You've not well comprehended Pauling's position. First, he did not maintain
that early man needed large doses of C. His sole point was that in tropic
zones C was readily present in fruits. From there he discusses migration and
diffusion of early humans to parts of earth other than tropics, as well as
glacial ages - in both cases environments with little or no ascorbic acid.
He posits, next, that in abstentia of ascorbic acid use of lipoprotein(a)
patched rather than facilitated collagen repair. Application of ascorbic
acid, l-lysine, and l-prolene were his method of regeneration. Collagen is
composed of those two amino acids along with very present in vivo glycine.


Pauling's recommended doses arose from clinical trials aimed at therapeutic
solutions. As such, he doesn't commit the error of assuming early man
required such large doses. After all, arterial plaque is a degenerative
condition arising from decades of nutrient deficiency reflective of modern
diets. A number of mid 20th century researchers successfully accessed
prevalence of new diseases resulting from food processing and feed lot
practices producing denatured food.