Alfred Vogel

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Alfred Vogel (1902 - 1996) was a Swiss naturopath and pioneer in natural health.

[edit] Life

Alfred Vogel grew up in Aesch in Basel (Switzerland) and even in early childhood became familiar with medicinal plants and their mode of action through his father and his grandparents. Phytotherapy and the desire to help his fellow men became his life’s work, which he pursued passionately into old age.
Alfred Vogel managed a herb and health store in Basel at the age of 21. Almost immediately he began to advise his customers on the power of Nature as well as on healthy nutrition and lifestyle through lectures and his own publications.
He began to prepare remedies himself and to sell them to his customers. He wrote about homeopathy in his book The Nature Doctor. Even then Alfred Vogel was convinced that a life in harmony with Nature means eating as naturally and as healthily as possible.
In the 1930s he relocated from Basel to Teufen in Appenzell. Here he further developed his skills as a herb gatherer and improved the remedies he made for himself. In Teufen he made the crucial discovery that the mode of action of fresh plants was fundamentally better than that of dried ones.
From then on Alfred Vogel manufactured his herbal remedies from freshly harvested plants whenever possible. In 1963, at an age when others think of retirement, he founded Bioforce AG in Switzerland. Today Bioforce AG is one of the most prominent manufacturers of herbal remedies in many European countries, Canada, USA and Australia.

[edit] Publications

In 1926, at twenty-four years of age, Alfred Vogel wrote his first book, Kleiner Wegweiser für die Lebensreform (How to Reform Your Life). This title was to become the basis for all subsequent publications. Alfred Vogel’s indefatigable attempts to bring health and Nature closer to the people in a simple and comprehensible way was crowned with great successes –not least because he understood like no other how to fascinate people.

The indefatigable man of Nature regularly gave accounts of his discoveries and experiences.
From 1929 he published the monthly magazine Das Neue Leben (A Fresh Start). This later became A.Vogel Gesundheits-Nachrichten (Health News), the magazine for a naturally healthy life. Today A.Vogel Gesundheits-Nachrichten (Health News) is one of the most popular health magazines in Switzerland and each issue reaches approximately 100,000 readers. Following the example of A.Vogel Gesundheits-Nachrichten (Health News), similar magazines are published in a number of countries by A.Vogel subsidiary and partner companies.

In 1952, The Nature Doctor, was published – Alfred Vogel’s the best known work worldwide This classic work of Phytotherapy has been translated into 12 languages. Over two million copies have been sold which makes this international bestseller one of the most popular reference books on Nature and popular medicine.

Alfred Vogel books reached high circulation figures for health books in his day.
Besides his classic work, The Nature Doctor and his magazine A.Vogel Gesundheits-Nachrichten (The Health News), which appeared on a regular basis, Alfred Vogel still found time to publish books on specialised subjects.
Die Leber als Regulator der Gesundheit (The Liver as a Regulator of Health )[revised as Der Leber reguliert die Gesundheit in German only 1995], Die Natur als biologischer Wegweiser (Nature as a Biological Guide) [out of print], Gesundheitsführer durch südliche Länder (Health Guide to Southern Countries)[out of print] or Krebs – Schicksal oder Zivilisationskrankheit? (Cancer – Fate or a Disease of Civilisation?) – are only a few successful examples.
The book Die Nahrung als Heilfaktor (Nature as a Healing Factor) which appeared in 1935 and was republished as a facsimile in 1992.