Overview of Vitamin C and Cancer

In 1536, the French explorer Jacques Cartier, while exploring the St. Lawrence River, used the local natives’ herbal medicine knowledge to save his men who were dying of scurvy. He boiled the needles of the arbor vitae tree to make the healing tea (that was later shown to contain about 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 g) (Martini in Vesalius 8(1):2–6, 2002 [1]).