PSORIASIS AND GENERAL WEAKNESS


With regard to the psoriasis it is certainly not worse, and I see slight signs of improvement. The patches are not easy to assess, as the appearance varies from day to day, according to the amount of dry skin on the surface. I quite 18 months. This was over eight years ago. I felt it had been a waste of money. After trying one treatment after another, I have so often come to a similar conclusion.


ON January 5th I was visited by a Mr. J.P.L., a business man in the West End of London, who complained to me about psoriasis. He had a scaly eruption, very red, particularly noticeable around the abdomen. The trouble had been in existence for a great many years, and he had received numerous treatments from orthodox doctors and specialists with the usual lack of result. Only outward treatment had been given to him. At last he went to a well-known nature cure institute and was rigidly fasted for a number of weeks.

As usual, the psoriasis disappeared but came back very promptly when the fast was over. I have met cases of psoriasis where dozens of long and short fasts had been tried in vain. After all, psoriasis, like every skin disease, is a blood disease which, as a rule, cannot be cured by applications on the skin, or by attending to the digestion. While fasting is usually quite ineffective, one can often cure skin disease by a vegetarian diet and by a limitation of condiments, especially salt.

The patient insisted, of course, upon showing me the various parts of the body which were disfigured by the eruption, information which is not very helpful. After all, one wants to know the cause of whatever trouble the individual suffers from.

I discovered that he had been vaccinated as a baby and had had frequent dreams of falling, a sign of vaccinial poisoning. This was only one cause. Besides, he hardly perspired at all, and thus retained impurities which should have been eliminated by the skin.

The patient looked weak and pale, largely because he lived on a low diet in the hope of starving out the disease. He had a great deal of catarrh, caught colds easily, felt always chilly, largely owing to under-nutrition, was very sentimental, and could not stand fatty food. He therefore had plenty of Pulsatilla symptoms.

He used no salt in the cooking or at the table. this is frequently done by nature curers and their disciples, who have the notion that nature curers and their disciples, who have the notion that the food contains all the salt they need. This is not the case. We lose salt in sweat from the pores, in tears, and in many other ways, and salt is needed for carrying on the bodily functions. Salt is particularly necessary to vegetarians. We know that wild deer and cattle travel hundreds of miles to the salt licks and that they will risk death to get the salt.

Heat aggravated the skin symptoms, a fact which indicated his needing Sulphur. He had icy feet, digestion was poor, there was splashing in the stomach, he was very depressed, he took far too little liquid, and he had been given many inoculations. He was altogether in a poor condition, and the most important thing was to feed him up.

I gave him a vegetarian diet with an abundance of wholemeal bread, and especially bran. He was to take nine heaped tablespoonfuls of broad bran, two to three eggs, 2 to 3 pints of milk in every form, 2 to 3 ozs. of mild cheese per day, increasing his intake gradually.

I gave him as medicine Sulphur 6x, a dose night and morning, Kali bichromicum 3x for the catarrh, to be taken between meals, and a combination of Ignatia and Carbo vegetabilis, to be taken with meals for his digestion and depression. Once a week he got a dose of Thuja 200 as a vaccination antidote.

When he came to me he weighed 8 st. 92 lbs. Being used to a very low diet, he was horrified at the idea of eating such enormous quantities, and proclaimed that it would be quite impossible to eat so much. However, he was assured that he would be able to do it, and told that he must increase his intake gradually and cautiously.

A few days after the beginning of treatment he got influenza, which, of course, pulled him down considerably. I sent him Aconite and Eupatorium to be taken in alternation, which rapidly got him into order. On January 24th, after less than three weeks treatment, he wrote to me that his weight had increased from 8 st. 92 lbs. to 9st. 12 lbs., an increase of 6 lbs. He wrote with delight:.

“An increase of 6 lbs. even taking into account my recent recovery from flu, which had run me down severely, quite took my breath away. Friends tell me I am looking much better and fatter in the face”.

“The skin shows as yet no appreciable change. However, the skin in general is more ready to act, and I find when the night turns warm that a gentle perspiration will commence”.

“The catarrh is improving”.

Skin action was obviously considerably improved. On February 1st, after four weeks treatment, he wrote to me:.

“I am pleased to be able to send a favourable report again. My weight on Saturday in the same clothes I wore when you weighed me at 8 st. 92 lbs. touched the beam at 9 st. 4 lbs., an increased of 82 lbs. since the commencement, which is excellent.

I have been feeling well and energetic and have not felt the cold to the same extent as previously. The catarrh has almost gone, except for some stuffiness in the morning, as to-day, when we have had two wet and unpleasant days, but the nose feels comfortably clear during most of the day. The post-nasal catarrh has not quite gone but is very much improved”.

“I go regularly first thing in the morning, and on most days later in the day or last thing at night. The diet suits me well, and in the day or last thing at night. The diet suits me well, and in spite of occasional fears that my bilious headaches, which used to incapacitate me for twenty-four hours, would return, I have so far had no sign of them”.

“With regard to the psoriasis it is certainly not worse, and I see slight signs of improvement. The patches are not easy to assess, as the appearance varies from day to day, according to the amount of dry skin on the surface. I quite 18 months. This was over eight years ago. I felt it had been a waste of money. After trying one treatment after another, I have so often come to a similar conclusion. This time I feel more confident, as there is a marked improvement in general health”.

Since then I have seen Mr. J.P.L. His weight has further increased. His health and strength have improved greatly. His catarrh is gone: his headache has disappeared, and the skin trouble is rapidly improving. Of course, it will take time to eliminate the skin trouble completely.

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.