Vitamin C — John H. Crandon

Excerpt from Self Experimentation in Nutrition Research, by Elsie M. Widdowson. Nutrition Research Review ( 1993), 6, 1 – 17

JOHN CRANDON. SCURVY AND VITAMIN C
Several authors who have written about the history of scurvy and vitamin C have given vivid accounts of the self-experimentation of John Crandon. These include Drummond & Wilbraham (1939), Carpenter (1986) and Altman (1987). Crandon qualified in medicine in USA in 1937. Two years later he was assistant surgeon to Dr Charles C. Lund at the Boston City Hospital. Dr Lund was interested in the function of vitamin C in the body, particularly its relation to wound healing. His enthusiasm inspired Crandon, who planned an experiment in which three individuals, of which he himself would be one. would eat a diet containing no vitamin C. This seemed to present no danger since the remedy was known and at hand, and the plan was approved by Dr Lund. The concentration of vitamin C in the blood would be followed, and when this reached very low levels and signs of scurvy appeared deep incisions would be made in the skin and muscle, and the progress of healing would be observed.

As was the custom in the United States, ‘volunteers’ for scientific experiments had to be paid, but no funds were available. An aunt of John Crandon, a missionary, offered to hire two teenagers from poor families who she knew would be glad of the money. The three subjects started the experiment in October, 1939. The diet consisted of well cooked meat, butter, polished rice, cake without any fruit, and coffee. However, after three weeks the two young ‘volunteers’ were caught drinking orange juice in a cafeteria, so the study on them was abandoned, and Crandon carried on alone. After two months he varied his diet with cheese, crackers, eggs, and candy bars; he took supplements of all vitamins except C. After 41 days plasma ascorbic acid had fallen to zero (Crandon & Lund, 1940), but it was only after 82 days that the ascorbic acid in the white cell/platelet layer of centrifuged blood became zero. The first clinical evidence of deficiency was the appearance of hyperkeratotic papules after 132 days. Perifollicular haemorrhages occurred after 161 days. After 3 months on the diet a 3-inch-long incision was made in Crandon’s back, but a biopsy taken 10 days later showed that the wound was healing normally. This was disappointing, but Crandon continued with the diet. All this time he carried on the his surgical work at the hospital. H began to feel very tired and his work suffered. Dr D. B. Dill, at the Harvard Business School, was at that time studying fatigue, so he put Crandon on his treadmill to get some quantitative measure of his tiredness. Crandon was told to run as fast as he could, but after a short time he collapsed and became unconscious (Crandon et al. 1940). This was undoubtedly a result of his state of vitamin C deficiency, and sudden deaths among seamen with scurvy had been reported many years before by Lind.

Crandon recovered from this episode, and after 6 months on the diet he insisted on having another incision made down his back. This time there was no evidence of healing. This was a heroic effort of one man to follow the development of scurvy. It has been described as “the only complete experiment on the production of scurvy on a human being” (Sydenstricker, 1953) and “the classic experiment” (Wolbach, 1953). It demonstrated that very low or even zero concentrations of vitamin C in plasma did not necessarily indicate the presence of clinical scurvy, and that it took much longer than had been supposed to produce scurvy in a previously well nourished man.