Around 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 her. Schweitzer’s own Type II diabetes was also cured by treatment with the Gerson’s diet. Gerson and Schweitzer remained friends for life, and maintained regular correspondence, and Schweitzer followed Gerson’s progress as the dietary therapy was successfully applied to heart disease, kidney failure, and finally – cancer.
It was in 1938 that Dr. Gerson passed his medical boards and became a licensed doctor in the state of New York, and his work began to focus more on cancer. For twenty years he treated hundreds of cancer patients who had been given up to die after all conventional treatments had failed them. In 1946, Gerson demonstrated his work before the Pepper-Neely Congressional Subcommittee, which was holding hearings regarding funding for future cancer treatments. 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. Gerson described his approach in the book titled ‘A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer.’ Max Gerson died March 8, 1959.

Charlotte Gerson
Charlotte Gerson, the daughter of the late Max Gerson, and her son have continued on with his work of healing cancer and other chronic illnesses. She is the founder of the Gerson Institute and author of several books relating to healing from illnesses using the Gerson Therapy including, Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases. For over 40 years, she lectured worldwide in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia on the cancer therapy that her father started so many decades ago. Charlotte has been featured in several documentaries to preserve the work of her father and recently celebrated her 91st birthday.
The therapy advocates the drinking of 13 servings of organic, raw juices daily, combined with a low-fat, low-sodium, vegetarian diet, specialized supplements, and digestive enzymes. The therapy also includes some detoxing therapies which included the use of coffee enemas, about 5 per day, that detoxify the liver.
The therapy usually begins by the patient and a companion going to the Gerson Clinic for a two or three week stay to learn all aspects of using the therapy, then patients are sent home to incorporate the dietary and detoxification teachings on their own. Healing from a condition such as a stage four cancer takes about 2 years for the body to eliminate tumors, fully detoxify, and then rebuild the tissues.