SYPHILIS AND SYPHILINUM


Unfortunately, much time had elapsed between the time when the original infection took place and the discovery of the disease. In the meantime serious injury had been done to the man, and he had transmitted the disease to his wife. This suggested to me the possibility of a syphilitic infection.


SYPHILIS is a very horrible disease, and it is usually acquired by irregular sexual intercourse. However, according to certain statistics, it appears that about 10 per cent. of the cases are acquired in a different way, and in view of the great seriousness of this disease, I think that I should warn my readers by telling them of a few cases within my own knowledge.

An innocent young girl went to the dentist. A little while afterwards she noticed a swelling in her mouth, to which she paid no attention. At last she went to her doctor, who was horrified when he discovered the dreaded syphilitic sore next to the tooth on which the dentist has been working. He had obviously used the instrument on a syphilitic and had inoculated the poor girl with the syphilitic virus.

A colonial administrator, a man of magnificent physique, had come back to London for a holiday. He was travelling by train, and went to the lavatory, washed his hands and face, and dried himself very thoroughly with the towel. A week afterwards he noticed on the tip of the left ear a little sore, to which at first he paid no attention. Then he went to his doctor who treated him and it disappeared. Then he experienced some trouble supervened, and, at the suggestion of his doctor, he went to see a specialist, who told him to his dismay that he had acquired syphilis, and that obviously he had been infected in the train by means of a towel.

Unfortunately, much time had elapsed between the time when the original infection took place and the discovery of the disease. In the meantime serious injury had been done to the man, and he had transmitted the disease to his wife.

A charwoman was called in to clean a flat which had just been vacated by the previous tenant. She found behind the bath a dirty rag which she picked up and threw away. During her cleaning she felt an itching on her nose and rubbed it vigorously. A few days after a sore appeared on that part of the nose which she had rubbed. The rag behind the bath carried the syphilitic virus. She was treated for some time for syphilitic virus. She was treated for some time for syphilis, it was a very virulent form of the disease, she became disgusted with herself and with life, and committed suicide.

In hundreds of cases syphilitic infection is transferred by kissing, by the use of an infected cup, fork, spoon, lavatory, etc. Care is required to avoid such infection.

Homoeopaths use diseases products for curing diseases, guided by the principle of similarity, and among these disease products – the technical word for them is nosodes – Syphilinum occupies an important place. In every case in which there has been syphilis, or in which syphilis is suspected, one should give Syphilinum in high potency, starting with the 30th or 200th potency.

One of the characteristics of syphilis is that the victim of the disease suffers most at night. Many syphilitics are afraid to go to bed because of their nightly sufferings. Night is worse for them because of the pain in the bones, nervousness, mental anguish, the desire to commit suicide, and so forth.

In view of the fact that syphilitics suffer mostly at night, the prescriber must think of the possibility of a syphilitic taint if the patient tells him that his sufferings are worse at night, and, unless he is absolutely certain in his mind that there is no possibility of syphilitic infection or inheritance, he may safely try a few doses of Syphilinum, which may produce miracles. The keynote of the nightly aggravation is of the utmost value in diagnosing a case. I would give a few examples within my own experience.

Sometime ago a lady brought me her daughter who was twenty-two years old. She had always been in excellent health and was powerfully made, but she had suffered for many years from epileptic fits, for which she had been sent to an institution. Enquiry elicited the fact that her attacks came only at night. I looked hard at her mother and asked: “Have you ever had any specific infection?” She replied with commendable straightforwardness: “My husband had syphilis and he had infected me, but I was completely cured before her birth.”

Unfortunately, syphilis may exist even if,according to orthodox medicine, the patient has been completely cured. The orthodox doctor is guided by the Wassermann test which is not absolutely reliable. In fact, it is very unreliable. The reaction of the patient to Syphilinum is vastly more illuminating than the Wassermann test. Plenty of people suffer from actual or inherited syphilis who are declared absolutely cured after the application of the Wassermann test. I prescribed for the girl a small dose of Syphilinum 200 to be taken once a week.

At the institution this girl had been given daily doses of Bromide and Luminal, which, however, had failed to stop the attacks. She was told to leave off Bromide and Luminal, but she feared that without these she would experience much worse attacks. I saw her six weeks later, and was delighted to hear that she had not had a single attack. Obviously Syphilinum had been the right medicine.

Some months ago a lady brought me her two children, a boy and a girl. The girl, age sixteen, looked desperately ill, she was anaemic, and was so weak that she had been sent home from boarding school. She was terribly depressed, felt suicidal, and suffered agonies at menstruation time. The boy was powerfully made but somewhat anaemic, and he had an eruption on the back which no doctor had been able to cure.

I gave the girl an appropriate diet and homoeopathic medicines, and gave Sulphur to the boy whose condition obviously called for Sulphur. The girl improved to some extent, but the melancholia remained with her, and her periods were a nightmare to her and to her mother. When I saw her the second time I discovered that her sufferings at menstrual time were particularly severe at night. She dreaded going to bed. This suggested to me the possibility of a syphilitic infection. The mother told me that she herself had been perfectly healthy, and that, on her side, there was not the slightest possibility of the child having inherited the infection.

I asked her to inquire from her husband whether he had had a venereal disease before marriage. I saw her a few days after, and she told me in her innocence: “My husband told me that he had never had any illness in his life. The only trouble he had had before marriage was a slight ladys complaint which had been promptly cured with 606.” “606” is a well-known syphilitic specific. I immediately prescribed for both children a dose of Syphilinum once a week, and both rapidly improved.

J. Ellis Barker
James Ellis Barker 1870 – 1948 was a Jewish German lay homeopath, born in Cologne in Germany. He settled in Britain to become the editor of The Homeopathic World in 1931 (which he later renamed as Heal Thyself) for sixteen years, and he wrote a great deal about homeopathy during this time.

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.