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This book is only written for those whom the physicians have given up on. It can provide you with information you need as you consult with a Gerson-trained physician at the Gerson Institute.
Caution: Consult with your physician and do not, without his guidance, attempt self-help therapy. The author and publisher are not responsible for any attempt to do so. This information is provided as an educational tool concerning certain aspects of cancer.
"The more I treated cancer cases the more the patients and their relatives recognized that something could be accomplished for those advanced cases who had been sent home. Gradually the number of so-called terminal cases among my patients increased to more than 90 per cent of the total, having come to me after the applied treatments had failed. As a result of having attracted such a large number of greatly advanced cases, I was urged to explore the cancer treatment in many directions and to improve it as far as possible. ..."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 33"The physician ... hesitates to take risks for his patients by applying a not-recognized treatment ... I was in a more favorable position. Ninety to ninety-five percent of my patients were far advanced (terminal) cases without any risk to take; either all recognized treatments had failed or the patients were inoperable from the beginning."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. xiv"I should like to tell you what we do to prove that this treatment really does work on cancer. Number one, the results. I think I can claim [stated in 1956] that I have, even in these far advanced cases, 50% results."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 411
Just what does coffee do in the human body?
It is a remarkable fact that, according to the manner in which it is taken, it has two entirely different effects.
If a diluted mixture of coffee is taken in an enema, it opens up the bile ducts so toxic substances can be emptied out of the liver. For about 54 years, Dr. Max Gerson used coffee enemas to do this - and found no other side effects. Instead, he found that diluted coffee enemas would save lives, when nothing else would.
"Where do we begin? The most important first step is the detoxification. So let us go into that. First we gave some different enemas. I found out that the best enema is the coffee enema as it was first used by Prof. O.A. Meyer in Goettingen. This idea occurred to him when, together with Prof. Heubner, he gave caffeine solution into the rectum of animals. He observed that the bile ducts were opened and more bile could flow ..."
"... These patients who absorb the big tumor masses [from the tumor into the blood stream into the liver] are awakened with an alarm clock every night because they are otherwise poisoned by the absorption of these masses. If I give them only one or two or three enemas, [this will not detoxify enough], they die of poisoning. I did not have the right as a physician to cause the body to absorb all the cancer masses and then not to detoxify enough. With two or three enemas they were not detoxified enough! They went into a coma hepaticum (liver coma). Autopsies showed that the liver was poisoned. I learned from these disasters that you can't give these patients too much detoxification [into the bloodstrem without take it out of the body with enemas] ... When I didn't give these patients the night enemas, they were drowsy and almost semi-conscious in the morning. The nurses confirmed this and told me that it takes a couple of enemas till they are free of this toxic state again. I cannot stress the [importance of] detoxification enough. Even so with all these enemas, this was not enough! I had to also give them castor oil by mouth and by enema every other day, at least for the first week or so. After these two weeks you wouldn't recognize these patients any more! They had arrived on a stretcher, and now they walked around! They had appetite. They gained weight and the tumors went down."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, pp. 407-408.
In strong contrast, if a cup of coffee is swallowed, it has entirely different effects - and all of those effects are extremely negative:
"A cup of coffee taken by mouth has an entirely different effect ... It heightens the reflex response, lowers the blood pressure, increases heart rate, perspiration, causes insomnia and heart palpitation. ..."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 191.
Checking a standard 1,450-page textbook (pp. 374-377 of Mosby's Pharmacology in Nursing) which deals with the subject, the effects of drinking coffee or other caffeine products are well-known.
"More frequent side effects include increased nervousness or jittery feelings and irritation of GI tract resulting in nausea. More frequent adverse reactions in neonates abdominal swelling or distension, vomiting, body tremors, tachycardia, jitters, or nervousness."
Mosby's Pharmacology in Nursing, p. 375.
It is an intriguing fact that not one of these terrible side effects occurs when a coffee enema is given! Max Gerson said that "a cup of coffee taken by mouth has an entirely different effect." That was his observation from about 1925, onward to his death in 1959.
A diluted coffee enema has one, different, and powerful effect: the strong dilation of the bile ducts. This never occurs when coffee is drunk by mouth.
It is clear that drinking coffee by mouth and taking a diluted mixture of it, temporarily into the lower bowel, have totally different effects.
First, God made the stomach and small intestines to be the normal means of absorbing substances from the food. This includes carbohydrates, amino acids, fats, and other nutrients.
Apparently, the lower bowel was not designed to absorb substances as well. It does not have the lacteals, found in the small intestine, which absorb nutrients into the blood stream.
Second, coffee drunk by mouth, passes through the entire gastro-intestinal system. In contrast, a diluted coffee enema only enters the lower part of the large bowel.
Max Gerson's consistent practice (continued today by the Gerson Institute and all patients) is never to give high colonics, but only low enemas. The fluid enters and is retained only in the lower bowel.
Third, coffee, when drunk, remains in the body for up to 5-6 hours, until it is entirely absorbed by the lacteals and has passed into the blood stream, thence to be carried throughout the body and into every organ, wreaking havoc on the entire system.
But, in accordance with consistent Gerson directives, a diluted coffee enema only remains in the lower bowel 12 to 15 minutes - and then it is expelled.
Fourth, in order to produce so many different effects, coffee taken by mouth would have to enter the bloodstream.
Yet it is quite obvious that a diluted coffee enema does not enter the bloodstream - for if it did, it would produce the very same effects - which it does not. Instead it produces a single, entirely different effect: the powerful opening of the bile ducts, so poisons stored in the liver can be released.
What is the mechanism by which this occurs?
Max Gerson has stated that the diluted coffee in the enema, instead of actually traveling to the liver in the bloodstream, may only send a signal to it.
The present author suggests that it would have to be the latter. If the coffee entered the blood stream and was carried to the liver - that same coffee would also travel throughout the body and produce all those negative effects which coffee taken by mouth does (heart palpitations, body tremors, etc.).
But since a coffee enema produces none of these bad effects, it must be that coffee only sends a signal, via the nerves, to the liver.
Thus we are confronted by the fact that coffee enemas apparently are not harmful to the system. This conclusion may be incorrect. But that is where the observable facts lead us.
However, let us take this matter one step further:
I know any number of people who would never drink a cup of coffee, yet who are quick to take an antibiotic when they are sick. Yet drinking a cup of coffee is far less dangerous!
I have never drunk coffee nor taken a coffee enema, yet it is clear to me that we are here dealing with saving human lives.
If taking diluted coffee enemas will help save the life of a cancer patient who is dying, then I for one will not be the one to tell him he should not take them.
And I do not believe I am wrong in making this decision.
Are there other problematic substances used in the Gerson Therapy?
There are several other Gerson "medications" which are not needed by those who are healthy, but which are given to help the sick recover health.
The Gerson therapy is focused on but two objectives: filling the body with nutrients and expelling toxic substances from the body. In the process of doing these two things, the cancer is totally eliminated. Everything is done to achieve these two goals.
1 - Liver extract is given because of the continually lowered quality of fresh fruits and vegetables. Gerson began using such a product in 1950, because he found that lab reports revealed that, by the late 1940s, fresh fruits and vegetables no longer had as much nutrients as they had in the early 1930s!
If you think you can obtain enough nourishment from fruit and vegetables, then skip the liver.
2 - Pancreatin tablets are given. These help to reduce digestive problems during the heavy detoxification process.
But if you do not need it, do not take it.
3 - In addition to iodine (Lugol's solution), thyroid is also given. The purpose of this is to ensure that enough iodine is obtained by the cells. (It is the potassium and iodine which starve the sodium out of the cancer cell, killing it.)
If you think you are likely to obtain enough iodine from the Lugol's, then do not use the thyroid.
4 - Castor oil is given to help flush the poisons out of the intestinal tract, which have been poured into it from the liver through the bile ducts. The effect of castor bean oil is similar to the laxative herbs, except that it is more efficient.
You would be very wise not to skip it.
In all these matters, you are the boss. But know that Gerson worked out a formula which produces terrific results - but primarily in those who carefully remain on the full program for 18 to 24 months.
This book is written for all those on the other side of hope, for the weary, and for those who despair of holding on to life - yet want to cling to it.
There is hope in this book. There is a way out of the dark tunnel, back into the land of the living.
But it will take dedication and work.
If you are not living in the shadow of death, then this book is not for you. Pass it on to someone who will value it.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the missionary physician to Africa, wrote this about his friend of many years, Dr. Max Gerson:
... "I see in Gerson one of the most eminent medical geniuses in the history of medicine. He possessed something elemental. Out of deepest thought about the nature of disease and the process of healing, he came to walk along new paths with great success. Unfortunately, he could not engage in scientific research or teach; and he was greatly impeded by adverse political conditions. In ordinary times he would have been able to expound his ideas for many years as professor at one of the important German universities; would have taught pupils who could carry on his research and teachings; would have found recognition and encouragement ... All this was denied him.""His was the hard lot of searching and working as an uprooted immigrant, to be challenged and to stand as a fighter. We who knew and understood him admired him for working his way out of discouragement again and again, and for undertaking to conquer the obstacles."
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, quoted in
Journal of the Gerson Institute, Fall 1981, p. 14.
The following two statements will provide researchers with a better idea of the success rate of the Gerson therapy - and the difficulties:
"By application of these principles, the Gerson therapy is able to achieve almost routine recovery - 90% or better - from early to intermediate cancer. When cancer becomes incurable by orthodox methods (i.e., involves the liver or pancreas or is metastasized inside the body), about 50% recoveries can be achieved by the Gerson method."
"Norman Fritz gives laetrile as an example of other good nontoxic therapies. It has a good short-term response-relief from pain, remission of malignancy, improvement in appetite and sense of wellbeing or increase in strength - in 70% or 80% of cancer cases. The long-term recovery rate, however, is about 15% or less. In most cases degeneration progresses to where the laetrile is no longer sufficient. In some cases other nontoxic therapies may be constructively combined with the Gerson therapy."
"The other big advantage of the Gerson therapy is that it usually heals the body of all the degenerative diseases rather than just healing cancer. Many cancer patients are suffering from other degenerative conditions also - arthritis, heart conditions, diabetes, etc."
Cancer News Journal, 1983 Update.
Of the many, many cases which could be described, here was one among several where the patient had do everything by himself:
"Fifteen years ago, at age 70, Earl Taylor of Cairo, Illinois, was sent home to die by his doctor. Earl had prostate cancer which was spreading extensively as a large mass in the groin, in spite of the harmones his doctor had been giving him. His doctor told him to get his affairs in order, as there was nothing that could be done to save him."
"Earl had read about Dr. Gerson and the Gerson Therapy in Prevention magazine. He contacted Dr. Gerson's daughter in New York. She sent him Dr. Gerson's book, A Cancer Therapy - Results of 50 Cases. Earl had completed the sixth grade as a boy and spent all of his life working in a junk yard. He called Dr. Gerson's daughter again and told her that he couldn't understand the book. She suggested that he just follow the treatment outlined on page 235 in the book (page 236 in the latest edition, now gives an hourly schedule)."
"Earl said it was the hardest thing he ever did in his life. His wife had died years before, so he was all alone. (The institute tells people they should have help with the therapy, to have the best chance of winning.)"
"Earl was in pain, and the easiest thing to do was to stay in bed; but, he thought, `If I do that, I'll just die.' So he forced himself out of bed, to grind and press the hourly raw juices and to do the rest of the therapy. Soon the pain was gone. In a month his doctor could no longer feel any of the large mass."
"In a few months he felt well enough to go each day to help his friend, Gwinn Dunbar, who was dying of cancer spread through both lungs. Both patients recovered on the Gerson therapy and are still alive 15 years after being hopeless."
Journal of the Gerson Institute and the Gerson Therapy
Fall, 1981, 5.
Here is a second comment on Earl, which clarifies his case still more:
"Earl Taylor, 85, metastasized prostate cancer. Prostate cancer diagnosed by biopsy, 1963. Treated with female hormones. In 1966, mass spreading to groin, much pain, told to go home and get his affairs in order. At age 70, started Gerson therapy. In one month, mass no longer palpable by physician. In 1980, accident caused rib fracture. Bone scan showed no sign of cancer. Remains in good condition, still working part time at 85."
Op. cit., 4.
Birger Jansson, Ph.D., of the University of Texas, found that patients with a higher sodium to potassium ratio in their diets were the ones most likely to have cancer. Stephen Thompson, Ph.D., at the University of California, San Diego, found that increasing the sodium content of the diet - would accelerate the rate at which metastasis of colon cancer in animals occurred.
"Cancer is now the only major killing disease in the industrialized world whose rates are sharply rising. Just by way of quantitative contrast, mortality from AIDS, another eminently preventable disease, although highly alarming if not catastrophic, is relatively low. About 30,000 cases, more than half already fatal, have been reported since 1981 when the disease was first detected; additionally, it is estimated that 2-3 times as many Americans suffer from advanced symptoms of the AIDS-related complex which often progresses to frank AIDS. Rapidly increasing numbers of cases, totaling some 270,000 are projected by 1991. In contrast, there have been major reductions in deaths from cardiovascular disease, still the number one killer in the U.S., probably because of a recent decline in smoking and attention to diet and exercise."
"With over 900,000 new cases and 450,000 U.S. deaths last year, cancer has now reached epidemic proportions, with an incidence of one in three and a mortality of one in four. Analysis of overall cancer rates, standardized for age, sex and ethnicity, has demonstrated steady increases since the 1930s, with more recent sharp annual increases in incidence rates by some 2% and in mortality rates by some 1%."
"Cancer is an age-old and ubiquitous group of diseases. Its recognized causes and influences are multifactorial and include natural environmental carcinogens (such as aflatoxins and sunlight), lifestyle factors, genetic susceptibility, and more recently industrial chemicals. Apart from modern lifestyle factors, particularly smoking, increasing cancer rates reflect exposure to industrial chemicals and runaway modern technologies."
Samuel Epstein, M.D., professor of
occupational and environmental medicine,
University of Illinois Medical Center of Chicago,
quoted in 1987 Congressional Record, 133 (135):E3452-3453.
Max Gerson, M.D., was born in Germany on October 18, 1881. For his graduation tests, at the age of 19, Max wrote a totally new approach to a mathematics problem. His teacher could not figure it out, so sent it to the University of Berlin. They wrote back, that it was the work of a brilliant mathematician and that Gerson should be directed into higher mathematical studies. But Gerson had other plans. He wanted to become a medical doctor. Max wanted to help people.
Graduating from the University of Freiburg in 1907 as a physician, he received advanced training under five of the leading medical experts in Germany.
Shortly after completing medical school, Gerson began experiencing severe migraine headaches. He was only 25, yet he would have to lie in a darkened room for two or three days in pain.
The doctors had no answer. One told him, "You will feel better when you are 55." But that was not much of a solution.
Then Max read about a woman in Italy who had changed her diet, and her migraines lessened. This gave him an idea, so he began tinkering with his diet. In his case, he had excellent feedback: If he made a beneficial change, the migraines reduced in intensity and frequency; if he made a mistake, one would begin within 20 minutes.
First, he tried a milk diet, but that was useless. Then he went off all milk, and that helped a little.
Then he tried eating apples only - raw, cooked, baked - and that was a great help. Slowly he added other things, till eventually he had totally eliminated his migraines.
So he told his migraine patients about his diet. He called it his "migraine diet." When they returned, they would tell him theirs was gone too. But one said it had also eliminated his lupus (lupus vulgaris, or tuberculosis of the skin). Gerson knew the man could not have had lupus since it is incurable, but the patient showed him his medical records. The year was 1922.
It was obvious to Gerson that the medical theory, that there is but one medicine for each disease, was incorrect. As he later stated it, the great truth was this: "Nourish the body and it will do the healing."
So Max treated some other lupus patients, and their problem vanished also. But patients came back with the news that their other problems had disappeared as well. The careful dietary program he devised was successful in treating asthma and other allergies; diseases of the intestinal tract, liver, and pancreas; tuberculosis; arthritis; heart disease, skin conditions, and on and on! Some of his most striking successes were in liver and gallbladder diseases.
In Germany at that time, trains often had private compartments, each one seating six. One day, as a train was about to pull out from the station, a man entered one of the compartments. The only other person there was a distinguished-appearing gentleman who said nothing. As the train got underway, the man started chattering to no one in particular. The gentleman tried to ignore him.
Soon the man jovially got on the subject of health, and the gentleman wished he could get to his destination a little quicker.
Then, opening his shirt slightly, the man said, "And you know, I had this lupus, right here on my chest. And this doctor, he cured it. Now it's gone!"
At this, the gentleman jumped up, lunged at the man, reached for his shirt and said, "Let me see that!"
The gentleman was Ferdinand Sauerbruch, M.D., one of Europe's leading skin and tuberculosis doctors. He well-knew that lupus cannot be cured!
Obtaining Gerson's name and address from the man, Sauerbruch contacted Gerson as soon as he reached his office. A friendship was started, and Sauerbruch, impressed with his humility and sincerity, arranged a test using Gerson's remarkable diet on 450 "incurable" lupus patients.
But after a week or so, it was obviously a failure. Sauerbruch did not think it would come to this; he had hoped against hope. So he penned a letter to his friend Gerson and, then, slowly walked back across the hospital grounds after posting the note.
He was on his way to cancel the test; but, on the way, met a woman carrying two large trays full of meat, gravy, sugary foods, and all the trimmings. Asking her what she was doing, she replied airily: "Oh, the people over in this building are starving, so we're sneaking food in to make them happy. They have a crazy doctor!"
Sauerbruch quickly set guards to keep the diet the way Gerson had prescribed it, and then wrote a second letter informing Gerson the test was still in progress.
Result: 446 of 450 incurable patients (99%) recovered. Lupus had been shown to be curable by diet therapy.
But Gerson still had not tried his therapy on cancer patients. Even in Germany, physicians were careful about trying out new cancer remedies. When a couple of cancer victims came to him, he turned them down. But one day, a lady called him to her home, but would not tell him what was wrong with her. Arriving, she told him she had cancer and pled for him to help her. She was in bed, weakened, and in terrible condition. He told her he could not do so. "Please, she said, just write out your dietary formula, and I will sign a paper not holding you responsible for what happens." Gerson did so and left. It was obvious she was too weak to even follow the directions.
All alone, the sick woman struggled to follow the program - and recovered totally from cancer.
Learning of this, Gerson began treating other cancer patients. The year was 1928. Of his first 12 cases, 7 responded favorably, remaining symptom free for seven and a half years.
(Some of these facts we know because of testimony presented by him and others at the July 1-3, 1946, senate hearings, conducted by Claude Pepper of Florida.)
Gerson also treated Dr. Albert Schweitzer, his wife, and daughter for various health problems. Gerson saved Mrs. Helene Schweitzer from hopeless lung tuberculosis in 1931; and, several years later, he healed their daughter of a rare, serious "incurable" erupting skin condition that defied diagnosis.
Dr. Schweitzer himself came to Gerson at the age of 75, depressed and weary with advanced diabetes. In five weeks, Dr. Schweitzer had cut his insulin dosage in half, and in ten was completely off of it. Healed, and with new energy, he returned to Africa where he worked past the age of 90. In response, the world-famed Schweitzer declared, "I see in him one of the most eminent medical geniuses in the history of medicine."
Schweitzer afterward required that his physicians in Lambarene, Africa, study Gerson's book, Therapy of Lung Tuberculosis, before they started to treat the patients in his hospital.
Gerson was remarkable. Geniuses tend to focus their thoughts, whereas most people scatter theirs. Because of this trait, Gerson could not ride a bicycle. He would be so deep in thought that he would smash it. After having destroyed four of them, his family forbade more of that. For the same reason, he could not drive a car. His mind was continually at work, devising ways to help his patients.
One day while walking in the woods in the Harz Mountains near Bielefeld (before moving to Kassel), Max met a man who raised foxes. The rancher told him that he ran a very successful fox farm. He would buy sick, tubercular foxes for almost no cost, and later sell them. He said his foxes had the finest coats and their pelts brought the highest prices. Gerson asked him how he could do this. Mentioning that it was a secret which must not be shared with the other fox farmers, he said there was a doctor, somewhere in Germany, named Max Gerson who had a nutritional cure for disease. The farmer bought sick foxes which had lung tuberculosis, healed them with Gerson's diet of organic vegetables and fruits, and then sold them at a good profit because they produced such high-quality fox furs. Both men were happy when Gerson introduced himself.
At the age of 51, Gerson was asked to present his findings, by appointment, at a meeting of the German Medical Association. At last he would have an opportunity for the world to learn of his work to save people. On April 1, 1933, as he sat in the railroad car, on his way to Berlin, the train stopped at a station and Hitler's SS troups entered.
When a young, inexperienced SS officer asked Gerson where he was going, Gerson, not knowing there was any danger, enthusiastically showed him X-rays and told him about his work. Impressed, the young man replied that he hoped Gerson would succeed, forgot to ask the question, and passed on to the next man just behind Gerson. For the first time, Gerson heard the question the troops were asking each passenger on the train: "Are you a Jew?"
Immediately, Max sensed the terrible danger. All the passengers except Gerson were asked that question, and Max saw one young man, a Jew, led outside, where he was gunned down as Gerson watched through the window. He had just seen the first large-scale action to collect 6,000,000 Jews for extermination in the Nazi concentration camps.
As the train continued on, Max completely changed his plans. Instead of getting off at Berlin, he continued on the train to Vienna, Austria. From there, he contacted his wife and told her to immediately come with their three girls, which she did. He also contacted all their brothers, sisters, and relatives, and offered to send money for them to leave. But they laughed at his concerns. They had their homes, their businesses, and there was nothing to fear from Hitler.
Max Gerson, his wife, and their relatives were Jews. All of those relatives (15, plus children) later perished. From Vienna, Gerson later went to Paris.
In 1936, he emigrated to America, and went to school to learn English. In January 1938 he received his medical license and began practicing in New York City. By this time, Gerson could enlarge or shrink surface cancers at will. He knew exactly what was needed to help his patients. The only question generally was whether they were in earnest enough to fully follow his program when they went home.
His first contact with medicine in America was enlightening. Called as a consultant to physicians treating a wealthy industrialist for arthritis, Gerson outlined what he would do to bring a fairly quick recovery. There was an awkward pause, and then one of the doctors said, "Dr. Gerson, you are new here. You don't understand. This man is a wealthy member of the W.R. Grace family. They own steamship lines, banks, chemical companies, and so on. You don't cure a patient like this. You treat him."
In New York, he treated 90% of his cancer patients without charge and financed his own researches in chronic diseases. From 1946 to 1948 he saw patients at the Gotham Hospital.
At the Senate hearings, he testified that he believed the liver held the key to the cure of cancer - and that if the liver was too far gone, treatment was useless. This would be understandable, since the liver, an astounding chemical laboratory, is the primary detoxifying agency in the body.
Appearing with him on July 3, 1946, at the three-day Senate hearings were five of his patients, each of whom had fully recovered from some of the most common forms of cancer in America. He also came with X-ray photographs, pathology reports from leading hospitals, and testimonials from many other patients and relatives of cancer victims.
In reaction, on November 16, 1946, in its "Frauds and Fables" category, the Journal of the AMA hopefully dismissed the Gerson's unprecedented Senate presentation with the words, "Fortunately for the American people this presentation received little, if any, newspaper publicity."
In its January 8, 1949, issue, the Journal wrote, "There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to indicate that modifications in the dietary intake of food or other nutritional essentials are of any specific value in the control of cancer."
During his lifetime, Gerson wrote 51 articles, published in medical journals. (All of his publications are listed at the back of S.J. Haught's book, Has Dr. Max Gerson a True Cancer Cure?) But, for the most part, Gerson worked alone. Other physicians generally feared to help him or duplicate his work, for fear of reprisal.
Eventually, Gerson's medical privileges at Gotham Hospital were revoked, and he was unable to find an affiliation with any other hospital in the city. In 1953 his malpractice insurance was discontinued. One $100,000 malpractice lawsuit would have wiped him out. Because the larger number of those who sought him had advanced cancers, some of them died. Yet their relatives knew that they died with dignity, free from pain and brain-numbing narcotics.
Gerson's needs were simple. Patients were shocked to learn that he would generally charge $25 for the first visit and $5 or $10 for subsequent visits. (They had earlier been told he charged high fees, $1,000 or $2,000 for each visit.)
Refusing to stop his work, Gerson treated patients at his own facilities. In October 1954 at the age of 73, he wrote his former patient and close friend, Albert Schweitzer,
"Those who say they would like to help, often tell me they cannot. They regret not being able to assist me for fear of losing their position in hospitals and laboratories. I have long abandoned thoughts of attaining any kind of recognition, nonetheless I continue on my way."
Journal of the Gerson Institute, Fall 1981, 16.
Some of his best-documented, recovered patients died, when they were urged back by their former physicians for examination, and then told they must have surgery or radiation - when they were totally free of cancer symptoms or evidence.
On two occasions Gerson became violently ill after being served coffee by a group supposedly supporting him. Later laboratory tests showed unusually high levels of arsenic in his urine.
Some of Gerson's best case histories mysteriously disappeared from his files. In 1956, the manuscript and all of its copies for Gerson's almost completed book (A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases) were stolen and never recovered.
Separating himself from that group, Gerson, now quite aged, raced against time to completely rewrite the book. In 1958, the book was published.
On March 4 of that same year, he was finally suspended for two years from the New York Medical Society. At a meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, the surgeons, radiologists, and physicians condemned a colleague who was living by Hippocrates' dictum: "Above all, do no harm."
Gerson died a year later (March 8, 1959), shortly after he fell down the stairs in his house. He was 78 years old.
Upon Gerson's death, Albert Schweitzer, the Nobel prize-winning physician and missionary, and a patient of Gerson's, made this statement:
"I see in him one of the most eminent medical 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 cured will now attest to the truth of his ideas."
Albert Schweitzer, M.D., Ph.D., quoted in
S.J. Haught, Has Max Gerson a True Cancer Cure? 1962.
That prediction was to prove true.
At the urging of many individuals who recognized that a revival of Gerson's therapy was urgently needed, Charlotte Gerson Strauss (the youngest of Gerson's three daughters; born March 27, 1922), headed up a new venture, called the Gerson Institute, in a clinic/ hospital in Tijuana, Mexico. The Gerson Institute was incorporated on June 27, 1978, twenty years after the publication of Gerson's book, A Cancer Therapy, and nineteen years after his death.
The Gerson Institute headquarters is located in Bonita, California, near San Diego. The hospital, is in a suburb of Tijuana, Mexico.
Charlotte continues to travel around the world, speaking at conventions, meetings, and on talk shows. Although elderly herself, she is in good health, for she carefully remains on the nutrition and juice program her father developed.
Gerson Therapy - The U.S. address and phone number will, for most people, be easier to work with: Gerson Institute, P.O. Box 430, Bonita, California 91908. Phone: 619-585-7600 or 619-267-1150. Fax: 619-585-7610. Automated voice information 24 hrs/ day: 1-888-4-GERSON.
The primary Gerson treatment center is Hospital Meridien, Lava #2971, Secc. Costa Hermosa, Playas de Tijuana, B.C., Mexico, CP22240. Phone: 011-52-66-801358. Fax: 011-52-66-801831.
Hospital Meridien is 30 minutes south of down-town San Diego.
A recently opened U.S. treatment center is the Gerson Center at Sedona, 78 Canyon Diablo, Sedona, AZ 86351. Phone or write the Bonita, California, office, above. GCS, the Sedona facility, is located 100 miles north of Phoenix and 28 miles south of Flag-staff, near Sedona, a small town of 8,000.
"I see in him one of the most eminent medical 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 cured will now attest to the truth of his ideas."
Albert Schweitzer, M.D., Ph.D., quoted in
S.J. Haught, Has Max Gerson a True Cancer Cure? 1962.
We should settle one thing here at the beginning: The purpose of the Gerson therapy is to save life. People who go on this program are frequently close to death. Unlike some other "cancer remedies," THIS PROGRAM SAVES LIVES. If the reader does not like the program, or wish to go on the program, that is his choice. But he should not reprove those who do, so they can continue living.
They need encouragement, not reproof.
There are medicines used in this therapy to help recover the sick. You and I do not take those medicines. They are not for us. We are well. But, for the greater part of a century, Dr. Gerson and associates found that these special substances brought people back from the brink of death - for those substances provided the ill with a combination of abundant tissue nourishment and intense tissue cleansing. Like all medicines, they are used for a time by sick people to help make them well. After that, they can be set aside.
To friends and loved ones of the sufferer with advanced cancer, we would say: This person is battling for his or her life, and needs your help. He or she may die without earnest efforts. Let's pitch in and help. If the situation were to be reversed, is not this what you would want others to do for you?