ON March 18th I was visited by Mr. E. W. H., of Wembley Park, who brought me his eight-year-old daughter and told me that she had been seen by a doctor who had declared that her tonsils were in a very bad condition and that they should be taken out immediately.
I am of the opinion that tonsils are not redundant pieces of tissue which are of no particular use and which are an encumbrance, but that they are valuable organs of elimination, as has been pointed out in previous issues of this journal. Moreover, I believe that swollen and septic tonsils are by no means a local trouble, but are a local manifestation of some constitutional disorder which should be treated constitutionally.
The little girl looked pale, weak, frightened, and altogether in a poor condition. The father told me that she was one of three children, and the other two had also had much trouble with tonsils and ears. Apparently, one had infected the other. I chatted pleasantly with the little girl for a few minutes to get her confidence, made a few jokes, and then asked, to the great surprise of the girl and that of the father:”Will you please take off all your clothes, including shoes and stockings?” “But only her tonsils are out of order !” “That may be, but I want to see what the child is as a whole”.
When the little girl had taken off her clothes I noticed that her limbs were not straight, she had a poor chest, very flat feet, her ankles and in fact all her joints are weak, her body had a poor colour. I also noticed that there was a rupture in the right groin, her teeth looked very soft, and the child looked highly toxic, and, on closer inspection I noticed a rash all over her body.
I told the father that I hoped that this rash would not develop. I found that she had a temperature of over 103. Meanwhile, I gave her some Aconite, doses to be given in quick succession, sent her to bed and gave directions that I should get frequent reports over the telephone. The position was obviously obscure, possibly dangerous.
Before the child left I looked into her throat. Her tonsils were slightly swollen, nothing worth troubling about, and the right tonsil was distinctly the larger, which suggests Lycopodium. In view of the poor condition of her bones, ankles, teeth and ligaments, I gave the child Calc. phos. 3x to be taken night and morning, and Lycopodium 12x, a dose between meals, providing the fever should go down.
At first the temperature subsided, then it rose again, then it went up to above 105 and the child was delirious. The parents sent for their local doctor, who had no advice whatever to give except that the tonsils should have been taken out long ago. As the rash had not become worse, he attributed no importance to it. The child had pain in the right ear. There was obviously some septic material which had produced the high temperature.
I therefore prescribed Pyrogen 6, a dose night and morning, and Mercurius biniodatus 3x, a dose every few hours, to act on the tonsils and right ear. In twelve hours the temperature was normal. During the two or three days when the child had fever, she had refused food, and had been fed on lemon juice, orange juice, barley water, etc. About twelve hours after the first dose of Pyrogen the child cried out for food and ate a large meal.
Pyrogen is a very interesting medicine. Pyrogen, also called Sepsin, is prepared from putrid meat which has been allowed to stand in the sun for a couple of weeks. In accordance with the principle of similarity, small quantities of this septic material, highly potentised, are apt to cure septicity.
Pyrogen is invaluable for blood poisoning. A billionth of a grain given twice a day obviously saved the situation in the case of this child. The lack of knowledge of the orthodox practitioner was pitiful. He had no advice to offer except the taking our of the tonsils, although that operation would by no means have improved the childs flat feet, weak ankles, narrow chest, anaemia, soft teeth, rupture, etc.
This small incident should be a lesson for all those who are told in a tone of authority: ” The tonsils must come out”. The practitioner who attended this family glibly, but ignorantly, told Mr. and Mrs. H. that the whole trouble came from the tonsils, and that the child would be better as soon as the tonsils were cut out. Of course, nothing could be more absurd than that assertion. Weakness of the tissue, ligaments and bones and the general inadequacy of the body were probably in existence from birth or from before birth.
On April Ist, Mr. H. came to my rooms again and brought me his little girl. She looked a totally different child. She had a brilliant complexion, bright eyes, red lips, was vivacious, very happy, and looked the picture of health. I heard to my delight that the child had an enormous appetite, played all day long,was full of energy, and that her tonsils gave no trouble any longer.
The pain in the right ear also had disappeared. Last, but not least, and this is the most interesting thing of all, the rupture in the groin had practically disappeared as well. The doctor who had treated the child before she was brought to me had also been shown the rupture, and he had explained that nothing could be done for it except an operation.
Homoeopathy saved the little lady from two operations. If the tonsils had been cut out and if the rupture had been treated surgically in the usual way, these two evidences of constitutional mischief would have disappeared and the doctor would have been satisfied with the work carried out, and possibly the parents would have been short-sighted enough to be satisfied as well. By the surgical treatment of tonsils, right ear and hernia, the constitutional condition of the child would not have been improved.
The little lady has now been given further helpings of Calcarea phosphoricum to strengthen the bones, ligaments and teeth, and this medicine will, of course, help greatly in building up the child. Besides, she has been given a natural diet with an abundance of bran three times a day, and I hope that before long she will be sturdy and splendid.
“Nowadays we hear so much about this meddlesome midwifery, this curetting, and doing this and that the other thing, that it makes a homoeopathic physician disgusted. Just as if those parts were not made by Nature, and could not take care of themselves; as if they must be swabbed out and syringed out. These injections and bichlorides, etc., to keep the germs out of a woman are all nonsense. If a state of order is maintained there will be no germs.” DR. J.T. KENT.
James Ellis Barker wrote a very large number of books, both under the name James Ellis Barker and under his real German name Otto Julius Eltzbacher, The Truth about Homœopathy; Rough Notes on Remedies with William Murray; Chronic Constipation; The Story of My Eyes; Miracles Of Healing and How They are Done; Good Health and Happiness; New Lives for Old: How to Cure the Incurable; My Testament of Healing; Cancer, the Surgeon and the Researcher; Cancer, how it is Caused, how it Can be Prevented with a foreward by William Arbuthnot Lane; Cancer and the Black Man etc.