Dr. Max Jacobson was a German physician and medical researcher who treated numerous high profile clients in America, including President John F. Kennedy. Jacobson came to be known as "Miracle Max" and "Dr. Feelgood" because he administered highly addictive “vitamin shots” laced with various substances that included amphetamine and methamphetamine. Largely unknown to the public until his methods were exposed by The New York Times in 1972, Jacobson was charged with unprofessional conduct and fraud in 1973. He eventually lost his medical license in 1975. Jacobson died in December 1979 having never regained his medical license.
In September 1960, then-Senator John F. Kennedy first visited Jacobson shortly before the 1960 presidential election debates. Jacobson was part of the presidential entourage at the Vienna summit in 1961, where he administered injections to combat severe back pain. Some of the potential side effects included hyperactivity, impaired judgment, nervousness, and wild mood swings. Kennedy, however, was untroubled by Food and Drug Administration reports on the contents of Jacobson’s injections, and proclaimed: "I don’t care if it’s horse piss. It works." Jacobson was used for the most severe bouts of back pain. By May 1962, Jacobson had visited the White House to treat the president thirty four times, although such treatments were stopped by President Kennedy's White House physicians, who realized the inappropriate use of steroids and amphetamines administered by Jacobson. It was later observed that President Kennedy's leadership, specifically during the Cuban Missile Crisis and other events during 1963, improved greatly once Jacobson's treatments were discontinued and replaced by a medically appropriate regimen. Dr. Ghaemi, who studied Kennedy's medical records, concluded there was a "correlation; it is not causation; but it may not be coincidence either".
Later years and death
By the late-1960s, Jacobson's behavior became increasingly erratic as his own amphetamine usage increased. He began working 24-hour days and was seeing up to thirty patients per day. In 1969, one of Jacobson's clients, former presidential photographer Mark Shaw, died at the age of 47. An autopsy showed that Shaw had died of "acute and chronic intravenous amphetamine poisoning." Under questioning, Jacobson's staff admitted to buying large quantities of amphetamines to give many high level doses. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs seized Jacobson's supply, and his medical license was revoked on 25 April 1975, by the New York State Board of Regents. In 1979, Jacobson attempted to regain his license but was denied. A state spokesman stated that the then 79-year-old Jacobson did not seem ready to enter into the "mainstream of practice" again. Jacobson died later that year on 1 December in New York City. His funeral was held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan on 3 December. Jacobson is buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery next to his second wife Nina and his parents.
