CHRONIC FITS


Still, he has never taken it since the first week he was under you, and he is a different lad. I feel sure if he could take his school leaving exam now he would pass. They had done nothing but tell him he never would succeed, and thus they had stupefied his mind. I bless the day when I saw your journal in a window in Wigmore Street with an article by you on an epilepsy cure that led me to you”.


ON December 14th, 1938, I was visited by a Mr. McD. He came to me accompanied by his mother, who told me an interesting and sad story about her son. The patient was very big and strong, and looked the picture of health. The father and his sons all stood over six feet. After the interview I sent my directions to the patient in which I described the position as follows:.

“You have come to me complaining about fits which start with twitching of the hands, particularly the right hand. They are apt to come on early in the morning. The muscles feel dead and you feel dizzy and you get a tense feeling in the stomach, but soon after these fits you feel your old self again. These fits began when you were 13 years old, in 1934. At that time you had an attack of malaria and were given a large dose of a strong drug which was followed by a fainting attack.

It is doubtful whether the drug was responsible for your troubles, for six months previously, on April 13th, 1934, you fell from a roof upon your head and were unconscious for two and a half hours. You were given at first half a grain of Luminal at night and then night and morning. The dosing with Luminal may possibly be a causative factor. Another possible causative factor is that you have seminal emissions two or three times a week which weaken you.

“You are extremely tall, perfectly made and proportioned, the picture of health and look super-normal Your tongue is slightly coated and you have one loose slightly darkish motion a day. You had smelly feet (this is an indication for Silica). You have had only a slight attack of malaria. Aluminium was used in the school which you were at and in other places where you have been living. You feel worst at night. You take enormous quantities of sugar and there has been diabetes in your fathers family. You were vaccinated when you were a baby and used to have dreams of falling”.

There was the possibility that the fits were due to drug poisoning or to the severe fall on the head which left the young man stunned for two and a half hours, that they were due to suppressed foot-sweat, a very serious matter, that they were due to aluminium poisoning, to vaccinial poisoning or to the abuse of sugar. Of course I forbade the over-use of sugar, put him on a fleshless and fishless diet to purify the blood and the alimentary canal.

I forbade coffee, strong tea, white sugar and white flour in every form, and for medicine I gave him Sulphur 6x marked, “Blood clearing a dose first and last thing,” a combination of Nux vomica and Carbo vegetabilis marked, “Digestion and flatulence a dose to be taken before meals,” Silica 12x because of the possibility of suppressed foot-sweat, being the cause of his troubles, a dose to be taken between meals.

On Monday nights he was to take a dose of Alumina 200 as an aluminium antidote, on Thursday nights he was given dose of Lueticum 200 because his troubles were worst at night. On Saturday nights he was to have a dose of Thuja 200 as an antidote to vaccinial poisoning.

Fits are extremely difficult to cure. They are the despair of general practitioners and specialists. The cause of their occurrence is obscure, and most doctors and specialists limit their action to doping the patient with Luminal and Bromide. Bromide and Luminal are given to practically every case of epileptic and other fits, although these drugs have within my knowledge not cured a single case.

I have seen scores of patients who suffered with epileptic and other fits. I usually ask them: “Did your doctor give you Bromide and Luminal or did he give you Luminal and Bromide ?” One of my patients had been to eight specialists and all eight prescribed nothing but Luminal and Bromide, drugs which have not cured a single case as far as I am aware, but which have ruined innumerable patients by injuring blood and brain.

On December 18th the mother of the patient, Mrs. McD., sent me additional information. She told me: “My son was born at the end of a very long hard labour, and was taken with forceps. Although I was utterly exhausted I noticed that the nurse would not show me his full face, and I demanded to see it. I then discovered his cheek was badly bruised and also his head. Another thing is that six weeks before his birth the wheel of the car I was in came off, and I had a big jolt”.

These facts indicated the possibility that the fits were due to injury to the mother while bearing the child, or to injury to the child in the act of being delivered. Besides, the child was starved when quite small and was so weak and ill that the doctors thought he could not live.

On Sunday, December 25th, my patient reported: “Six days ago I started your treatment. On Tuesday night I had a mild fit, and on Sunday night I had two emissions and the weather has been terribly cold. Since then I have felt very well and without shakiness. The Luminal has been cut down in accordance with your directions, and I only take now half a grain in the morning which I shall now halve.

I very much enjoy the bran porridge and bran cake. My sugar consumption is much less than previously, and I consume great quantities of vegetables in accordance with your directions. It is too early yet to say whether I am feeling better, but I must say that I am a lot less shaky than I was before I commenced the treatment”.

As the young man had been doing quite well I saw no reason to change medication. On January 3rd, after two weeks treatment he reported:.

“This is my second weekly report, and I am very much better for the treatment. On Thursday the 29th, I had another mild fit while in bed. However, I am much better and I am never so shaky as I used to be when getting up in the morning”.

I repeated medicines as before. On January 7th, his mother wrote to me: “I think your treatment is undoubtedly doing my son good. He has cut down the daily dose of Luminal by half, and he is not as shaky in the mornings”.

The next report, dated January 10th told me: “This is my third weekly report which I think is very satisfactory. I am still feeling very fit and am going to stool regularly now. The emissions are now very occasional. Late nights have practically no effect on me now. I am very much better and am very grateful to you for your treatment”.

I continued the same medicines. On January 17th his mother reported: “Ronald, my son, continues to improve. He has almost given up Luminal. He is taking half a dose about three times or less a week, and he is brighter”.

On January 18th my patient wrote: “The emissions are very rare now. I am taking about one sixteenth of a grain of Luminal about every two or three days in the morning. I am enjoying my food more now than ever before, and everyone says when they see me, that I look much better than before”.

I continued the same medicines and added Phosphoric acid 1x with a small addition of Ignatia mother tincture, ten drops to be taken after meals in water. This is an excellent medicine for strengthening the nerves and counteracting the effect of seminal losses.

The next report came to me on January 28th. My patient told me: “This is my fourth weekly report. I have had some late nights but have felt no ill effect. Am very fit and I have stopped taking Luminal altogether. I find that I am now 14 stone 4 lb. without my clothes. Everyone remarks on my fitness now”.

I continued the medicines largely as before, but sent him some Crataegus mother tincture to strengthen his heart which was not as strong as it might be. On February 4th came another statement from my patient. He wrote: “This is my fifth weekly report. It is much the same as the others. I am very well, very rarely feel shaky now, and there has been a tremendous all-round improvement in my general health. I wish I could always live on your fleshless diet as I have grown to like it very much indeed”.

The poor young man had been suffering from fits for five years. He had been under treatment all the time by a number of doctors and specialists who had given the usual treatment of the textbooks and had merely doped him. I eliminated the Luminal gradually, as I usually do, and treated the complaint constitutionally by antidoting various factors which might be responsible, such as vaccinial poisoning, aluminium poisoning, and a possible hereditary factor.

It is a moot point to me whether these fits should be called epileptic or epileptiform. The name does not matter, but it is known to every practitioner that slight and medium fits of long duration are very intractable and are apt to get worse in the course of years. I treated not only the fits, but every other possible factor as well.

As there was a possibility that the trouble was due to heavy seminal losses I dealt with that factor which had been completely neglected by the young mans doctors. The result was most gratifying, and the patient has continued to do extremely well. Hence, the subsequent history of the case is of no particular interest to readers.

ON February 3rd the patients mother wrote to me. “My son continues to keep fit and well. I am happy to say he had given up luminal, and the omission seems to have no ill effect, despite the repeated assertions of doctors and specialists that he would have to take the drug all his life. I cannot tell you how very grateful I am for this change. Needless to say he has recovered the confidence which had been so sadly shaken by the doctors. My son has now faith in you and confidence in his own future. Many thanks for the splendid results you are getting for my son”.

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.