Destruction in its path, just as an infection wrecks havoc to our own internal ecology. If the sickness is the fire, then our immune systems are the fire department and Vitamin C is the water. If I may take this analogy a little further, the fire department may use chemical fire retardents, which are loosely analogous to medicine. Now we would all agree that these chemicals are sometimes warranted, but surely we also know that they will have some consequences to the environment or ecology. This is similar to nutrition and medicine.
Nutrition is the natural bolstering of our own systems.
Medicine, on the contrary, is foreign and needs to be used with corresponding care. Due to the strong relationship between C and our immune systems, it is not surprising that viral and bacterial infections can be dealt with by our own systems when adequate C is present. Ascorbic acid is toxic to viruses, bacteria, and many types of cultured cells, because of its prooxidant activity. It is particularly toxic to malignant tumor cells but much less toxic to nonmalignant normal cells, thus its therapeutic use in cancer . No matter what medicine or other treatment you and your doctor may choose to treat your illness, Vitamin C should be part of the therapy.