Soon afterwards the patient was once more able to bend forward and sideways which hitherto had been impossible. After a week the pustules artificially produced on her had dried up, her pain had gone, she could walk with ease and elastic step. After a fortnight of this treatment she went for a four hours walk without the surgical corset. For two years she had not been able to walk. Her general health and appetite had improved greatly.
A lady, 47 years old, was suffering severely in consequence of the change of life. The most annoying of her troubles was very severe pain in the joint of the right big toe, which had been diagnosed as chronic arthritis. This pain was constantly in evidence. The patient was no longer able to walk or to play tennis. The lady had consulted the leading surgeons and orthopaedic physicians of Vienna. She was given numerous medical and physical treatments and orthopaedic shoes, but nothing helped.
Two applications for producing pustules by the Baunscheidt method caused the complete disappearance of her pain and the patient can now walk and play tennis to her hearts content. Orthodox medicine had forgotten the treatments given by the doctors of the past, who treated conditions of this kind immediately by the application of leeches and by Cantharides plasters, which produced pustules. If their treatment was delayed they produced an artificial issue and treated the patient with Calomel, Antimony, etc., and thus cut short the development of an arthritis which threatened to immobilize limbs and to destroy bony structures.
Operations on the womb should be done conservatively. A surgeon who favoured radical operations had operated ten years ago on a woman who then was 42 years old because she had fibroid tumour as large as an apple. The swelling had not caused any particular difficulties or sufferings, not had the patient been complaining about heavy haemorrhage. As is usually the case, the patient did well during the first two years following the operation.
Then she began to suffer from ever-increasing ebullitions of blood and from very serious nervous symptoms. The lady who formerly had been healthy and strong complained that she did not enjoy tolerable health during a single day. Her sufferings had broken her during completely, she had the most terrible feelings of panic and other nerve sensations which she could not describe and she could not stand her sufferings any longer. She had been given ovarian preparations by the mouth and in form of injection.
She had consulted nearly all the gynaecologists of Vienna but had been given no relief. Her stomach was greatly inflated. It pressed on the heart. She had consulted because of these symptoms practically all the best Vienna specialists. She had been given alternatively acids and alkalines, a baby diet, and a diet entirely composed of raw food, she had been treated for duodenal catarrh and colitis, had been given a milk diet, Luminal, etc.
Examination of the patient revealed the existence of an enormously enlarged stomach, which produced splashing noises on pressure. I prescribed for the patient a strengthening diet from which milk was excluded, a laxative, a bitter stomach tonic, and hydrotherapy, and forbade, the use of narcotics which had increased her indigestion and the atony of her stomach.
As usual, improvement took place with surprising rapidity, while the stereotyped orthodox treatment with hormones, sedatives, and the usual orthodox treatment of dyspepsia had not been able to produce any improvement. Of course the best treatment for the poor woman would have been if she had not been radically operated upon.
The few examples given are representative of many. Modern medicine had done great things in the domain of diagnosis, and has produced great technical advancement. However, it seems clear that more remote cause of illness should be considered and treated before allowing specialists to operate on eyes, ears, nose, abdominal organs, etc. Besides the methods of treatment employed at present we must use those empirical methods which were used in the past with success, which have stood the test of practice although they may be considered unscientific by the present leaders of orthodox medicine.”.
I can support Professor Aschner in his contention. I have frequently seen similarly extraordinary results obtained by unorthodox, old-fashioned and unscientific treatments. The wise doctor will not disdain learning new methods from anyone who knows how to cure, professorial or non-professorial, professional or lay. Many of the most valuable medical proceedings were learned from experienced old women and from animals, from illiterate natives and from medicine men. Modern medicine is not scientific but desperately narrow and incredibly conceited. EDITOR].
After the German invasion and the annexation of Austria , he lost the teaching authority because of his Jewish origin and emigrated to the United States of America. He opened a practice in New York and ran an arthritis outpatient clinic at Stuyvesant Policlinc , later at Lebanon Hospital . Scientifically Aschner first distinguished himself in the field of internal secretion (endocrinology), then as a medical historian.