Beat the Heat

Hot? Very hot? Boiling hot? Take a pill. If the pill is a vitamin C tablet, it will stave off heat prostration and muscle cramps, said Dr. John Henry Foulger of Du Pont.

Several summers ago, Dr. Foulger learned that Bantu miners in South Africa sweat out large quantities of vitamin C (found in oranges and lemons), frequently develop muscle weakness, even though they eat plenty of fresh fruits & vegetables. With this clue in mind, Du Pont doctors gave their workers two vitamin C tablets (ascorbic acid) a day, along with common salt tablets, to replenish the salt lost in perspiration. Result: cases of heat exhaustion, formerly four or five a day, disappeared, even when the temperature soared to over 100 degrees. The pills, said Dr. Foulger, "should prove useful in steel mills, foundries, and shipyards, in the engine rooms of ships, and among troops in the tropics."

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