Max Neuberger was born and educated in Vienna. He worked as a physician at the Rudolf Spital, and at the Allgemeine Krankhaus. At first he dealt with neurology, and brain and spinal physiology. In 1898 he went to teach at the University of Vienna, where he devoted himself more and more to medical history. In 1904 he was appointed as professor of history of medicine. He developed his department into a proper institute for the study of medical history, in which he also built up a library and a museum. His lectures were sought after not only by European and American scholars but also by those from India, China and Japan.
From 1901 through 1913 he collaborated with J. Page on a revised and enlarged edition of the History of Medicine by his mentor, Theodore Puschmann. It appeared in three volumes, under the title Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin (1902-1905,) a comprehensive account of medical history. At the same time he wrote Geschichte de Medizin (Vol. I 1906; Vol II 1911; English translation 1910-1925), which served at the time as the most authoritative textbook of the ancient and medieval period. It also aroused much interest in its treatment of Arabic and Jewish medicine. He wrote especially about the development of medicine in Austria (1918), about the old medical Vienna (1921), and about the Viennese medical school in Vormartz. His other works include Die Medizin in Flavius Josephus (1919), a biography of Hermann Nothnagel, author of Leben und Wirken (1922). In 1926, he published Die Lehre von der Heilkraft der Nature im Wandel der Zeiten (The Healing Power of Nature in the Course of Time).
In 1928, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, he was presented with a commemorative publication Festschrift zur Feier seines 60. Geburtstages, which was published in his name by his colleagues, friends and disciples, with articles in nearly all European languages.
Neuberger showed an interest in Jewish aspects of medicine writing in his Die ersten an der Wiener medizinischen Fakultaet promovierten Aerzte Juedischen Stammes (1918). In 1936 he wrote an article on Jewish Doctors at the International Congress for the History of Medicine in Jerusalem, which was published as Die Stellung der Juedischen Aerzte in der Gescichte in der medizinischen Wissenschaften (1936). In the same year appeared his Gomez Pereira, ein spanischer Arzt des 16. Jahrhunderts.
Neuberger was a member of a number of academic societies in Europe and in America. He was awarded with honor and decorations from many institutions. Neuberger fled from the Nazis in 1938, settling in England, where he worked in The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (1938-1948). In Britain he continued his research. In his British Medicine and the Vienna School (1943), he showed the mutual influence of the two countries in the field of medicine during the 18th and 19th centuries. He also wrote about British and German Psychiatry in the Second Half of the Early Ninteenth Century (1945).
In 1948, on his retirement, Neuberger was presented with a Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstage in his honor (containing a bibliography).
Following his retirement he moved the US, where he lived until 1952. His last years were spent in his native Vienna where he died.