ABSTRACT
K. A. L. Aschoff, in his analysis of the nature of atherosclerosis, was the first to postulate that the earliest morphological lesion is a disturbance of the intercellular ground substance of the arterial intima. I. A Mjasnikova provided evidence that ascorbic acid deficiency promotes the development of atherosclerosis in experimental animals. Atherosclerosis has been observed in the young as well as in the old; H. D. Moon, studying the coronary arteries of 105 individuals, found evidence of early atherosclerotic changes even in infants and children. Both acute and chronic scurvy were effective in producing lesions of the arterial intima indistinguishable from the lesions seen in early human atherosclerosis. L. Sokoloff reported that in atherosclerosis and related disorders the concentration of dehydroascorbic acid (DHAA) in the blood and tissues is about three times higher than in healthy persons of the same age group.
