LATE SECONDARY TONSILLAR HEMORRHAGE: II. Studies of Ascorbic Acid

Abstract

IT HAD been suspected for some time that vitamin C deficiency is an important biologic factor in impairment of wound healing. However, not until Lanman and Ingalls,¹in 1937, demonstrated that scorbutic guinea pigs exhibited healing of operative incisions inferior to that of nonscorbutic controls did surgeons come to have a widespread interest in the role of ascorbic acid in tissue repair. The recent literature contains a great number of experimental and clinical observations substantiating a causal relationship between vitamin C deficiency and defective healing of wounds. It is not within the scope of this paper to review the work reported along these lines. The interested reader is referred to an article by Ruskin,²who discusses pertinent findings of various investigators. It has become common in general surgical practice to administer vitamin C preoperatively and postoperatively in cases in which the level of ascorbic acid is below normal, thus safeguarding