diabetic and now follow a low carb diet. However, occasionally, my resolve goes and I eat the things I shouldn't.

You mention that your evening meals are 'creeping' away from meat, and this seems to be a global trend. For a long time it has been recommended that we reduce the amount of meat we eat, especially if we suffer from any form of arthritis. However, Michael Moseley, author of both the 500 and 800 Diet, was recently quoted in the Daily Mail as saying he would not give up meat!

I'm still following D Johanna Budwig's protocol, having two bowls of the cottage cheese/flaxseed oil a day. She also recommends to cut out meat and replace it with legumes and nuts. The diet is aimed at people suffering with cancer, but it has been found to help other conditions such as arthritis, hence my interest. How long I follow the diet remains to be seen.

She also believes everything in the universe has a vibrational level, and this resonates with me as in the past I've done Reiki healing. Have I ever cured anyone? The answer has to be 'no', but it does make one aware that we are more than purely the physical.

The golden sultanas in gin sound a bit decadent, Michael. Are you sure they will improve my arthritis? What will the neighbours think if they see me pushing a shopping trolley around the local supermarket containing a large bottle of Gordon's Gin?

Shocking news about the high number of young New Zealanders committing suicide, and that New Zealand has the third highest obesity figures in the world. Bang goes the mental image I've always had of fit young New Zealanders surfing through white tipped waves under an eternally blue sky. Or was I thinking of Australia and Bondi beach!

So pleased that the Bicarbonate of Soda worked for your wife's eyes. It's good for so many things. Will not be long before she's posting on Earth Clinic!

By the way, I went looking for Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest the other day. Couldn't find him but it sure was beautiful under that canopy of trees. Saw the thousand year old Major Oak, and it's still going strong.

Stay well, and my best wishes to you both.

I doubt the 35mg Grace1 mentioned in her 2017 post (posted below) does anything at all. That is far too little. In order for a vitamin (niacin is vitamin b3) to act as a drug, the dosage has to be far greater than what we normally take. I highly recommend all forms of niacin, especially niacinamide, since that does not cause a flush.

Grace1 (Pdx) on 05/05/2017:

"Some doctors in Montreal found Niacinamide to be a potent fungal and aspergilla's killer. It basically kills Candida infections/pathogenic fungi. This of course is something genuis Ted already knew. Niacinamide is especially effective against candida. The human equivalent dose was 35 mg and it was only administered only once. A second dose of Niacinamide was given 8 hours later. However, even a single dose was effective. While this dose is on the high end for niacinamide, for most people it would still fall under 3g, which is what mainstream medicine officially considers the upper safety limit for niacinamide. Niacinamide can cure Candida infection with a single dose. I think taking caprylic acid a before to first dissolve biofilm and then take Niacinamide and I also took two a dissolved aspirin in a glass of water and took it with the niacinamide this was a strongly effective way to go after it. Of course the obvious stuff which is be on the anti-fungal diet, helps and expect a die off so do gentle detoxification to assist the body in the process of clearing and healing." https://www.earthclinic.com/cures/candida13.html#niacinamide_185779

Once I read an article about [parrot beaks] from a priest who had healed with magnesium and I thought to myself that I had nothing to lose because I had a problem with my back and hip, which 10 years ago was dying, he said that it would need to be replaced soon. I started drinking 2.6 grams of magnesium chloride in divided doses during the day with Vit.C. I took 1,000,000 mg. i.e. 1 kg. and the same amount of vit C. It's hard for me to say now how much time it took, but I won't go to a doctor for advice on joints and spine, because I normally don't limp. I would like to point out that I have a lot of traffic on the plot and during renovation. If someone does not work physically, he should exercise a lot. Now, when I overwork a bit, I lubricate the sore spots with DMSO and after the pain.

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Kiedyś przeczytałem artykuł o dziobach papugi u pewnego księdza który wyleczył się magnezem I pomyślałem sobie że nie mam nic do stracenia mając problem z kręgosłupem I biodrem, które to 10 lat temu pewien konował zqpowiedział się że niedługo będzie trzeba wymienić. Zacząłem pić 2,6 grama chlorku magnezu w podzielonych dawkach w ciągu dnia I vit.C. Przyjąłem 1000000mg. czyli 1 kg. I tyle samo vit C. Trudno mi teraz powiedzieć ile czasu to trwało ale więcej po poradę odnośnie stawów I kręgosłupa do lekarza się nie wybiore, bo normalnie chodzę nie kuleję. Zaznaczę przy tym że mam dużo ruchu na działce I przy remoncie. Jeżeli ktoś nie pracuje fizycznie to powinien bardzo dużo ćwiczyć. Obecnie jak się trochę przepracuję smaruję bolące miejsca DMSO I po bólu.

From the Book: Healing Factor Vitamin C Against Disease – by Irwin Stone, Linus Pauling, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi 1972.

Source on-line: https://vitamincfoundation.org/stone/

Source download book: https://welib.org/md5/35609ae8abf6e1dcb1cc701374943358

Approximately 13 million Americans suffer from arthritis, making it the nation's number-one crippler. Over 10 million have seen a doctor seeking relief and more than 3 million report limitation of their usual activity because of the disease. An estimated 1.3 billion dollars is the yearly toll on the economy (1).

Arthritis is not a killing disease, so the prevalence rises with age, the victims becoming disabled and wracked with pain -- but they continue to live and suffer. Arthritis gradually withdraws from productive activity large numbers of otherwise capable people.

Arthritis, rheumatism, and other related conditions are often referred to as the collagen diseases because of the definite involvement of this protein in their genesis and cause. Anyone having read the previous chapter on heart disease will recall the relation of ascorbic acid to collagen production and the absolute necessity for the presence of high levels of ascorbic acid in the body for the proper syntheses and maintenance of high-quality collagen protein. Briefly, collagen makes up about a third of our body's protein content. It is deprivation of ascorbic acid, with the consequent synthesis of poor quality collagen or no synthesis at all, which brings on the most distressing bone an joint effects of clinical scurvy. There can be no doubt about the intimate association of ascorbic acid and the collagen diseases.

Rivers (2), in 1965, in a review article on the tissue derangements caused by a lack of ascorbic acid states "Abnormalities" in this protein (collagen) are baic to the crippling deformities associated with rheumatic diseases and with a number of congenital connective tissue defects." Robertson (3), in studies on induced granuloma tissue of prescorbutic and normal guinea pigs, showed that guinea pigs deprived of ascorbic acid for only 14 days produced tissue containing only 2 to 3 percent collagen, while the tissues in normal guinea pigs contain 14 to 16 percent. Udenriend (4) Stone and Meister (5), and many others have shown that the dependence of high-quality collagen protein on ascorbic acid is due to its chemical action on one or two of the amino acid building blocks used in the manufacture of collagen.

As in many other diseases, the discovery of ascorbic acid inspired much research on the collagen diseases in the 1930s. A classic series of papers by Reinhart and coworkers (6) appeared in the period from 1933 to 1938 relating deficiencies of ascorbic acid and infection to the development of the rheumatoid process. They developed a theory intimately linking ascorbic acid with the genesis of rheumatic fever from the evidence of its social, urban, and familial incidence, the role of malnutrition, the age of incidence, seasonal incidence, geographic distribution, the symptomatic similarities of latent scurvy with the early rheumatic state, the role of infection, the problems of hemorrhage, and the existence of latent scurvy in rheumatics. Their logic was impeccable and everything fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.

As might be expected, the publication of Rinehart's series of papers evoked much discussion and further tests. The papers resulting from this additional work may be divided into those that agreed with and more or less checked Rhinehart's work (7) and those that disagreed (8). Reviewing these discussions in detail now would serve no useful purpose and would occupy too much space. If anyone is interested, they can refer to the original papers. Of vital importance is the clinical work conducted, in these early days to test Rinehart's hypotheses; and we shall see with the advantage of hindsight how this clinical work was inadequate. We will first review the clinical work on dosages at the "vitamin" levels and observe their general ineffectiveness. After this we will take up the scant clinical data where tests were conducted using ascorbic acid at the lower fringes of megascorbic therapy with good clinical results.

M.P. Schultz (9) in 1936, reported on tests conducted at the hospital for the Rockefeller Institute in which ambulatory patients received from 100 to 250 milligrams of ascorbic acid daily either orally or intravenously for periods of months (the average was 2-1/2 months). The conclusion was that the incidence of rheumatic fever or the clinical manifestations of the disease were not favorably or demonstrably affected by this medication. F.H. Mosse (10), in 1938, described a single case, the dramatic improvement of a farmer with acute multiple arthritis, in the midst of a scurvy epidemic in China, by the ingestion of 800 to 1200 cubic centimeters of "fresh red fruit juice." He also discussed the etiology of rheumatic fever in northern China in those days. M.G. Hall and coworkers (11) a the P.B. Brigham Hospital in Boston reported, in 1939, that all of the patients with rheumatoid arthritis were placed on an intake of 200 milligrams of ascorbic acid per day for eight months with no improvement that could be attributed to this treatment.

In 1940, R.H. Jacques (12) reported that in a series of forty-eight arthritic cases, forty-seven had low levels of ascorbic acid in their blood plasma. Treatment with 100 milligrams a day of injectable ascorbic acid for one week and 300 milligrams a day of injectable ascorbic acid for one week and 300 milligrams a day of ascorbic acid orally for another few weeks brought up the blood plasma levels. The patients were followed for a period of three weeks to six months thereafter on a regime of 100 milligrams of ascorbic acid a day orally. His conclusion -- there was no marked clinical response even though the plasma levels had returned to normal. Twenty percent were moderately improved, 33 percent were slightly improved, and 47 percent showed no change or were worse. In a short report in a Russian journal, Vilyansky (13) treated thirty-nine patients with 200 to 300 milligrams of ascorbic acid intravenously per day. He reported that his tests showed his patients to be quite deficient in ascorbic acid and they responded well to the treatment. There was less pain, better mood, less swelling, and increased mobility in twenty-six of his patients. Eleven took longer to respond and two showed no effect. These two had been treated previously with salicylates. He states that in most cases three to five injections of ascorbic acid were sufficient to "liquidate" the attack of rheumatism.

Freyberg (14), in 1942, using fruit juices or ascorbic acid in amounts to maintain the blood plasma levels at "normal" levels in thirty-seven patients, found that "there was no evidence that the arthritis was better or that the course of the disease was different in any way whether or not the vitamin C deficiency was corrected." Trant and Matousek 15), in 1949, reported their experiences treating a series of eighteen arthritic patients at Chicago Presbyterian Hospital with 100 Milligrams of ascorbic acid daily. They concluded, "On the principle of good hygiene it is well to restore low levels of serum ascorbic acid to normal, but not with the anticipation that any improvement in the arthritis will result."

Rinehart (16), in 1943, in a paper entitled "Rheumatic Fever and Nutrition, " reviewed the work of the previous decade and admitted:

While it has been shown that vitamin C does not exert a specific curative effect upon rheumatic fever it is likely that the frequency and severity of the hemorrhagic manifestations have been reduced. It is not known to what extent vitamin C or related factors might further protect the patient. Maintenance of rheumatic patients on adequate amounts of ascorbic acid will evidently not prevent recurrence of the disease.

The conclusions to be drawn from these early tests are that the measurement of ascorbic acid blood levels is not a good criterion for therapeutic effects and that the approach used by all these investigators was wrong. They were trying to correct a nutritional deficiency instead of treating a serious disease. The daily dosages required to raise the blood levels of ascorbic acid to what they considered normal were greatly below the megascorbic levels actually required to obtain a definite therapeutic effect in the collagen diseases. These early clinical tests were experiments in home economics rather than the thorough pharmacological testing of a new medicament.

Massell (17), in 1950, in a preliminary report on the use of 4 grams “4,000mg”of ascorbic acid (1 gram four times per day) in seven young patients (five to eighteen years) for only eight to twenty-six days obtained rapid cessation of symptoms and stated, "Our observations suggest that ascorbic acid when administered in sufficient amounts possesses anti-rheumatic activity." He also mentions:

Previous therapeutic failure may perhaps be attributed to the fact that practically all investigators were thinking in terms of vitamin C deficiency and, hence, used doses of ascorbic acid considerably smaller than those used by us... It is possible that individual doses of more than 1 gram or total daily doses of more than 4 grams, if found harmless, may prove to be therapeutically even more effective.

The purpose of the publication of this preliminary report was to "stimulate further investigations of the therapeutic potentialities of ascorbic acid." Large-scale tests were never made to check these exciting results. The only further testings which were made are the following highly successful clinical tests reported in the 1950s by private investigators -- then we have silence.

Baufeld (18), in 1952, using individual intravenous dosages of 6 grams of ascorbic acid for acute and chronic rheumatism, observed "astonishing" results in some cases. He also noticed good response in lumbago, sciatica, and bronchial asthma. He stated that he believed he had found something which called for further testing. In 1953, Greer (19) found 8 to 12 grams of ascorbic acid, in combination with antibiotics, to be an effective anti-rheumatic fever measure in several serious cases. McCormick (20), in 1955, after offering a scholarly review of the literature dating back to the seventeenth century, showed the relationship of scurvy to the rheumatic diseases and stated that a number of his acute rheumatic fever cases were treated with 1 to 10 grams of ascorbic acid daily with a rapid and complete recovery in three to four weeks without cardiac complications. Similar results were obtained in incipient arthritis. Afanasieva (21), in a 1959 Russian paper, noted gains in 48 rheumatic fever women patients using 1.25 grams of ascorbic acid daily for twenty to twenty-five days in combination with other therapy.

If the government agencies and the publicly supported foundations interested in the arthritic diseases, had pursued these scant but provocative leads supplied by Massell and others in the 1950s, the past two decades may have seen the elimination of these collagen diseases as a major crippler of the population