Mildred Nelson, pioneer of the
Hoxsey Therapy, dead at 79
© by Peter Barry Chowka Educated and trained in the early 1940s as a registered nurse, Nelson was recognized internationally as a pioneer in the field of herbal or botanical therapies and cancer. For more than 50 years she was associated, and became synonymous, with the leading herbal cancer treatment of this century, the Hoxsey Therapy. In 1946 Nelson joined the staff of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic in Dallas, Texas as a nurse, and eventually rose to the position of head nurse. She learned natural approaches to treating cancer from Harry Hoxsey, a charismatic, folksy entrepreneur whose family of farmers, ranchers, and veterinarians had over a century's worth of experience with non-toxic cancer treatments for both animals and humans. From the 1930s through the 1950s Hoxsey's Dallas clinic was a flashpoint of controversy as orthodox medicine solidified its hold on the healing arts and actively worked to stamp out examples of American folk medicine, of which the Hoxsey approach was an archetype. By the early 1960s, despite widespread popular support for Harry Hoxsey and his herbal treatment, medical-political pressures had resulted in the Hoxsey Therapy effectively being banished from the United States. Harry Hoxsey retired from the medical business. In 1963, Nelson, with Hoxsey's blessing and in possession of his original herbal formulas, took the radical move of founding the first alternative medical treatment facility outside the U.S. that was designed to cater to American citizens. Nelson named the facility, in Tijuana just across the international border from San Diego, the Bio-Medical Center, and she was its owner and director until her death. Bio-Medical was devoted to natural medicine and the use of the Hoxsey Therapy, and many people simply called it the "Hoxsey Clinic." Despite the challenges that faced a North American woman establishing a business in a conservative, male-dominated, Third World nation in the early 1960s, Mexico, in Nelson's view, was a comparative haven for medical freedom of choice because of the more laissez faire political climate of the country. The Hoxsey Therapy consists of internal liquid and externally applied medicines derived from a dozen or so native American plants and herbs, supplemental vitamins and minerals, dietary modification, and a positive attitude or "mind body medicine." Nelson’s, and Harry Hoxsey's, clinical use of these treatments preceded by decades conventional mainstream medicine's interest in these areas. Since the 1960s, the Bio-Medical Center with Mildred Nelson at the helm has treated tens of thousands of people with cancer and other serious conditions from all over North America and many foreign countries. Over the years Nelson gained a reputation as a uniquely knowledgable, "hands on" healer, and a dedicated humanitarian who was always available in person or by phone to assist and counsel people in need. She took on many late stage cases of cancer considered hopeless by conventional physicians and developed a loyal following of diverse patients, friends, and supporters all over the world. Interestingly, Nelson never advertised or promoted her clinic -- until recently it maintained a decided "underground" status -- and most of her patients said they chose the Bio-Medical Center based on the personal recommendation of a relative or friend who had been treated and helped by Nelson, or by Harry Hoxsey himself years ago. Stories of people with terminal cancer who survived or recovered after employing the Hoxsey Therapy achieved near mythic proportions. In the 1980s and '90s, with interest in natural medicine growing exponentially, the Bio-Medical Center and Mildred Nelson, once considered questionable if not outright fraudulent by the powers that be, finally began to be accorded greater attention and credibility. An award-winning 1987 documentary film, Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime, investigated Nelson and the Hoxsey Therapy and portrayed the story -- and the treatment's results -- in a very dramatic and mostly favorable light. A Congressionally-mandated five year long investigation of leading alternative cancer therapies by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress (1985-90) included positive independent reports about the Hoxsey Therapy, Mildred Nelson, and the Bio-Medical Center. In the early 1990s, the Bio-Medical Center was on the short list of promising non-toxic clinical approaches seriously discussed in meetings by various panels of experts advising the National Institutes of Health's new Office of Alternative Medicine. In 1996 the University of Texas at Houston's Center for Alternative Medicine Research in Cancer began a study of the clinical results of Bio-Medical Center's treatments. To date, however, despite remarkable anecdotal reports over many decades, objective, published clinical research studies of the results of the Hoxsey Therapy at Bio-Medical Center (prospective or retrospective) have been nonexistent. However, an interesting historical and literature review of the Hoxsey Therapy was done in 1988 by Patricia Spain Ward, PhD, the historian of the University of Illinois at Chicago, as part of the OTA study (above). In her paper, Ward writes, "Hoxsey treated external cancers apparently with considerable success, even in the judgment of his critics. . .More recent literature leaves no doubt that Hoxsey's formula, however strangely concocted by modern scientific standards, does indeed contain many plant substances of marked therapeutic activity. In fact, orthodox scientific research has by now identified antitumor activity of one sort or another in all but three of Hoxsey's plants and two of these three are purgatives, one of them (Rhamnus purshiana) containing the anthraquinone glycoside structure now recognized as predictive of antitumor properties." Although in declining health in recent years, Mildred Nelson continued to spend much of her time at the Bio-Medical Center, overseeing a large staff of licensed medical doctors and other professionals and meeting with many patients, right up until the day before she died. Having been personally aquainted with Mildred Nelson for nineteen years, I will miss her as a friend and a noteworthy clinician. But I'll also miss the part of her in which she exhibited the talents of a remarkable raconteur, offering a continual stream of recollections and stories that evoked a colorful and exciting history which is quickly becoming archaic -- a bridge to the past that, in the rush to modern scientism, is being swept away and, I'm afraid, will soon be forgotten. Part of that past included a kind of medicine and a commitment to healing that are also becoming a distant and obscure memory and are all but extinct today. . .characterized by an extreme dedication to patients, a radically close attention to their clinical signs and symptoms, and a willingness to be open to using whatever methods might help a sick person get better. For more information, Hoxsey Summary Center for Alternative Medicine Research in Cancer, University of Texas at Houston History of Hoxsey Therapy by Patricia Spain Ward, PhD Chapter 4 Herbal Treatments: Unconventional Cancer Treatments (OTA 1990) pdf file
February 1, 1999 
Mildred Nelson, RN, a leading figure in twentieth century alternative medicine, died in California on January 28, 1999. The cause of death was cardiac arrest. She was 79.
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