Max Gerson, M.D. and the Gerson Therapy Max Gerson, M.D. was born October 18, 1881 in Wongrowitz, Germany. He attended the universities of Breslau, Wuerzburg and Berlin, eventually graduating from the University of Freiburg. Suffering from severe migraines, Dr. Max Gerson focused his initial dietary experiments on preventing these debilitating headaches. It was discovered in the course of treatment with this special "migraine diet", that one of Dr. Gerson's patients was cured of his skin tuberculosis. This discovery led to further studies of the diet, and to Dr. Gerson successfully treating many more tuberculosis patients. After some time, his work came to the attention of famed thoracic surgeon, Ferdinand Sauerbruch, M.D. With the help and supervision of Dr. Sauerbruch, Gerson established a skin tuberculosis treatment program at the Munich University Hospital. In a carefully monitored clinical trial, 446 out of 450 skin tuberculosis patients treated with Gerson's dietary regimen, experienced complete recoveries. Dr. Sauerbruch and Dr. Gerson simultaneously published articles on the study in a dozen of the world's leading medical journals, establishing the Gerson treatment a s the first cure for skin tuberculosis. Through his work with tuberculosis, Dr. Gerson attracted the friendship of Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Albert Schweitzer, M.D. At the time, Dr. Schweitzer's interest in Gerson was prompted by conventional methods having failed to cure his wife, Helene Schweitzer-Bresslau (1879- 1957), of lung tuberculosis. In 1930, after suffering her tuberculosis for seven years, Helene was admitted to Dr. Gerson's clinic and cured after 9 months. The two doctors shared a good friendship for the rest of their lives. It came to pass that even Schweitzer's own advanced (Type 11) diabetes was cured by Gerson's nutritional therapy. Schweitzer followed Gerson's progress over the years, seeing the dietary therapy successfully applied further to heart disease, kidney failure, and then finally - cancer. To escape Adolf Hitler's reign in Europe, Dr. Gerson moved with his family to America, where they took up residence in New York. In 1938, Dr. Gerson
passed his medical boards and was then licensed to practice medicine in the state of New York. For twenty years, he treated hundreds of cancer patients who had been given u p to die after all conventional treatments had failed. In 1946, Dr. Gerson demonstrated some of these recovered patients before the Pepper-Neely Congressional Subcommittee. The committee was holding hearings on a bill to fund research into cancer treatment. Although only a handful of peer-reviewed journals were receptive to Gerson's then "radical" idea of diet affecting health, he continued publishing articles on his therapy in Europe and presenting case histories of his healed patients. In 1958, after thirty years of clinical experimentation, Gerson published A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fify Cases. This medical monograph details the theories, treatment, and results achieved by a great physician. In 1959 Dr. Max Gerson died. It was 50 years ago that Dr. Gerson promoted better health through nutrition. Although ridiculed in his time, today, we are shown proof in countless articles and studies, that he was merely ahead of his time. As better diet proves to be the answer to healing more and more of our health problems, the words of Dr. Gerson's good friend carry a deeply prophetic ring. "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." - Nobel Prize Laureate and healed Gerson patient,
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, in eulogy of Max Gerson, M.D.
The Gerson Therapy The Gerson Therapy is a state of the art, contemporary, holistic and natural treatment which utilizes the body's own healing mechanism in the treatment and cure of chronic debilitating illness. When it was intro-