Editing Maximilian Bircher-Benner

{{Short description|Swiss physician (1867–1939)}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Maximilian Bircher-Benner
| image              = File:4bircher.JPG
| caption            = 
| birth_name         = Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1867|8|22|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Aarau]], Switzerland
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1939|1|24|1867|8|22|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Zürich]], Switzerland
| known_for          = Creating [[muesli]]
| works              = ''Food Science for All''
| education          = 
| occupation         = [[Physician]], [[nutritionist]]
| spouse             = 
| children           = 
}}

'''Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner''', [[M.D.]] (22 August 1867 – 24 January 1939) was a Swiss [[physician]] and a pioneer [[nutritionist]] credited for popularizing [[muesli]] and [[Raw foodism|raw food]] vegetarianism.

==Biography==
Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner was born on 22 August 1867 in [[Aarau]], Switzerland, to Heinrich Bircher and Berta Krüsi.<ref name="Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner">{{Cite web|title = Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner|url = http://www.cooksinfo.com/maximilian-oskar-bircher-benner|website = CooksInfo.com|access-date = 2015-10-09}}</ref> He attended the [[University of Zurich]] to study medicine, and later opened his own general clinic.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Maximilian Bircher-Benner |url=https://www.benner.org.nz/index.php/stories/benner-europe/208-maximilian-bircher-benner |access-date=2023-10-08 |website=www.benner.org.nz}}</ref>

During the first year the clinic was open, Bircher-Benner developed [[jaundice]], and he claimed he recovered by eating raw apples. From this observation, he experimented with the health effects raw foods have on the body, and from this he promoted muesli; a dish based on raw oats, fruits and nuts.<ref name ="Zurich Development Center">{{Cite web|title = Biography of Max Bircher-Benner – Zurich Development Center|url = http://www.zurichdevelopmentcenter.com/aboutzurichdevelopmentcenter/locationhistory/biographybircher.htm|website = www.zurichdevelopmentcenter.com|access-date = 2015-10-09}}</ref> Bircher-Benner expanded on his nutritional research and opened a sanatorium called "Vital Force" in 1897. He believed raw fruits and vegetables held the most nutritional value, cooked and commercially processed foods held even less, and meat held the least nutritional value. Eventually, Bircher-Benner gave up meat entirely and became a [[Vegetarianism|vegetarian]]. Other scientists of the time did not respond well to what Bircher-Benner referred to as his "new food science," but was sufficiently popular with the general public that he expanded his sanatorium practice.<ref name="Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner"/><ref name="BMJ">{{Cite journal|title = Notes on Books|issue = 3864|journal = The British Medical Journal|volume = 1|date = 1925-01-26|pages = 157 |jstor = 25343029}}</ref>

His nutritional habits and eating patterns steadily grew in popularity until he died on 24 January 1939 in [[Zürich]].<ref name="Dr. M. Bircher-Benner">{{Cite journal|title = Dr. M. Bircher-Benner|date = 1939-02-11|journal = The British Medical Journal|volume = 1|issue = 4075|pages = 307|jstor = 20302420}}</ref>

==Nutrition==
At his [[sanatorium]] in [[Zürich]], a balanced [[diet (nutrition)|diet]] of raw [[vegetable]]s and [[fruit]] was used as a means to heal [[patient]]s, contrary to the beliefs commonly held at the end of the 19th century.<ref name ="Zurich Development Center"/> Bircher-Benner believed raw foods were more nutritious because they contain direct energy from the sun.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Books Abroad|last = Thuringer|first = Joseph M.|publisher = Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma|date = 1927-09-01|pages = 44}}</ref> He encouraged people of good health to eat approximately 50% raw foods on a daily basis, and for those with poor health to eat 100% raw foods. Bircher-Benner's sisters, Alice Bircher and Berta Brupbacher-Bircher, created many recipes using raw foods to help a diet of raw foods seem more appealing. Because of this help from his sisters, his sanatorium gained enormous popularity and he expanded the size of his clinic.<ref name="Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner"/><ref name="Dr. M. Bircher-Benner"/>

Bircher-Benner postulated eating fruit, vegetables and [[Nut (fruit)|nuts]] instead of meat. He also advocated a spartan physical regime. At his Zürich [[sanatorium]] off Bircher-Benner-Platz, the patients had to follow a somewhat [[monastic]] daily schedule including early bedtime (21:00), physical training and active gardening work. Each meal began with a small dish of muesli, developed by Bircher-Benner, followed by mostly raw vegetables and a dessert. Patients were not allowed to consume alcohol, coffee, chocolate or tobacco while they were being treated. Bircher-Benner also recommended his patients to sunbathe, take cold showers and use a medicinal bath developed by American physician [[John Harvey Kellogg]].<ref name="Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner"/> His theory of life was based on harmony between people and nature, a key component of a German lifestyle reform movement, and the reason he named his clinic "Vital Force."<ref name ="Zurich Development Center"/>

== Criticism ==

Bircher-Benner held [[Pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] ideas about nutrition, including [[vitalism]]. He believed that all people including babies should eat only raw food.<ref name="Gratzer 2005">Gratzer, Walter. (2005). ''Terrors of the Table: The Curious History of Nutrition''. Oxford University Press. pp. 197-198. {{ISBN|0-19-280661-0}}</ref> Bircher-Benner developed the idea that cooking deprived foods of their nutritional content and destroyed their "vital substance". He believed that cooked foods leave decay in the digestive tract, that may cause [[autointoxication]].<ref name="Gratzer 2005"/>

Bircher-Benner's work was not recognized by other scientists until the discovery of vitamins in fruits and vegetables in the 1930s.<ref name="Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner"/> Because his ideas about nutrition were not supported by the science of his day, he was dismissed as a [[Quackery|quack]] by the medical profession.<ref name="Fitzgerald 2015">Fitzgerald, Matt. (2015). ''Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of US''. Pegasus. p. 43. {{ISBN|978-1605988290}} "There was, of course, no evidence that the life force that Bircher-Benner deemed all-important actually existed. His peers in the mainstream medical establishment dismissed the life-force concept as unscientific and branded Bircher-Benner a quack."</ref>  A contemporaneous academic review of Bircher-Benner's cookbook ''Health-Giving Dishes'' claims that the work contains "a mixture of physiological half-truths and fantasies" and concludes that the number of people capable of eating solely raw fruits and vegetables as Bircher-Benner encouraged is limited because only few humans can live as herbivores.<ref name="BMJ"/> [[Thomas Mann]], a well-known novelist, visited the sanatorium and described it as a "health jail."<ref name="Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner"/> 

Despite disapproval from others, Bircher-Benner's ideas caught the public's eye and his sanatorium stayed in business until some time after his death.<ref name="Fitzgerald 2015"/>

==Legacy==
Shortly after his death, a second sanatorium was opened and named "People's Sanatorium for a Lifestyle Based on Nature," and was run according to Bircher-Benner's ideas. In 1939, the Vital Force clinic was renamed the "Bircher-Benner Clinic" in his memory.<ref name="Zurich Development Center"/> In the late 20th century, after closure of the sanatorium, it was briefly a student [[hostel]]. It has since been purchased by [[Zürich Financial Services]], and is named the Zürich Development Center. It is used for executive training, and also houses an extensive private art collection.{{cn|date=January 2018}}

Several brands of factory-made cereals based on Bircher-Benner's original recipe for wholegrain-fruit-and-nut muesli are widely marketed as popular breakfast and snack foods in Europe and North America.<ref>https://worldfiner.com/familia Familia brand Swiss Muesli official web site</ref><ref>https://www.alpenusa.com/ Alpen brand Swiss Muesli official USA web site</ref>

==Selected publications==

*[https://archive.org/details/b29807244 ''Food Science For All''] (translated by Arnold Eiloart, 1928)
*''Fruit Dishes and Raw Vegetables: Sunlight (Vitamine) Food'' (1930)
*''Health-Giving Dishes'' (1934)
*[https://archive.org/details/b29807232/page/n5 ''The Essential Nature and Organisation of Food Energy''] (translated by D. E. Hecht and E. F. Meyer, 1939) 
*Hijos sanos y robustos (traducion del Dr. Emilio R, Meier, 1956)
*''The Prevention of Incurable Disease'' (translated by E. F. Meyer, 1959)

== See also ==
*[[Raw foodism]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
{{commons category}}
* [http://www.zurichdevelopmentcenter.com/aboutzurichdevelopmentcenter/locationhistory/biographybircher.htm Zurich Development Center]

{{People in veganism and vegetarianism}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bircher-Benner, Maximilian}}

[[Category:1867 births]]
[[Category:1939 deaths]]
[[Category:Alternative detoxification promoters]]
[[Category:People from Aarau]]
[[Category:Pseudoscientific diet advocates]]
[[Category:Raw foodists]]
[[Category:Swiss nutritionists]]
[[Category:20th-century Swiss physicians]]
[[Category:Vegetarianism activists]]
[[Category:Vitalists]]
[[Category:People associated with Lebensreform]]