He replied : “No, she no longer complains about her throat, and she sleeps with her mouth closed.” I smilingly replied : “I did not look at the tonsils six weeks ago, and I suppose I need not look at them now. If she has no discomfort in the throat and if her breathing at night is normal, with a closed mouth, the tonsils must have shrunk greatly. I suppose I really need not look at them.” That ended the treatment for tonsillitis in the case of this little girl.
Scores of people have brought me their children. In every case I was told that the doctor had ordered the excision of the tonsils. Doctors, like dictators, do not give r recommendations, they give orders. In every case the tonsils became normal without operation. After all, an operation causes a considerable physical and mental shock, and also causes great expenditure, both of which seem to be avoidable.
In the case of the little girl Calcarea Phosphorica, the need of which was shown by the condition of the bones and ligaments of legs and feet, proved curative. If the tonsillar swelling is worse on the right side, then Lycopodium should be given which acts particularly on the right side of the body.
If the left tonsil is bigger than the right, then one should consider one of the remedies which act particularly on the left side of the body, especially Lachesis, which I usually give in the 6th centesimal potency, and Thuja which I give in any potency from the 1x upwards. Thuja is particularly indicated if there is any evidence or suspicion of vaccinial poisoning. Children of the Sulphur type need Sulphur. Children who are fat, flabby and have a sour smell about their bodies and have clammy hands and feet should be given Calcarea carbonica.
Enlargement of the tonsils is very frequently an indication of a tubercular tendency. Hence I am apt to give Bacillinum 30 or 200 once a week, which may do very great service and which cannot possibly do any harm. If tonsils are septic then any of the septicity remedies may produce a cure. I like to employ Gunpowder in the 3x potency, a dose night and morning, and I might reinforce Gunpowder with Hepar sulphuris 3x or 6x, and give in addition a dose of Pyrogen 200 once a week.
Naturally I do not limit the tonsil treatment to medication. The pale and anaemic child whose case I have described needed building up. I gave her plenty of bran, especially as she was constipated, eggs, milk, cheese, an abundance of raw fruit, vegetables, salading, wholemeal bread, etc., and the diet led to the disappearance of her anaemia, to the strengthening of the body, and the strengthened body could, of course, more easily normalize the abnormal tonsils. If the patient is too stout one should reduce him.
If he is too thin one should feed him up. If he is anaemic one should give any of the blood-making medicines, if he is plethoric one has to deal with that condition as well. A normal body should have normal tonsils.
There are many other tonsil remedies which could be described, but I hesitate to do this. Those who wish to get full information should study the homoeopathic text-books and the repertories of symptoms which will give them all the information they may desire. I only wish to show in these pages the principles which have guided me in my treatment, and to enumerate a few of the more important remedies which will enable beginners and doctors unacquainted with Homoeopathy to treat cases with success without much further study.
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.