Introduction & Clinic History
In 1963 Mildred Nelson founded the Bio Medical Center in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. The clinic is located less than 3 miles from the U.S./Mexico border near San Diego California with easy access by air and road transportation from all over the United States and abroad.
Mildred Nelson started work with Harry M. Hoxsey in 1946 at Harry's Clinic in Dallas, Texas.
"We consider cancer a systemic disease, we don't pretend to know its fundamental cause (no one else does either, at this writing) but we are convinced that without exception it occurs only in the presence of a profound physiological change in the constituents of body fluids and a consequent chemical imbalance in the organism". (You Don't Have to Die by Harry M. Hoxsey 1956 44-48) Mildred was the chief nurse and most trusted colleague at the Dallas Clinic working closely with Harry Hoxsey and learning all the protocols. Weakened by a heart condition Harry chose Mildred as his successor and encouraged her to move to Tijuana. "Thanks to Harry the Genius, whose work survives by trusting Mildred Nelson with all our lives" (Peggy Funderburk Patient-crusader 1997) Mildred was a teacher and colleague to everyone who knew her. She was a dear friend and remarkable human being.
Over the years Mildred expanded the Bio Medical Center hiring and training a staff of fully licensed, English-speaking MD's. She assembled professional support personnel to see to the care and medical needs of patients who visit Bio Medical Center. Most of the original medical staff and support personnel have remained through the years, and the clinic continues to provide accessible and economical medical help. Before her death, Mildred Nelson took steps to continue her work by appointing her sister Liz Jonas as
administrator, "what a remarkable legacy, a legacy that lives on" (Peter Chowka 1999).
Mildred Nelson started work with Harry M. Hoxsey in 1946 at Harry's Clinic in Dallas, Texas.
"We consider cancer a systemic disease, we don't pretend to know its fundamental cause (no one else does either, at this writing) but we are convinced that without exception it occurs only in the presence of a profound physiological change in the constituents of body fluids and a consequent chemical imbalance in the organism". (You Don't Have to Die by Harry M. Hoxsey 1956 44-48) Mildred was the chief nurse and most trusted colleague at the Dallas Clinic working closely with Harry Hoxsey and learning all the protocols. Weakened by a heart condition Harry chose Mildred as his successor and encouraged her to move to Tijuana. "Thanks to Harry the Genius, whose work survives by trusting Mildred Nelson with all our lives" (Peggy Funderburk Patient-crusader 1997) Mildred was a teacher and colleague to everyone who knew her. She was a dear friend and remarkable human being.
Over the years Mildred expanded the Bio Medical Center hiring and training a staff of fully licensed, English-speaking MD's. She assembled professional support personnel to see to the care and medical needs of patients who visit Bio Medical Center. Most of the original medical staff and support personnel have remained through the years, and the clinic continues to provide accessible and economical medical help. Before her death, Mildred Nelson took steps to continue her work by appointing her sister Liz Jonas as
administrator, "what a remarkable legacy, a legacy that lives on" (Peter Chowka 1999).
Dr. Harry Hoxsey
Thus, five months before my eighteenth birthday, my destiny was determined for me by a deathbed legacy and a solemn promise to a dying man. I was dedicated to the task of curing cancer. As a layman I couldn't prescribe an aspirin tablet for a simple headache without getting into trouble. The law was very clear: it's a crime to practice medicine without a license. No matter how many lives I might save, in the eyes of the law I would be a criminal. I could be arrested, fined and sent to jail. And if a patient should die while taking my treatment even if every doctor in the country previously had given him up as hopeless, I still could be convicted of manslaughter.
I must go to college and medical school, become a full-fledged M.D. - six years of intensive study, plus one year internship in a hospital. Then no one could stop me from putting the formulas I'd inherited to work saving the lives of cancer-ridden humanity.
But that took money, and there was precious little left after my father's lengthy illness. Besides, the burden of supporting a widowed mother and sick sister now rested full upon my youthful shoulders. Somehow, I grimly resolved, I would manage.
With dogged determination I slaved furiously in the coal mines all winter, ran a taxi service all summer, sold insurance on the side and undertook all kinds of odd jobs that brought in added income. Late at night, when everyone else was asleep, I applied myself to my high school correspondence course. Like a miser I counted the pennies and hoarded every dollar we could spare in a cigar box labeled "COLLEGE" hidden in the bottom drawer of the old-fashioned bureau that stood beside my bed.
I was generally known that we had a stock of the cancer remedy under lock and key in the little room that Dad had used as an office, and frequently during the next two years people would come to the house and beg me to treat them. I hated to turn them away, but under the circumstances there was nothing else I could do.
Suddenly tragedy struck again in the Hoxsey household. My sister Bertha, the sickly one, died. A few months later my mother, who'd never fully recovered from Dad's death, also passed on.
Lonely in the big, silent house that once had radiated the warmth and affection of a closely-knit family, I gratefully accepted the invitation of my favorite sister Nora (now Mrs. Walter McClughan) to come live with her and her husband in Taylorville, about 35 miles from Girard. Peabody Mine No. 9 nearby was working full time, and I had no difficulty getting a job there driving a premium mule
named "Shorty". My living expenses were small, my personal wants few; more than half my salary every week now went into the cigar box earmarked for college.
Suddenly on the night of Feb. 22, 1921, a wizened old man came into my life and abruptly changed it. He was waiting in the kitchen when I got home from work. His name was S.T. Larking; he was a citizen of considerable wealth and standing in the community, a retired insurance broker and Civil War veteran. His lower lip and chin were disfigured by a hideous, running sore. "I've been to three doctors with this," he said, "and they all told me I have cancer, they can't do anything for me, I'll be dead within a year. I knew your daddy well, saw him take sores like this off other people with that medicine of his. I want you to do the same for me."
As many times before in similar cases I carefully explained that I didn't have a license to practice medicine, that it was against the law for me to treat him. He replied "Son, when I joined up in '61 and fought to preserve this Union for you and your children and your children's children, they didn't ask me if I had a license to kill rebs. Nobody needs a license to save lives. If I was drowning would you stand by and watch me go down because a sign on yonder tree says 'No Swimming Allowed'? There's no adequate answer to that kind of logic and I didn't waste any time trying to find one. "I'm sorry, Mr. Larkin, but I can't help you," I repeated stubbornly. "I want to go to medical school and get my M.D. so I can set up practice. I can't afford to get into trouble. People will have to wait for treatment until I finish school." As long as I live I'll never forget his eyes-amazingly bright for such and old man-boring deep into mine, and his solemn rejoinder "Son, I can't wait, I'll be dead then. I'm 84 now, have only a few more years to live. But let me tell you, those few years are just as precious to me as a whole lifetime is to you. The first thing they teach doctors is that human life is sacred. You have the power to save mine, if you treat me now. If you don't I'll surely die, and you'll be guilty of murder!". I knew I was licked. Nothing I could say would make a dent in this remarkable old man's logic. So I finally agreed to treat him, on condition he would keep the treatment a secret.
With mingled feeling of excitement and apprehension I applied the yellow powder to the nasty running sore on his lip and chin, plastered a clean gauze bandage over them-just as I'd seen Dad do hundreds of times in the past-and handed him a big square bottle of the internal tonic to take home with him, He was my first patient. He'd put his life in my hands. If I failed, I had the law to reckon with. It was an awful responsibility for a 20-year-old boy.
The next time Larking came in for treatment he was accompanied by E.C. McVicker, a director of the Farmers' National Bank. The banker had an ugly black sore the size of a silver dollar on his temple, near his right ear. A specialist in Springfield had diagnosed it as cancer and informed him that nothing could be done for him. Would I treat him, too? When I protested that I couldn't take on any more cases, that I must go to college and get a medical degree, he said: "Son, you save my life and I'll give you a check big enough to see you through the best college in the country!"
I hesitated, then shrugged: "Might as well treat two as one," So I took on my second patient. He too was sworn to silence.
(Chapter 6 Prelude to Battle from the book "You Don't Have to Die" by Harry M. Hoxsey, N.D.)
I must go to college and medical school, become a full-fledged M.D. - six years of intensive study, plus one year internship in a hospital. Then no one could stop me from putting the formulas I'd inherited to work saving the lives of cancer-ridden humanity.
But that took money, and there was precious little left after my father's lengthy illness. Besides, the burden of supporting a widowed mother and sick sister now rested full upon my youthful shoulders. Somehow, I grimly resolved, I would manage.
With dogged determination I slaved furiously in the coal mines all winter, ran a taxi service all summer, sold insurance on the side and undertook all kinds of odd jobs that brought in added income. Late at night, when everyone else was asleep, I applied myself to my high school correspondence course. Like a miser I counted the pennies and hoarded every dollar we could spare in a cigar box labeled "COLLEGE" hidden in the bottom drawer of the old-fashioned bureau that stood beside my bed.
I was generally known that we had a stock of the cancer remedy under lock and key in the little room that Dad had used as an office, and frequently during the next two years people would come to the house and beg me to treat them. I hated to turn them away, but under the circumstances there was nothing else I could do.
Suddenly tragedy struck again in the Hoxsey household. My sister Bertha, the sickly one, died. A few months later my mother, who'd never fully recovered from Dad's death, also passed on.
Lonely in the big, silent house that once had radiated the warmth and affection of a closely-knit family, I gratefully accepted the invitation of my favorite sister Nora (now Mrs. Walter McClughan) to come live with her and her husband in Taylorville, about 35 miles from Girard. Peabody Mine No. 9 nearby was working full time, and I had no difficulty getting a job there driving a premium mule
named "Shorty". My living expenses were small, my personal wants few; more than half my salary every week now went into the cigar box earmarked for college.
Suddenly on the night of Feb. 22, 1921, a wizened old man came into my life and abruptly changed it. He was waiting in the kitchen when I got home from work. His name was S.T. Larking; he was a citizen of considerable wealth and standing in the community, a retired insurance broker and Civil War veteran. His lower lip and chin were disfigured by a hideous, running sore. "I've been to three doctors with this," he said, "and they all told me I have cancer, they can't do anything for me, I'll be dead within a year. I knew your daddy well, saw him take sores like this off other people with that medicine of his. I want you to do the same for me."
As many times before in similar cases I carefully explained that I didn't have a license to practice medicine, that it was against the law for me to treat him. He replied "Son, when I joined up in '61 and fought to preserve this Union for you and your children and your children's children, they didn't ask me if I had a license to kill rebs. Nobody needs a license to save lives. If I was drowning would you stand by and watch me go down because a sign on yonder tree says 'No Swimming Allowed'? There's no adequate answer to that kind of logic and I didn't waste any time trying to find one. "I'm sorry, Mr. Larkin, but I can't help you," I repeated stubbornly. "I want to go to medical school and get my M.D. so I can set up practice. I can't afford to get into trouble. People will have to wait for treatment until I finish school." As long as I live I'll never forget his eyes-amazingly bright for such and old man-boring deep into mine, and his solemn rejoinder "Son, I can't wait, I'll be dead then. I'm 84 now, have only a few more years to live. But let me tell you, those few years are just as precious to me as a whole lifetime is to you. The first thing they teach doctors is that human life is sacred. You have the power to save mine, if you treat me now. If you don't I'll surely die, and you'll be guilty of murder!". I knew I was licked. Nothing I could say would make a dent in this remarkable old man's logic. So I finally agreed to treat him, on condition he would keep the treatment a secret.
With mingled feeling of excitement and apprehension I applied the yellow powder to the nasty running sore on his lip and chin, plastered a clean gauze bandage over them-just as I'd seen Dad do hundreds of times in the past-and handed him a big square bottle of the internal tonic to take home with him, He was my first patient. He'd put his life in my hands. If I failed, I had the law to reckon with. It was an awful responsibility for a 20-year-old boy.
The next time Larking came in for treatment he was accompanied by E.C. McVicker, a director of the Farmers' National Bank. The banker had an ugly black sore the size of a silver dollar on his temple, near his right ear. A specialist in Springfield had diagnosed it as cancer and informed him that nothing could be done for him. Would I treat him, too? When I protested that I couldn't take on any more cases, that I must go to college and get a medical degree, he said: "Son, you save my life and I'll give you a check big enough to see you through the best college in the country!"
I hesitated, then shrugged: "Might as well treat two as one," So I took on my second patient. He too was sworn to silence.
(Chapter 6 Prelude to Battle from the book "You Don't Have to Die" by Harry M. Hoxsey, N.D.)