Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient by Norman Cousins Page B

physician in the search for a cure.
    The letters reflected the view that one of the main functions of the doctor is to engage to the fullest the patient’s own ability to mobilize the forces of mind and body in turning back disease. There was general agreement in the letters that modern medication is becoming increasingly dangerous and that, to the fullest extent, the careful physician should attempt to educate the patient away from reliance on exotic drugs. The new trend favors an understanding of the powerful recuperative and regenerative forces possessed by the human body under conditions of proper nourishment and reasonable freedom from stress.
    Not all the communications came from doctors. One episode involving a layman underlines many of the key points raised by the physicians. A New York lawyer telephoned to say that his four-year-old daughter was in a coma and in critical condition in Lenox Hill Hospital. She was stricken with viral encephalitis, against which antibiotics have no record of success. It was difficult for him to accept the fact that nothing more could be done than was being done. The lawyer wanted to know whether, in the light of my own recovery from a severe collagen disease after taking large doses of ascorbic acid, the same treatment might be useful for his daughter.
    I told the lawyer that it would be highly irresponsible for me, a layman like himself, to attempt to give medical advice. Moreover, there was no way of determining what part of my recovery was due to the intravenous infusion of ascorbate and what part to a full mobilization of the salutary emotions, not excluding laughter or a robust will to live. I suggested that the lawyer consult his daughter’s physician about the possible use of ascorbic acid.
    The lawyer said he feared the child’s doctor would be scornful of anything as unsophisticated and over-popularized as vitamin C. I then told him of the large number of medical tracts I had received from doctors, in response to my article, supporting the use of ascorbate in a wide range of disorders beyond the reach of antibiotics or other medication.
    In particular, I spoke of the work of Irwin Stone, a biochemist in San Jose, who is among the country’s leading authorities on the efficacy of ascorbic acid in the treatment of serious disease. I offered to send the lawyer reprints of articles from medical journals about the work of Stone and others on the functions of ascorbate in body chemistry. What seemed especially impressive to me about these papers was the data on the ability of ascorbate to activate and enhance the body’s own healing mechanism. I suggested that the lawyer might wish to review this material with the child’s doctor in the event he had not already seen it.
    The next day I left for a new round of the Dartmouth conferences in Latvia, U.S.S.R.—fourteen years after the Dartmouth meeting described in the opening chapter. While abroad, I made inquiries at various medical centers and learned that intravenous infusions of ascorbic acid had been effectively used in a number of cases of viral encephalitis.
    On my return to New York, I telephoned the lawyer to ask about his daughter. He said he had spoken with Irwin Stone, who told him about recent experiences in which serious cases of viral encephalitis had been reversed through large doses of ascorbate. Armed with this information and with reprints from medical journals I had sent him, the lawyer had spoken to the child’s specialist, only to be rebuffed. When he had offered the materials from the professional journals, the doctor had said he didn’t need to be instructed by a layman in medical matters.
    The lawyer then decided on a plan of action. Several days later he asked the specialist whether the next time his child came out of the coma he might offer her some ice cream. The specialist encouraged the lawyer to do so. The lawyer bought a pound of sodium ascorbate, which is more soluble