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 Max
Gerson, M.D. was born in Wongrowitz, Germany (1881).
He attended the universities of Breslau, Wuerzburg, Berlin, and
Freiburg. Suffering from severe migraines, Dr. Gerson focused
his initial experimentation with diet on preventing his
headaches. One of Dr. Gerson’s patients discovered in the course
of his treatment, that the “migraine diet” had cured his skin
tuberculosis. This discovery led Gerson to further study the
diet, and he went on to successfully treat many tuberculosis
patients. His work eventually came to the attention of famed
thoracic surgeon, Ferdinand Sauerbruch, M.D.
Under Sauerbruch’s supervision, Dr. Gerson established a
special skin tuberculosis treatment program at the Munich
University Hospital. In a carefully monitored clinical trial,
446 out of 450 skin tuberculosis patients treated with the
Gerson diet recovered completely. Dr. Sauerbruch and Dr. Gerson
simultaneously published articles in a dozen of the world’s
leading medical journals, establishing the Gerson treatment as
the first cure for skin tuberculosis.
At this time, Dr. Gerson attracted the friendship of Nobel
prize winner Albert Schweitzer, M.D., by curing Schweitzer’s
wife of lung tuberculosis after all conventional treatments had
failed. Gerson and Schweitzer remained friends for life, and
maintained regular correspondence. Dr. Schweitzer followed
Gerson’s progress as the dietary therapy was successfully
applied to heart disease, kidney failure, and finally – cancer.
Schweitzer’s own Type II diabetes was cured by treatment with
Gerson’s therapy.
In 1938, Dr. Gerson passed his boards and was licensed to
practice in the state of New York. For twenty years, he treated
hundreds of cancer patients who had been given up to die after
all conventional treatments had failed.
In 1946, Gerson demonstrated recovered patients before the
Pepper-Neely Congressional Subcommittee, during hearings on a
bill to fund research into cancer treatment. Although only a few
peer-reviewed journals were receptive to Gerson’s then “radical”
idea that diet could affect health, he continued to publish
articles on his therapy and case histories of healed patients.
In 1958, after thirty years of clinical experimentation,
Gerson published
A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases. This
medical monograph details the theories, treatment, and results
achieved by a great physician. Gerson died in 1959, eulogized by
long-time friend, Albert Schweitzer M.D.: “...I see in him one
of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine. Many of
his basic ideas have been adopted without having his name
connected with them. Yet, he has achieved more than seemed
possible under adverse conditions. He leaves a legacy which
commands attention and which will assure him his due place.
Those whom he has cured will now attest to the truth of his
ideas.”
To learn more about Dr. Max Gerson read the biography Dr. Max Gerson: Healing the Hopeless by Howard Strauss
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