Hand in hand with the regulation of the diet must go regulation of excretion. Nerve sufferers are frequently troubled with chronic constipation and with poisoning of the system from a foul bowel. A natural fleshless and fishless diet, and an abundance of bran vastly improves bowel activity, and very frequently chronic constipation disappears as if by magic when a patient is given an abundance of bran, black treacle, etc. Vegetables and fruit alone are insufficient to combat constipation in most cases.
I have seen numerous cases of inveterate constipation among people who have lived practically exclusively on raw fruit, salading, etc. Patients with weak nerves should endeavour to have two or three motions a day, and they should make it a rule to go to the place of retirement three times a day, after every meal.
Faulty management of the body is also harmful to the nervous. There are weak people who try to strengthen themselves by taking cold baths which chill them through and through, and weaken them. There are other weak people who try to get strength, not by adequate nutrition, but by violent exercise. Others again try to get strength by exposing their bodies to the air, by taking sun baths which frequently lead to a complete nervous breakdown, etc. Animals which are exposed to the blazing sun try to get into the shade.
If they cannot get into the shade they go frantic because their instinct tells them of the danger of over-exposure to the strong sun. Numerous nerve cases are due to injudicious sun bathing, injudicious exercise, injudicious cold bathing, etc.
There are nerve cases which are traceable to sexual over- indulgence to self-abuse, to frequent nightly emissions, to avoidable anxieties, etc. If a man has overstrained his financial resources he is in constant anxiety to financial disaster and he may become a nervous wreck. There are people who work sixteen or eighteen hours a day, who go to bed with thoughts of business, who think of their business when awake in bed, and who dream of their business when asleep. Patients must be told firmly but kindly that they must alter their ways.
The curative treatment of cases of nerve weakness must depend on all the circumstances mentioned in the foregoing, and on numerous other circumstances which have not been allude to. Nerve patients who are emaciated and restless frequently do well when they are given a natural diet, a good deal of rest, and they recover promptly as soon as they put on weight.
At one time I favoured the rest cure. A patient is put into bed for six weeks, he is highly fed with an abundance of milk and milky foods, he is not given any exercise, but is vigorously massaged to ensure absorption of food, and his bowels are carefully regulated. Am emaciated nerve case kept in bed can thus be made to gain weight at the rate of five or ten pounds a week, but the rest cure is intensely disliked by most patients.
They are made to lie in bed and to vegetate. They must not receive visitors, must not receive or write letters, they either are given no books or only childrens books which require no concentration. The rest cure can be properly given only in a nursing home, and nursing homes are expensive.
To ensure digestions of the large quantities of food the under- nourished can be given certain remedies which assist digestion, such as Thyroid, Gentian, and other stimulants of the digestion, and further assistance can be given by means of hot poultices on the abdomen such as linseed poultices. For many years I have not given the rest cure to any of my nerve cases. I find that as a rule I can increase the weight of the emaciated by 5,6,7 or 8 lbs. a week while allowing them to live their normal life, going to business, etc.
However, I do not allow much exercise. They are enjoined to take the minimum of exercise and to spend as much time as possible on their backs, and in my directions to the emaciated I always tell them: “Spend as much time on your back as you can, never sit down when you can lie down.” Lying down after meals is particularly helpful. It assists digestion and excretion, especially when the bowel is kinked, a condition which is extremely frequent.
The stout and the plethoric have to be reduced in weight. The plethoric frequently suffer from high blood pressure, which worries them. Obesity can be cured only by under-nutrition, by compelling the body to burn up the redundant fat. Such patients should be given the absolute minimum of feeding foods and the maximum of raw fruit, salading, and liquids such as water, unsweetened lemon water, etc.
An obese person is given for breakfast two small slices of thin wholemeal toast with the thinnest butter, a lightly boiled egg or some mild cheese, any quantity of raw juicy fruits, superlatively weak China tea with the minimum of milk and no sugar. His mid-day meal should consist of a superabundance of plainly boiled vegetables, salading raw fruits, a meagre egg dish or egg and cheese dish, and a couple of biscuits, and his evening meal should be similar to the mid- day meal.
It is dangerous to reduce the obese too quickly. I therefore stipulate that they should lose only two or three pounds per week. If they lose more they are told to increase their intake of milk and butter. The obese and the plethoric rapidly feel more comfortable when their weight goes down. Their throbbing headaches disappear, their blood pressure goes down, their nervousness vanishes and they become happy and normal again.
Nervousness in women is very frequently due to some abnormality in the sexual organ. After all, a woman is built round her sex organs. It is very important to ascertain whether a womans periods are too scanty or too profuse, or have stopped altogether. The regulation of these matters is essential. If there is violent pain, then the cause of the pain has to be ascertained, or at least the appropriate homoeopathic remedy should be given, and then things will become normal.
Some woman become nervous wrecks because there is no adequate outlet for their affection, others because they are not married or because they are not happily married, others because they have no children, others because sex relations are unsatisfactory. There are woman who become completely exhausted and hysterical through avoidable mismanagement or through lack of consideration on the part of their husbands. There are others who have irregular relations or who live in fear of infection.
The use of preventives has made many women nervous wrecks, and sop has tampering with pregnancy. The relations between the sexes should be easy and natural, and in sex relations there should be unreserved joyousness and happiness without fear, pain, mutual reproaches or disgust and horror. Some women are to exacting in their husbands, and some husbands are too exacting on their wives. The nervous wear and tear of such conditions is terrible in many cases. The wise prescriber, after having tactfully ascertained the position of affairs, should ask the husband to visit him, explain the position and insist on the correction of obvious mistakes.
Neurasthenia appears in children as well as in grown ups. Occasionally one reads of children who are completely broken down in nerves, of children who have committed suicide from fear of examinations, or because they have received a few bad marks at school. Nervousness in children is largely due to nutrition, but there are other factors as well. Parents who have procreated children while under the influence of alcoholic drink, or who are addicted to dopes, very frequently have nervy children.
I have seen terrible nerve cases due to sexual disease of the parents or to attempts of the mother to produce an abortion when bearing the child. One must have consider these cases as incurable. Nerve cases of all ages require building up. One can rebuild the nervous system just as easily as one can strengthen muscles by adequate exercise and deliberate training.
In diseases and disorders of the nerves, homoeopathic medicines are of infinite value. Dopes used in large quantities by orthodox doctors are dangerous and harmful. I have seen patients who were absolutely ruined by bromide, luminal, and other so-called sedatives taken for years and years. Nervous patients who cannot sleep are often given veronal or other poisonous drugs for years in ever-increasing quantities, and then they become enslaved to the use of the drug. It is extremely difficult to deal with such cases. One cannot withdraw the drug immediately, but one must do it cautiously and gradually.
I remember the case of a wealthy clergyman in the country. Years ago he could not sleep because his nerves had become upset. The doctor gave him sedatives in ever-increasing quantities, and then gave him morphia injections, heroin, cocaine, large quantities of aspirin, and so forth. The unfortunate clergyman lived in a state of coma or semi-coma. He lived as in a trance., When the effect of the drugs began to wear off he became excited, hysterical, weepy, melancholy, irritable, and then he was immediately given another injection or a dose of heroin or some other poison. He was given nothing but poisons for years.
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.