ON November 19th at a meeting of the Hunterian Society at the Cutlers Hall, there was a discussion on the subject “That the Lay Cult of Health has become Injurious.” It was opened by Sir Ernest Graham-Little, M.P., the well-known dermatologist and representative of the General Medical Council. Sir Ernest treated with scarcely disguised contempt all the unorthodox methods of treatment and their exponents.
He ridiculed the health advice given to the public in the lay press, the attempts of the various societies to improve public health by recommending the improvement of diet, the use of fresh air, exercise, etc., and he told his hearers that we ought to follow our instincts as regards nutrition, etc., that far too little was known about the science of dietetics and that no useful advice could be given until the scientists stood on surer ground than they did now. He condemned medical articles in the lay press. To illustrate his views, he described his meeting with a particularly hale and hearty lady, ninety-three years old, who possessed a remarkable physique and equally remarkable mental powers.
When Sir Ernest asked her to what she ascribed her wonderful health and efficiency at so advanced an age, the old dame exclaimed: “It is due to the fact that I have always eaten and drunk whatever I happened to fancy, following no rule whatever.” All the lay healers manipulating surgeons, osteopaths, herbalists, etc., were described as ridiculous, and more or less dangerous quacks, and some of the grossest examples of their ignorance were contemptuously quoted. the audience was told that the only salvation was to be found at the hands of the duly qualified and registered orthodox medical practitioners. He condemned the free use of popular patent medicines.
Sir Ernests address was followed by that of Dr. S. Henning- Belfrage, one of the founders of the New Heath Society, of which Sir W. Arnbuthnot Lane is the distinguished President. He criticized the views of the previous speaker, and expressed regret that orthodox medicine seemed to be interested only in the cure of diseases when once established, but not in their prevention, and he expressed the hope that the time would come when doctors would rather strive to prevent avoidable disease by teaching people how to live than to cure disease. His address was received with great applause.
Dr. Sanguinetti said that as our knowledge of dietetics was as yet insufficient we ought to wait until science had advanced further before making any pronouncements.
SIR BRUCE BRUCE-PORTER said:.
“I would agree with Sir Ernest Graham-Little that the lay press is not the place in which to teach the cure of disease, but, as one of those who have been engaged, ever since the war, in trying to raise health standard amongst the poor, I must say I am satisfied that the columns of the lay press are the best places in which to get this teaching to the general mass of the poor folk.
These articles should carry the name of their author.
We medical men and women must admit that the articles in the Lancet would not be read, and indeed I doubt if they would ever be written, were it the rule that the authors name should be suppressed. Yet we are all aware of the fact that the Editor of the Lancet is a medical man of great experience and particularly qualified to exercise sound judgment as to the merits of articles submitted to him. Why, therefore, do we expect the public to place reliance on unsigned opinions on health topics? Sir Ernest Graham-Little does not think such slogans of the obvious as Eat More Fruit are worth stressing. This may be so in the West End, but they have immense value amongst the poorer folk who after all are the bulk of population.
The last speaker says we have not enough knowledge of food values to enable us to be dogmatic in our teaching, and should defer our efforts until we are in possession of positive knowledge. Thirty-eight years ago when I purchased my first motor car I was advised by my friends to wait until they had become perfect. Had I followed that advice, I should be without a car to-day instead of having used them for over thirty-eight years to my great advantage.
There are many simple facts about food values which are established, and it were better for the public to be made aware of these than to be kept in ignorance and obliged to follow the false guide of instinct.
The art of medicine has become so complicated of recent years and so costly is the treatment of established disease, that in the near future the work of the profession must be re-organized, and the general practitioner become in very deed the medical officer of health of his patients, detecting disease in its earlier stages, guiding his people in the right paths of feeding, checking up the conditions of their home life and work- shops, passing into institutions the case of serious disease, since few can now provide suitable nursing or pay for treatment.
If a general survey be made of the bulk of the population, so many damaged folk will be found that our profession will not be numerous enough to cope with them, and we shall require the help of large numbers of lay helpers to take on the teaching of simple laws of hygiene and of food values and preparation. In the past the whole of the training of the profession was to enable them to deal with established disease, and it is necessary now that the majority of the medical men and women be taught dietetics to enable them to teach them.
Meanwhile let us welcome every helper, lay or qualified, in spreading such knowledge as we possess amongst the millions who are living in unhealthy surroundings on diets largely made up of devitalized foods like white bread, margarine, tinned meats and tea with tinned skim milk, while vegetables rot in our fields and fresh milk is used to feed the pigs”.
I was then called upon to address the meeting, possibly because I am one of the founders of the New Health Society, of which I was the Honorary Secretary, possibly because I have written a number of successful health books. I said:.
“Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I feel greatly honoured to be called upon to address this meeting, chiefly composed of medical men, not only because I am a layman, but particularly because I am not an ordinary layman but a layman who practises medicine, who tries to cure, and I have done so with considerable success. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote 2,300 years ago: “Do not disdain to listen to laymen if they have anything to say which may advance the art of healing.”
That was eminently wise advice, because laymen have been the great pace-makers of the healing art. The most wonderful medicines and treatments were discovered by savages, agricultural workers (vaccination) and old women. Among the greatest innovators of modern medicine had been Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch draper, who discovered the existence of micro-organisms, and Pasteur, a chemist, who developed the treatment of microbic diseases and thereby created modern medicine and modern surgery.
Among the great lay pioneers of modern times are the lay healers who introduced massage, water cure, open air treatment, manipulative surgery, modern nursing, etc. I would mention Coue, Sir Herbert Barker, Florence Nightingale. Unfortunately pioneers and innovators are looked upon with suspicion and dislike by medical men, even if they are members of the medical profession. The great Sydenham, who is now called the English Hippocrates, was treated as a quack by his contemporaries, so was Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and the great John Hunter whose memory is honoured every year by the members of this society.
I think I owe it to this audience to explain how and why I became a lay healer. Twenty years ago, I discovered that I was a very sick man. My health and strength had gradually been declining. At last I was no longer able to take short walk or to sign my name. I thought only of death. I had been treated in vain by numerous doctors and specialists, had gone from health resort to health resort, and was in despair.
At last it occurred to me that, as the medical profession had failed, I might possibly succeed in curing myself. I simplified my diet more and more, my health gradually improved, and I became a new man. I am now sixty-five years old and have better health and greater strength than I have ever had in my life. Yesterday I had my usual Sunday amusement. I went for a twenty-nine milk walks in the hills. My books which run into 400 or 500 pages were all dictated in three or four weeks.
Having regained my health by natural methods, I was anxious to tell the world. I wrote a number of health books, which had a very large sale, and numerous sufferers who had read them applied to me for treatment. At first I refused to treat them, but I was compelled to treat them against my will. I had not the heart to refuse when people told me: “The specialists in Harley Street have told me that I am incurable. You are my last hope, you must try to help me”.
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.