Max Gerson—Inventor of the Gerson Therapy

Max Gerson (1881–1959) was born in Wongrowitz, Poland (then Germany). He studied medicine at several German universities and graduated 1909 in Freiburg. He worked as a surgeon during WW I and was awarded the Iron Cross. After the war, he practised in Bielefeld and cooperated with a pharmaceutical firm to create two conventional medications. By 1927, he had specialised in the dietary treatment of tuberculosis and thereafter of cancer. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Gerson and his family fled first to Vienna, then to Paris, London, and eventually New York. In the USA, Gerson and his dietary treatment of cancer received considerable attention and notoriety. His critics pointed out that he was unable to produce convincing evidence for its effectiveness, and Gerson became convinced that the medical establishment was conspiring against him and his ideas. He died of pneumonia in New York in 1958.