Dr. Feelgood Read Online Free Page A
Author: Richard A. Lertzman, William J. Birnes
evident in the summer of 1960 when JFK had his first meeting with Jacobson. At that time, Senator Kennedy was perceived by the media to be a youthful and vigorous naval war hero. The cover-up of the senator’s poor health was in full steam during the campaign, even though rumors were circulating concerning his wartime injuries and bad back. On July 5, 1960, Kennedy physicians Dr. Janet Travell and Dr. Eugene J. Cohen sent a signed letter to JFK for public dissemination that was created specifically for those they called the “media vultures,” 3 in which they flatly denied that the senator was in ill health. The letter stated, “As your physicians for over five years and [with] knowledge of your medical records for over 15 years, we wish to provide you with a straightforward brief medical statement concerning your health. . . . As stated to you in our recent letter of 6/11/60 we reiterate that you are in superb physical condition . . . you should see your doctors once or twice a year for a routine check-up . . . no limitations are placed on your arduous activities . . .” This letter was distributed to targeted friends in the press. It was an utter fabrication and a complete cover-up of Senator John Kennedy’s physical condition.
With the old-line establishment physicians Travell and Cohen protecting the Kennedy mystique from the press, JFK looked below the radar to find relief from the persistent pain that was draining his strength and causing him great fatigue. Not unlike Michael Jackson, who sought out willing physicians to ease his pain, Kennedy reached out to his friends to find his own sub rosa doctor. And he found him on New York’s Upper East Side.
Unlike the upscale and fashionable office of Dr. Travell on West 16th Street, just north of New York’s Greenwich Village and only a few blocks away from Union Square, Max’s East 72nd Street office in Manhattan was not a typical medical practice. It was more like a research lab with a celebrity waiting room. Actress Alice Ghostley’s husband Felice Orlandi, who worked as Max’s assistant for several years in the 1960s, remembered that Jacobson’s “office was often a complete and utter disaster area. Papers were all over the office, waste cans were overfilled, syringes were strewn across the floor, empty vials were everywhere. He was too cheap to hire a cleaning service. His back lab was like a war zone. Max muttered and mumbled quite a bit. He reminded me a bit like Vincent Price in one of his horror films. His fingernails were just absolutely filthy and he reeked of tobacco and formaldehyde.” 4 Jacobson’s close friend Mike Samek concurred about the office: “I tried to impress upon Max to clean up the office. In fact, I spent a weekend with a neighborhood kid and we built a wall of shelving in his lab to restore order. It even had slots where he could label the ingredients. Max had a perverse sense of humor and enjoyed the clutter. He claimed that there was an organization to the disorganization. There was very little regulation by the state in that time.” 5
A frequent Jacobson patient, singer Eddie Fisher, later recalled that “the office looked more like a chemist’s laboratory than a doctor’s office and Max looked like a mad scientist, I guess. I remember noticing at our first meeting that his fingernails were filthy, stained with chemicals. He was nothing like any other doctor I’d ever met. He was a German refugee, with big thick glasses, a big thick accent, and a completely commanding personality.” 6
Jacobson, who was sixty years old when he met Senator Kennedy, was still a robust man. He was a dedicated swimmer who stayed in good physical condition by doing multiple laps every morning. He had been an amateur boxer and studied jujitsu. He was barrel chested and quite muscular but had a prominent pot belly and cut “a hulking, disheveled figure . . . [with] large horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses [that] magnified roaming, unsettled
With the old-line establishment physicians Travell and Cohen protecting the Kennedy mystique from the press, JFK looked below the radar to find relief from the persistent pain that was draining his strength and causing him great fatigue. Not unlike Michael Jackson, who sought out willing physicians to ease his pain, Kennedy reached out to his friends to find his own sub rosa doctor. And he found him on New York’s Upper East Side.
Unlike the upscale and fashionable office of Dr. Travell on West 16th Street, just north of New York’s Greenwich Village and only a few blocks away from Union Square, Max’s East 72nd Street office in Manhattan was not a typical medical practice. It was more like a research lab with a celebrity waiting room. Actress Alice Ghostley’s husband Felice Orlandi, who worked as Max’s assistant for several years in the 1960s, remembered that Jacobson’s “office was often a complete and utter disaster area. Papers were all over the office, waste cans were overfilled, syringes were strewn across the floor, empty vials were everywhere. He was too cheap to hire a cleaning service. His back lab was like a war zone. Max muttered and mumbled quite a bit. He reminded me a bit like Vincent Price in one of his horror films. His fingernails were just absolutely filthy and he reeked of tobacco and formaldehyde.” 4 Jacobson’s close friend Mike Samek concurred about the office: “I tried to impress upon Max to clean up the office. In fact, I spent a weekend with a neighborhood kid and we built a wall of shelving in his lab to restore order. It even had slots where he could label the ingredients. Max had a perverse sense of humor and enjoyed the clutter. He claimed that there was an organization to the disorganization. There was very little regulation by the state in that time.” 5
A frequent Jacobson patient, singer Eddie Fisher, later recalled that “the office looked more like a chemist’s laboratory than a doctor’s office and Max looked like a mad scientist, I guess. I remember noticing at our first meeting that his fingernails were filthy, stained with chemicals. He was nothing like any other doctor I’d ever met. He was a German refugee, with big thick glasses, a big thick accent, and a completely commanding personality.” 6
Jacobson, who was sixty years old when he met Senator Kennedy, was still a robust man. He was a dedicated swimmer who stayed in good physical condition by doing multiple laps every morning. He had been an amateur boxer and studied jujitsu. He was barrel chested and quite muscular but had a prominent pot belly and cut “a hulking, disheveled figure . . . [with] large horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses [that] magnified roaming, unsettled