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MIRACLE MAX
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Here, published for the first time, is the real story of "Camelot’s" Merlin, Dr. Max Jacobson, personal physician to President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy and “a Who’s Who of the Twentieth Century.” Written by a former patient with exclusive access to the doctor’s files, this book delivers information previously unknown and exposes forty-five years of misrepresentation in the media plus those responsible for the lies.
Following his escape from Berlin the night before the Nazis were going to arrest him to his rise to become the most sought after general practitioner in New York with a celebrity-studded list of patients and a hand in their greatest performances including the rescue of President Kennedy, Dr. Max Jacobson’s life is the stuff of legend. Finally, the real story of this humanitarian genius will be known.
Those interested in learning about the development of vitamin-based therapies from one of its earliest proponents will be fascinated by his research and discoveries along with the history in the memoirs and testimonials from patients. This material offers vindication of the doctor’s judgment as well as those of his patients, famous or otherwise, for choosing him as their beloved physician. As the doctor liked to say, medicine made more progress during his lifetime than it had in the previous five hundred years. Herein lies his amazing journey and the stories of the lives he touched.
Scroll down this page for links to archived original documents.
MIRACLE MAX
by David Jeand'Heur with Andrew W. Saul
CHAPTER I. THE PRESIDENT’S (AND MY) FAMILY PHYSICIAN
I visited Max at his bedside in his apartment on December 15,
1979, two days before the end. Kidney failure. He knew how
little time he had left. His eyes reminded me of Picasso’s self-portraits
painted just before the artist’s passing. Max’s
funeral took place at Park West Chapels, 115 West 79th Street at
Columbus Ave., on December 22nd. The rabbi had not known Max and
made a lame eulogy about not everyone approving of everything he
did. It was attended by less than a hundred mourners, family
members and loyal patients. Of the forty-four guests who signed
the registry, myself included, the only name of renown was
Claude Pepper.
Scientists ahead of their time often pay a high price. As the
years went by, I had to admit with candor that my expectation to
read about the real Dr. Max Jacobson had been pierced by doubt and
ebbed to naught. Early book projects were abandoned, his
dictated memoirs unfinished, and in their place, a misinformed
media.
Many years later, I reminisced with a former patient and friend
of Max’s, George Zournas. He remarked, “When I think of the
doctor the first thing I’m reminded of is, my God, all those
performances!”
I knew what he meant. President John F. Kennedy’s debates,
speeches and press conferences; Van Cliburn at the Tchaikovsky
Competition; Leontyne Price in Aida, Metropolitan Opera; Cicely
Tyson, “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman;” Paul Robeson,
“Showboat;” Zero Mostel, “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To
The Forum;” Mabel Mercer, Town Hall; plays by Tennessee
Williams, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, The Diaries of Anäis Nin.
On and on.
Max’s celebrity patients included musicians Kurt Baum, The
Everly Brothers, Maynard Ferguson, Eddie Fisher, Johnny Mathis,
The McGuire Sisters, Pat Suzuki, Andy Williams; actors Eddie
Albert, Carroll Baker, Roscoe Lee Browne, Yul Brynner, Bob
Cummings, Marlene Dietrich, Tony Franciosa, Arlene Francis,
Martin Gabel, Hermione Gingold, Ronny Graham, Hedy Lamarr, Peter
Lorre, Burgess Meredith, Rita Moreno, Lee Marvin, Roddy
McDowall, Patrick O’Neal, Anthony Quinn, Lee Remick, Chita
Rivera, Edward G. Robinson, Elizabeth Taylor, Franchot Tone;
directors Cecil B. DeMille, Billy Wilder, Franco Zeffirelli; the
artist Salvador Dali, dancers Katherine Dunham, Maya Deren,
producers Arnold Saint Subber, Leonard Sillman; writers Truman
Capote, Henry Miller and Tennessee Williams; politicians Winston Churchill (not
personally, Lord Moran requested medication), UN Secretary
General Henrik De Kauffmann, Ambassador Eusebio Morales and
Senator Claude Pepper. Without knowing it, Kennedy wasn’t the
first president Max treated. Former Democratic Party Treasurer
Nathan Lichtblau informed Max during Kennedy’s birthday party at
the Waldorf that he used to share his bottle of vitamin drops
with Harry.
Max dictated his memoirs during the Seventies intended for
publication when interest was high. From the time he was a
teenage physician’s assistant in Berlin, he strove to learn and
discover as much about medicine as he could in order to become a
very good doctor.
Due to the articles in The New York Times, speculation that Dr.
Jacobson abused amphetamines and addicted his celebrity
patients, possibly including Jack and Jackie Kennedy, circulated
through the media and tainted the Kennedy biographies.
Max’s injections were customized for each patient as he saw fit
consisting of vitamins, amino acids, select hormones as needed,
and live cell therapy enzymes from a process Max invented
decades before the rest of the medical profession would catch up
to what is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Back when Max
was ahead of the game, although generous with his formulae to
other doctors, live cell therapy was only available from a few
physicians like Dr. Jacobson and Dr. Paul Niehans, its
accidental discoverer, who founded his clinic, La Prairie, in
Montreux, Switzerland, which also attracted many celebrities,
including a Pope. Dr. Jacobson’s method of extracting enzymes
from red cells, tissue, brain and bone marrow was more
sophisticated and safer than those at La Prairie. The advantages
of injected vitamins and these invigorating, restorative
medicines, especially for geriatric patients, are often
overlooked in place of expensive alternative pharmaceuticals and
surgery. Many pharmaceuticals are barbiturate-based and
dangerously addictive. When designer drugs appear in television
commercials, they have to list so many contraindications it is
hard to remember what they are supposed to cure.
In addition to uncovering the real story behind the lies, I wished to learn more about the medications his patients, myself included, accepted on faith.
I knew Max better than my own grandfather and could not imagine a more scientific, honest
and dedicated physician but he rarely had time for an
explanation for a patient that most doctors could not fathom.
Dr. Jacobson’s persecution was not patient-driven. He had zero
malpractice complaints when the New York Times began its
investigation. That this beloved doctor was subjected to a smear
campaign in the first place appalled his patients who owed him
their lives. The Kennedy secrets helped make him a target of
speculation and the family would keep hidden the severity of
President Kennedy’s illnesses until 2002. That was the first
cover-up. The number of celebrities who flocked to Max also made
him a target as did turning Nixon down.
My father was a young minister at his first church in Oceanside,
Long Island, when he met Max. One of his parishioners, Archie
Bleyer, arranged his first appointment. Archie, a bandleader and
arranger, had been the conductor of the Arthur Godfrey radio
show and owned a record company, Cadence. His wife, Janet, was
one of the Chordettes with hit songs like “Mr. Sandman.”
Archie also discovered Andy Williams and the Everly Brothers. Their
daughter, Jackie, married Phil Everly. Archie’s biggest hit on
the Cadence label was Vaughn Meader’s, “The First Family.” The
major record companies had turned the comedy ensemble down but
Archie thought they might have a chance. It became the fastest
selling LP in history up to that time. Archie made so much so
quickly that Cadence shot up to the highest tax bracket, he said
around ninety-five cents on the dollar, and he wound up selling
the company to Andy Williams.
One morning while greeting Dad after the church service, Archie
noticed his discomfort and asked what was wrong. Al mentioned a
constant ringing in his ear — tinnitus — that the doctors he had
seen were unable to treat successfully. Robert Schumann had
suffered from the same malady — especially bad for a composer.
Shortly thereafter, Dad headed into Manhattan for his first
appointment with Max.
My father realized he was in the presence of a special
personality of great insight and ability. Max treated him
successfully. Like Max's other patients, for the long-suffering
to experience a sudden return to normalcy often met with near
disbelief. Why hadn't the other doctors known about this? Here
was a G.P. who knew more than the specialists. What did you give
me, they would demand to know? Max would shrug and bolt for the
next patient. Better one take their medicine and pay attention
to his advice.
One reason Max inspired such devotion is that so many patients
had a similar experience as my Dad. Max was rarely the first
doctor they had seen. For twenty years in the course of
encountering many of his patients, I heard variations on the
same theme over and again. "I had been everywhere. None of the
doctors could help. Then I found Max."
I only rarely had cause for treatment while growing up. However,
my father battled depression and Max’s office would mail vials
after we moved upstate for him to self-inject. Some even had
rocks in them. I observed Dad when he injected himself in the
hip and he remained very much the same person but clearly felt
better and more energetic. Afterwards, sometimes he and my
brother would do a routine from the then-popular Royal Canadian
Air Force Exercise book.
Along with being a patient, my father and Max developed a
friendship. Max and my father sometimes discussed religious
ideas. Max, of course, had been flown to Egypt by his patient,
Cecil B. DeMille, and witnessed the most overblown Biblical
extravaganza of all, the making of “The Ten Commandments.” “It’s
what God would have done if he had money,” Max joked.
Max once introduced me with a laugh saying he knew me before I
was born. It was no secret that Max enjoyed the company of
children, athletes, artists and performers, who uplifted his
spirit and gave him respite from tending to the sick and
infirmed. He asked to meet us. I was only three or four years
old the first time my father drove my younger brother and me
from Long Island to Max’s office. Just walking the streets of
Manhattan was exciting compared to suburban Oceanside. Being
ushered into his laboratory for the first time remains a vivid
memory.
The strangest machines we little guys had ever seen percolated
behind him in the lab which was chiefly lit by a swing arm lamp
on a desk surrounded by shelves of bottles. The smell of
vitamins was strong. With his jet black hair combed back, blackframed
glasses, lower lip thrust forward, powerful wrestler's
build and heavy German accent, Dr. Jacobson was easily the most
intriguing and unusual person we had ever encountered.
He didn't talk down to us like other adults but plainly and
directly in a manner we responded to immediately. He performed
magic tricks such as closing a little sponge rabbit in his hand
and opening it to reveal a family of rabbits. He showed us rocks
glowing under ultraviolet light. One of the nurses brought us
glasses of milk mixed with ginger ale. Milk and ginger ale?
We left the office delighted and impressed, not an unusual
reaction at any age. In fact, everybody I ever met who actually
knew the doctor, including other physicians, was somewhat in awe
of him.
Max’s friendship with my Dad was evidenced in that he rarely had
to wait more than a few minutes, if at all, to see him. It was
not unusual for patients to wait many hours. Once the Kennedys
became patients, Max’s schedule became totally unpredictable.
In the summer, we visited Max at his home at Point Lookout, just
fifteen minutes from Oceanside, for a swim in the ocean. One day
at Point Lookout Max invited a professional magician (I should
say another professional magician). The magician fanned a deck
of cards and had my Dad pick one then put it back. He shuffled and held up a card. It was the wrong one. Flustered, he shuffled
again and held up another. Again the wrong card. In frustration,
he threw the deck against the wall. All the cards fell to the
floor except the correct card hanging by a thumbtack.
I am glad we only visited there in the summer. Max and his son,
Tommy, once drove out to Point Lookout in the dead of winter
when snow covered the dunes. Tommy jokingly suggested, “How
about a swim?” He would quickly regret it. “Ya, let’s go,” Max
replied. And swim they did.
My father met a number of Max’s patients during the time we
lived in Oceanside. He was invited to Max’s surprise sixtieth
birthday party which was held in a TV studio that had been
decorated to look like an Italian restaurant with checkered
tablecloths. In a roomful of celebrities, Max was the center of
attention — a star’s star. My father didn't know who many of the
guests were other than being fellow patients and treated them
the same as anyone else. I think the celebrities must have liked
that they could be themselves around him.
After my family moved upstate, we would see Max during the
summer when we drove in from our vacation house in Mt. Sinai.
Visiting his office was always faxcinating. I was a teenager
when our family stopped by and were ushered into his lab where
Max introduced Alan Jay Lerner. Lerner found Max fascinating to
watch and listen to at work. He spent a good bit of time at the
office. Max apparently enjoyed his company. I have to confess
that the great Alan Jay didn’t make much of an impression on me.
Perched on a stool behind Max, he reminded me of a parrot on the
shoulder of Long John Silver.
As a kid, I was exposed to two contrasting schools of medicine
—— AMA medicine and Max’s medicine. Fortunately, I was healthy
and rarely needed treatment but remember the first time I
received an injection from Max while in elementary school, his
version of a flu shot. I hated getting injections, but this time
was different. I didn’t feel the needle. Nothing. “So this is
how the pros do it,” I remember thinking. Medicine is an art as
well as a science and Max was a gifted diagnostician. An article
he wrote for the layman, “A Doctor Asks, ‘How Are You?’”
explained some simple body language and verbal signals. Beneath
the larger than life blunt speaker once described as having “the
bedside manner of a billy goat,” one discovered the immensely
warm personality of a caring and dedicated healer. As Ruth told
me, if you saw the sensitivity and kindness he gave to someone
in the last stages of a terminal illness, it would melt your
heart. He also had a great sense of humor. The banter at the
dinner table was quick and witty and kept the guests on their
toes. JFK loved his Jewish jokes. Max once told President
Kennedy that he would have to resign because he had run out of
them.
Max adopted us, like many of his patients, as extended family.
Down through the years, on the rare occasions I had a medical
question, I would phone Max, grateful to hear him say something
like, “Ya, that will do you no good,” and give an alternative.
After graduating from college, I moved to the Upper West Side.
Not long after, I made a call to Max about a friend’s
questionable diagnosis. Before he put the receiver down,
gracious Ruth took it and extended an invitation. “Now that you
are living here, why don’t you join us for Friday night dinner?”
Like Max, Ruth was born in Germany and also, like Max, escaped
the Nazis during the Thirties. She was only six years old when
she was sent to live with a foster family in London. Ruth loved
her two foster brothers and adopted family and would remain
close through the years. When she was a teenager, her parents
called for her to leave England and join them in Haifa, Israel.
She could not remember her parents and didn’t want to go.
When Ruth became Max’s office manager in the mid-Sixties, she
discovered that nobody had been billed in three months. She
restored order around the office where they nicknamed her
“Ruthless.” Ruth and Max shared fluency in several languages and
being multilingual in Max's world was decidedly an asset. I
would discover their communication was such that if one made a
triple entendre worthy of Nabokov that spanned three languages,
the other got the joke. Max shared his knowledge with Ruth and
her love and support gave him many wonderful years. Friday night dinners with Max, Ruth and their guests were always
fun. East 86th Street was still known as Germantown during the
Seventies. I used to stop at Café Geiger on the way and pick up
an elephant head, a delicious chocolate-covered concoction
filled with cake and marzipan, a favorite of Ruth’s, before
heading up to 18P West, their modest apartment.
Max had chosen the apartment building at 86th Street between
Second and Third Avenues because of its Olympic-sized pool in
the basement. We used to take a swim and a turkish bath
(“schvitz”) before dinner. Well into his Seventies, Max would
swim thirty laps, but he didn’t pay much attention to who else
was in the lane as I found out during a head-on collision. I
kept my eye out for him after that. More often than not, Max and
I met Bill Levi at the pool, another tenant and frequent Friday
dinner guest. Bill was a salesman who had been incarcerated in
Dachau during WWII until a relative bribed his way out. Max
insisted on treating anyone who had been in a concentration camp
for free.
One Friday afternoon, I entered the apartment and discovered Max
and Ruth chortling over a stack of papers. Max had requested his
file under the Freedom of Information Act. Nearly all of it was
redacted, but someone had taken a stab at the composition of a
Jacobson injection. It was totally off-base. They were laughing
because, Max said, the shot would have killed a horse.
A cocktail at the Jacobsons was either a cup of chicken broth or
a combination of cranberry juice, grapefruit juice and water.
Max was a teetotaler and strongly anti-alcohol. I recall one of
his dinner guests asking him why he was so opposed to alcohol.
Max replied, "You know what sugar does to the body... so
fermented sugar?"
I was a little embarrassed one Friday evening and didn’t let on
that I had a slight hangover. When I was offered a slice of
chocolate cake for dessert, I turned it down. Max looked right
through me and said, “You want that cake, but you have a
headache.” He gave a whistle and motioned me to follow him from
the table. He had me hold up a fist, sprinkled a few drops of a
pale pink liquid on my knuckle and told me snort it up my nose.
In two seconds, the headache was gone. Although I didn’t feel
any numbness, the liquid had numbed a cloverleaf of nerves
behind the nose, short-circuiting the pain.
“That’s amazing,” I remarked.
“That’s amazing?” he replied.
“You’re amazing,” I answered. Then I got to have my cake and eat
it too.
Agnes Clark, who had a beautiful Jamaican accent and a smile
like sunshine, prepared dinner which was either chicken or
brisket or both. On some of the Friday evenings I was in
attendance, there were just a few guests. Other nights, the
folding tables and chairs had to come out. The conversation was
always convivial and entertaining. Depending on who dropped by,
dinner could morph into something like an an episode of The Merv
Griffin Show as it did the night Ronny Graham showed up. I
recalled the wacky songs he used to sing while playing piano on
the real Merv Griffin show.
Ronny told the dinner table how he first met the doctor. When
Max walked into the crowded waiting room to speak to one of the
nurses at the desk, Ronny made his move. He got down on hands
and knees, crawled over and grabbed Max around the legs.
"Doctor, Doctor, please you have to help me!" Max picked him up,
gave him a little slap and said, "Sit down and shut up, you
psychosomatic son of a bitch."
"How did that make you feel?" we asked Ronny.
Ronny hugged himself and beamed, "I was in love!"
Ronny was a creative for M*A*S*H, the most popular show of the
day. A small TV on a metal cart with rollers was often tuned to M*A*S*H before dinner. Max commented one time that the light
banter accompanying the gravity of surgery was realistic. When
Max and Ruth were in Los Angeles, Ronny brought them to the set
to meet the cast. Apparently, they had already heard of Max’s
fame so when he was introduced, Alan Alda said, "So you're the
one!" Max made a little joke at his own expense. He told Alda,
"You know we have something in common. You, like your father,
became an actor and my father was a kosher butcher."
Speaking of surgery, when Max mentioned performing an operation,
one of the dinner guests teased, “I didn’t know you were a
surgeon, too. Were you any good?” (He was. He had been the
assistant to Berlin’s leading surgeon, Professor Auguste Bier.)
Max’s cousin, Phillipe Waldberg, who was visiting from France,
answered for him. “I hope so. He gave me an emergency
appendectomy on my kitchen table.” We roared at the best line of
the night.
Ronny became such a fan of the doctor that he invited Max and
his family to visit one summer in Massachusetts and Max
accepted, but it turned into a typical Jacobson vacation. As
soon as they arrived, he was called to work. It was during the
time of the Berlin Crisis and the office left word there was an
emergency and to phone Hyannis. Since it was only twenty minutes
away, Max drove over and Kennedy was surprised and relieved to
see him so soon.
Max treated people from all walks of life. It was an
exaggeration that the waiting room was like visiting the William
Morris agency. But surely, it was a shock to the patient who
walked in and found Marlene Dietrich mopping Max’s kitchen
floor. Dietrich was apparently obsessed with cleanliness and
couldn't stand a dirty floor. My father, who rarely watched
movies and had little interest in pop culture once sat next to
Dietrich in the waiting room without recognizing her. When Dad
went in to see Max, Max asked, "What did you think of Marlene?"
My father replied, "Who?" Max said, "Marlene Dietrich! You were
sitting right next to her!" Dietrich’s file includes letters
mostly in German and a request that he send medicine to Europe
to rescue a seriously ill eight-year-old boy, which Max did. His
patient records include telegrams requesting medication be sent
from around the world.
Max drew plenty of female attention and it wasn’t lost on him.
When he left the table to take a phone call, a German lady
complained, "The other patients didn't like it when the doctor's
girlfriend was Marlene." The artist, Lou Haddad, replied, "They
liked her better than the next one."
"What...? Who?"
"Hedy Lamarr."
"Oh yeah."
Also a brilliant scientist, by the way. Most of Max’s celebrity patients would abandon him with the bad
press but some notables remained loyal. I was at Max’s apartment
one afternoon when Franco Zeffirelli stopped by. Zeffirelli is
brilliant, of course, and I enjoyed our conversation when it was
cut short by a phone call with Faye Dunaway. I never heard so
many “darlings” in my life. He knew how to talk to an actress,
how to soothe a ball of nerves.
Back in the Seventies, it was not a question of if but when a
book would appear. Max had begun dictating his memoirs. When I
stopped by the apartment, I was handed the opening chapter and
immediately became intrigued. Max introduced David Diles of ABC
Sports who was putting together additional material for his book
and was in touch with the prestigious Scott Meredith Agency.
Max had previously been contacted by the famous book agent,
Swifty Lazar. When Lazar phoned Max, he said, "Hey Doc, I hear
you want to be a millionaire." Exactly the wrong approach to
take with Dr. Jacobson. Max replied that he wouldn't wish that
on anyone and hung up on him. Max didn't care about money. "It's
like chasing a runaway horse," he would say.
A reporter interested in Max’s relationship with JFK had begun
taping interviews for her book, which turned into another
abandoned project.
JFK’s name came up occasionally, but not often. Max once
mentioned Kennedy’s Berlin speech with amusement since
“berliner” was the name of a popular local pastry. According to
Max, Kennedy should have said, “Ich bin Berliner,” without the
“ein” but the roar of the crowd clearly wasn’t dissuaded by the
President’s declaration, “I am a jelly donut.”
President Kennedy’s confidence in Dr. Jacobson’s ability would
lead to a great friendship. As Max came through again and again
for the Kennedys when their other doctors disappointed them,
JFK’s awe and respect for Max’s wisdom also grew. Kennedy had
been hawkish when he took office. Max had a very different view
of war than the military brass, having spent a good part of his
career repairing its damages and rescuing lives broken by war or
the Holocaust. I am certain his influence pulled Kennedy to the
left as well as gave him the strength to stand up to the Joint
Chiefs when they voted unanimously to invade Cuba, which would
have proved disastrous. Although he rarely discussed politics
with JFK, Max clearly did so when he felt the need, as in the
following excerpt from his memoirs.
"The New York Times reported that George Lincoln Rockwell
was recruiting youths for the American Nazi Party. I was
outraged when I read they were staging a protest, wearing
the uniforms of S.A. and “Swastika” arm bands. I remembered
with horror the first storm troopers roaming the streets of
Berlin and the indifference of the populace. Although I had
never discussed politics with the President I decided that
it could happen here. I walked into the President’s room,
said hello and told him about Berlin in 1933 and the
beginning of Hitler’s Germany. I told him that the easiest
way to suppress a terrorist movement was in its infancy.
Kennedy nodded his approval and, without further comment,
we switched to the purpose of my visit."
For Max, America’s tragedy had been deeply personal. Six months
after President Kennedy was assassinated another devastating
loss followed, the death of Max’s second wife, Nina, like
Kennedy also in her forties, on a surgeon’s operating table. It
had been malpractice, but Max was not about to sue another
doctor.
Among the many condolences, he received a telegram from one who
shared and could understand his grief. My father called Max to see if he would like some company and
flew down from Rochester. They talked through the night. Max
only spoke a little of Nina. She had contracted viral pneumonia
during a trip to India. Her internist incorrectly diagnosed an
internal hemorrhage. Max presented to the internist the reasons
he thought he should change his diagnosis and cancel the surgery
to no avail. Before Dad left the next day, one of the nurses
told him that Max could have saved her.
After he arrived back home, when my father next spoke to the
nurse by phone, he told her he hadn’t known what to say to Max
and felt he hadn’t been of much help. The nurse replied it was
good that he had made the trip and that after his visit, Max
returned to work.
Max’s name began showing up as a footnote in many of the Kennedy
biographies. The demand for Kennedy books was over the top and
the journalistic standards ran the gamut. When it came to Max,
they all had one thing in common — they got it wrong, usually
from a second hand source.
C. David Heymann became fascinated by Max while working on
“Jackie O.” and wound up devoting a chapter to him. Ruth
thought he might do a respectable job and provided material, but
when the book came out, it was a disappointment, especially his
jump to the conclusion sans evidence that Jack and Jackie were
hooked on Max’s injections.
Heymann, like most everyone else at the time, was unaware of the
secrets of Kennedy's health and the reasons he needed Max after
his other doctors had failed. Today, it is common knowledge that
the Senator in the debates with Nixon, the President who
emanated charm and wit in his press conferences and courage
coping with the Cuban Missile Crisis was dangerously ill but to
date the media have yet to correspondingly update their
misconception of Dr. Jacobson.
In light of what is now known about JFK’s health problems, his
public appearances look like ringing endorsements for Max’s
abilities, his success in treating the President and keeping him
off a stretcher, a task beyond the ability of White House
Physician, Dr. Janet Travell. Although he held no official
position in the White House, as long as JFK was alive, Max
enjoyed the best job security on the planet.
I hoped that more loyal patients would write in his defense, but
even those who should have known better capitulated. During the
1990s, Dr. Jacobson turned up as the central figure in the
autobiographies of Doris Shapiro (“I Could Have Danced All
Night”) and Eddie Fisher (“Been There, Done That”). Their
confusion and embarrassment over the negative media was
palpable. Both were former disciples who once sang his praises
and encouraged others to become patients. Eddie Fisher wished he
were Max’s son. Doris Shapiro wanted to marry him. Alan Jay Lerner, who worked at night, hired Shapiro, then a naïve girl
from Beverly Hills, as his assistant and arranged for her to
receive injections so she could stay awake to assist him.
An interesting part of Doris Shapiro’s book was when she
described going off Max’s medication. She reported it went just
like Max predicted. She experienced a little drowsiness over the
next two weeks and that was it — the only side-effect.
Certainly, Max was in a better position than anyone to
understand the benefits and dangers of medicine. If, according
to media speculation, Max turned celebrities into speed freaks,
then "Where were the victims of the Sixties?" he wondered. Why
has The New York Times failed to acknowledge that the past forty
years have not turned up any case histories to support their
false allegations of amphetamine addiction?
The Kennedy family kept JFK’s poor health a secret for four
decades until Robert Dallek’s, “An Unfinished Life.” It would
have been impossible to write credibly about his infirmities
before then. When the book came out which barely mentioned Dr.
Jacobson, I thought, "Enough, already."
I telephoned Ruth and told her I wanted to see the files. She
generously consented to let me have them. After Max’s death,
Ruth moved from the Upper East Side to an apartment in the same
complex as her sister in New Jersey. I was preparing to move to
the West Coast. I drove out to spend the afternoon. Ruth and I
enjoyed our reunion. After a pleasant lunch at a local
restaurant, I left with two book bags stuffed with Max’s memoirs
and papers. I would be back each year for more.
I began scanning the documents with an OCR (optical character
recognition) program into the Mac. I had a feeling of dread as
well as anticipation. I knew this project would take years. When
I unzipped the first book bag and opened a folder thick with
papers, I experienced the equivalent of a Proustian madeleine
memory that took me back to my first visit. The papers which had
sat unopened for the past thirty years were suffused with the
aroma of vitamins, just like Max's office.
(END OF CHAPTER ONE)
Copyright
C 2018 and prior years David Jeand'Heur and Andrew W. Saul.
Exactly what therapy did Dr. Jacobson actually use to treat patients?
Here are his original mauscripts:
B-Vitamin Therapy, Part 1.
B-Vitamin Therapy, Part 2.
B-Complex Therapy, Part 3.
B-Vitamin Therapy, Part 4.
B-Vitamin Therapy. Part 5 [Includes precise intramuscular (IM) injection quantities].
Vitamin E Therapy, with case examples. [One minor likely error is on page 7 at the
top, where Dr. Jacobson says that rose hips are a good source of vitamin E. Rose hips, like many fruits, don't have much vitamin E but they do have a lot of vitamin C.]
Background for using Vitamin E.
Archive of letters to and from Dr Max Jacobson.
Old Age and General Practice.
Medicinal Preparations.
Geriatric Preparations Preliminary Report.
Autobiography.
1958 Report.
1967 Report.
1967 Pre-Report .
1960 Report - Multiple Sclerosis .
Solubilization Discussion.
Solubilization of Tissue Complex.
Sex Hormones in Mixture.
Cortisone and Aureomyscin.pdf.
Aqueous Preparations.
Geriatrics.
Penicillin B.
Enzymes.
Dyscrasias.
Anxiety Discussion.
On Old Age.
On Longevity.
A Thousand Years.
Rapid Therapy of Infectious Hepatitis.
Hepatitis Preliminary Report.
Selected Letters.
Copyright
C 2018 and prior years David Jeand'Heur and Andrew W. Saul.
Andrew Saul is the author
of the books FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! How to be
Independently Healthy (reader reviews at http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html
) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html
)
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