Vitamin C in critical illness has always hinted at more than scurvy’s salvation. From Lind’s lemons to Linus Pauling’s promise to an ICU cocktail that briefly looked like a cure, the arc swings between elegant biology and stubborn clinical reality. We track the enzymes and endothelium, the catecholamines and carnitine, and the redox alchemy that can both shield and scorch. Then we meet the trials—VITAMINS neutral, LOVIT unnerving—and ask why sepsis would not yield while burns, post-arrest care, and megadose strategies still tempt inquiry. This piece follows the CCR thread through Belfast to Melbourne, where VITaCCA may yet decide whether our romance with ascorbate is requited or finally unmasked.

Added October 16th