Healing with Raw Foods
The Swiss physician Dr Max Bircher-Benner (1867-1939) is best known for his ‘discovery’ of muesli, the traditional dish of the alpine peasants. Yet it is his research into the healing power of raw foods for which he should be acclaimed. Before the word ‘vitamin’ had even been coined, Bircher-Benner was working with a ‘dietetic system of prevention and cure.’1 The great success of this system continues to be attributable to the then nameless nutrients contained in raw plant foods. It is no surprise to find him name-checked alongside Max Gerson in Leslie Kenton’s book, Juice High. Best-selling health writer Kenton, pays tribute to these two men as the original developers of juice and raw food therapy. Despite the closure in 1994 of the Bircher-Benner sanatorium in Zurich, it is fitting that the work of this great medical pioneer continues to be recognised today.
Max Bircher was born in Aarau, Switzerland in 1867. Being two months premature he was not expected to live. However, even from birth he proved himself to be a fighter. His early years were a source of frustration due to the weakness of his underdeveloped heart. Yet he refused to accept the limitations of his physical weakness, and set about building his strength through exercise. By his teens, he astounded his family by his successful involvement in physical activities and scholarly endeavours. Through sheer willpower he had achieved a victory over his once frail body. That same willpower and determination were to define a medical career, which was considered truly unorthodox in his day.
From a young age, Max displayed an avid interest in human health care. He would study the behaviour of the family doctor, mimicking his movements by way of play. Amused by his antics, his family gave him the nickname of the ‘Little Doctor’. Indeed his goal in life was to become one, although his dream was to be temporarily thwarted by the death of his father in 1885. With a large family and no income, Max felt he could not continue with his studies. The ensuing worry resulted in insomnia and eventual illness. He sought advice from the family doctor whose unsuccessful treatments ranged from sleeping pills to alcohol! It was not until a poor performance during a riding lesson that Max was to find relief from his insomnia. His riding instructor recommended Priessnitz’s wet packs. These had the desired effect and gave Max his first taste of alternative methods of treatment. Hydrotherapy was to later become an important aspect of his healing practice.
Max was fortunate to have good family friends. Together they raised enough money to send him to Zurich University Medical School. With financial worries out of the way, he was able to devote his time to his studies. However, his experience of clinical work was soon to prove most ungratifying. He felt that something important was lacking from conventional treatment, and that treating the symptom was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of successful healing. He wanted to know the cause of the illness so that he could begin to understand the disease process. To his amazement, his fellow students did not agree with him.
Max completed his studies in 1891. Despite his diploma he believed that it took more than knowledge to be a doctor. He believed in an intuition that would penetrate beyond the physical symptoms, exposing the true cause of the illness. Instinctively he knew that the truth was held in Nature. Max set up practice in the poverty-stricken suburbs of Zurich. He decided against setting up in an affluent area, as he had no inclination to treat the excesses of the rich. His patients were Swiss or Italian immigrant factory workers and it was during this time he became increasingly aware of the detrimental effects of poor nutrition.
In 1893 he married the daughter of a pharmacist, Elisabeth Benner. Two years into his marriage, Max fell ill with jaundice. It was during this time that he had his first encounter with the healing effects of raw foods. Elizabeth became alarmed by his prolonged inability to keep down any of his food. One day, in sheer desperation, she offered him a slice of raw apple that she was preparing to stew. He managed to hold it down. Elizabeth continued to feed him the raw fruit until he was well again. This was Max’s first encounter with the healing effects of raw food although he did not give this experience a second thought until he was later presented with a patient unable to digest any food. Clearly the patient was in a bad way and her health was rapidly deteriorating. As a last ditch effort, he remembered his own cure and began to administer a similar raw fruit diet. The patient managed to keep the food down. It was the first time she had digested any food in weeks. Slowly she progressed to good health, eventually living to the age of 75. However, Max was still not ready to attribute this cure to the raw food diet: were these two results simply a fluke? To find the answer, he set about using himself and his family as guinea pigs. The results were undeniable: the health of all family members had improved beyond any doubt.
Encouraged by this new discovery, Max continued experimenting with raw fruit and vegetables. In place of traditional methods he used raw foods to treat patients with digestive diseases. Their remarkable healing powers were contradictory to the accepted belief of cooked foods as a more digestible source of nutrition. In 1899 Max discovered ‘living matter’, the principle which describes the curative power of raw fruit and vegetables. This principle (the second law of thermodynamics) is today recognised by Nobel-prize winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger, as the law that governs nutrition. In 1900 at the age of 33, Max gave a talk to the Medical Society of Zurich. In it he spoke of this ‘living matter’. The scientific establishment were outraged by his lecture. The president stated that he had ‘…stepped beyond the bounds of science,….’2 As a result Max was no longer allowed to continue his experiments at the university. He was practically excommunicated from the medical fraternity. This was to mark a new beginning in his work.
By now Max Bircher-Benner truly understood the fundamentals of the disease process, the course of which could not take place in the presence of good nutrition. ‘We speak of chills and bacteria when we should say wrong nutrition. The harm created can only be prevented or – where it is not too late – remedied by attacking the real cause.’3 With this knowledge he set about putting together a healing diet consisting primarily of raw plant foods. His 1926 publication ‘Fruit Dishes and Raw Vegetables’ describes such food as ‘sunlight food’. Vitamins were by now an established scientific fact and Max understood that the vitality of these foods was dependent on their light source. “Nowadays with our knowledge of the construction of atoms, of the absorption and emission of light rays through the orbits of the electrons, it should be easy for any scientific mind to understand the importance of the sun quality of our food.”4 The book contains many raw food recipes, focusing on fruit and vegetable juices. It also contains quaint illustrations of the original juice squeezers, extractors and graters – a far cry from the sophisticated juicing machinery available today.
The culmination of Bircher-Benner’s life’s work can be read in his manifesto ‘The Prevention of Incurable Disease.’ This brilliant volume, equally valid today as when it was written, continues to challenge conventional thought in relation to nutrition. In it Bircher-Benner covers dental health, poor agricultural practice, use of chemicals in food, over-eating, over-use of salt, processed foods, general poor eating habits and the over-consumption of animal protein. All issues continue to be of concern to the 21st Century nutritional therapist. Yet the solutions to these ongoing problems were practically spelled out over a century ago. Despite the knowledge handed down to us, it is shocking to see that it remains largely ignored in the average Western diet. It seems that dietary stereotypes are hard to break. My very own grandfather is an example of this attitude. Despite two colon cancer operations, he stubbornly maintains the belief that copious quantities of meat are the mark of a ‘strong and healthy’ man. To him cancer was, and still is a mysterious and otherworldly force that invaded his body. He could not conceive of the idea that any of the foods he ate could have been in any way responsible for this alien invasion. Despite information to the contrary, degenerative diseases such as cancer continue to be regarded in this way by many people. Yet Bircher-Benner knew better: “In spite of all our experience, people are told that cancer is a local disease, which can be cured by early surgical removal of the growth. The fact is, it is a disease of the whole body, attacking the very roots of life.”5
Max Bircher-Benner died in 1939 after a long and very fruitful life. Trained in allopathic medicine, his greatest skill was his intuitive response to healing. He believed in prevention over cure and it was his affinity with nature that drew him to practice what is now called ‘alternative medicine’. His philosophy was based around the ‘order of life’, an awareness of the basic laws of life, which included respecting and being in harmony with oneself and nature. An obituary in a leading medical magazine described him as “a born physician who will be counted among the great ones in the history of medicine.” A fitting epitaph for a man who through his practice and research, laid the groundwork for all future nutritional therapists.
References
1 & 2. The Bircher-Benner Health Guide – Ruth Kunz-Bircher – George & Allen Unwin Ltd
3& 4. Fruit Dishes and Raw Vegetables – M. Bircher-Benner & Max E. Bircher – The C.W. Daniel Company Ltd
5. The Prevention of Incurable Disease – M. Bircher-Benner – Keats Publishing Inc.
Bibliography
The Bircher-Benner Health Guide – Ruth Kunz-Bircher – George & Allen Unwin Ltd
Fruit Dishes and Raw Vegetables – M. Bircher-Benner & Max E. Bircher – The C.W. Daniel Company Ltd
The Prevention of Incurable Disease – M. Bircher-Benner – Keats Publishing Inc.
A Beginner’s Introduction to Vitamins – Richard A. Passwater – Keats Publishing Inc.
Published in the August 2003 edition of Coffee’N’Carrots