The water in which turnips or carrots have been boiled is extremely palatable and contains the essences of these vegetables. Thus one can give patients the essential elements contained in the vegetables without the roughage. Those who cannot digest vegetables cooked in the ordinary way can take vegetables frequently in the form of soups. If one passes vegetables two or three times through the mincing machine the fibre is broken up. If vegetables minced in this way are boiled for a very few minutes, they produce a delicious soup which usually causes not trouble.
In case of patients who have a delicate digestion and cannot take vegetables, I frequently begin the diet by giving them vegetables mashed and sieved, and I tell them to commence with non-leaf vegetables such as carrots, turnips, swedes, which are digested more easily than leaf vegetables. Or one can introduce people to vegetable by starting them with vegetable extracts, then give them vegetable soups, then mashed and sieved non-leaf vegetables, and then vegetables in the ordinary condition.
Occasionally one has case in which a vegetarian diet is not suitable. I remember a case of extreme flatulence. The unfortunate patient was a civil servant in a good position. He was so terribly plagued with was that for years he has been unable to lie down in bed. He slept in a chair. During the interview his speech was constantly interrupted by most horrible and noisy eructations. I tried on him a baby diet, reinforcing it by medicines designed to assist digestion.
As my attempts to feed him on non-putrefactive diet were unavailing, I changed completely and recommended him a diet consisting exclusively of lean, well-cooked meat without gravy, crisp toast without butter, and hot water. This diet suited him admirably. His fearful flatulence disappeared and after a few weeks he was immensely improved. The irritation and inflammation of the alimentary tract had disappeared, partly owing to the diet and partly owing to the medicines which I had given him, and then I introduced him gradually to a mixed diet and he lost his old trouble completely.
If people need meat, I give them meat specially prepared if their digestion is unsatisfactory. For instance, I tell them to run meat three times through the mincing machine drop it into rampantly boiling water, boil a minute or so, and then serve and eat in the form of soup. I tell them to take liver prepared in the same way. Then I have devised meat patties made as follows.
Run lean meat three times through the mincing machine. Form into patties with the yolk of egg, put under a white hot griller and brown the outside, and eat when the insides is practically raw. Raw meat is far more digestible than cooked meat. Patties prepared in the manner described do not revolt by looking raw.
Many people who are extremely weak and ill are under he delusion that they can strengthen themselves by exercise, cold baths, etc. I have seen totally emaciated patients weakening themselves with physical jerks, and forcing themselves against their instinct to go for walks.. Such patients ought to have rest, not exercise. I have seen other patients in a similar condition taking ice-cold baths to strengthen themselves. After such a bath they are chilled to the bone and it takes them a long time to get back their warmth.
A cold bath gives a fearful jolt to the circulation. Other people are unwise enough to go in for sun- bathing, although prolonged exposure to the sun at its hottest is extremely dangerous. Injudiciously taken, sunbaths are apt to produce very serious skin rashes and eruptions, so-called dermatitis, and occasionally these these skin lesions are followed by sun cancer. Many people who ought to take the rest cure endeavour to improve their condition by harmful energy and exercise, and other whose physical condition calls for exercise do not take any exercise whatever, but run about in motor-cars/.
There are prescribes who condemn all stimulants tea, coffee, alcohol, etc. Tea, coffee and alcohol should of course, be cut down severely if they are taken to excess. The same applied to tobacco. There are people who smoke all day long, who smoke forty, fifty and more cigarettes, a day, and eventually they are apt to contract tobacco blindness, a very dangerous disease which frequently proves incurable.
Alcohol is an excellent tonic and an internal disinfectant. It is one of the best food disinfectants I know, and is easily digestible. Babies who cannot digest their milk rapidly fall off, but their lives may frequently be saved if one puts a few of brandy into their milk. There are people with abstract notions who would rather die than abandon the path of dietetic rectitude which they have followed.
I know vegetarians who would rather die than take meat-who would not even take a few doses of thyroid or of any other medicine derived from animals. A friend of mine was desperately ill. He needed alcohol, and I sent him some champagne, but he refused to touch it. He would rather die. The argument that Christ and the Apostles drank wine proved unavailing.
Even cleanliness can prove harmful. Doctors and nurses frequently insist upon the daily bath or the daily wash. I remember the case of a patient suffering from pneumonia who was killed by being washed quite unnecessarily. The patients protests were disregarded, and the end was disaster. I explain to people who are greatly weakened through fever, influenza, or ordinary disease, that they must on no account he chilled, and that it is much better for them to be dirty and uncomfortable than to be clean and dead. If one takes a bath one washes off the natural grease exuded by the skin which protects the body against chilling.
The athletes of ancient Greece and Rome were in the habit of anointing themselves after every bath. That was very good principle. If one washes off the natural protective fat one ought to replace it by some equivalent protective fat such as olive oil. The objection that the oil might make spots on ones body linen is ridiculous. It is better to be alive and healthy with oil stains on ones shirt than to be dead with immaculate shirts. Besides, olive oil rubbed into the skin is so rapidly absorbed by the skin which requires oil that stains on the body linen hardly ever occur.
One must not only correct the diet of patient, but one must insist upon their chewing properly. Many patients are ashamed to admit that they bolt their food, or that they eat and drink things boiling hot, or that they take undue quantities of sugar and condiments. If the prescriber can manage it, he should watch a patient at a meal, and he will find that the patient swallows his food unchewed, or that he takes it boiling hot, etc.
One must explain to the patient very seriously and impressively that his manner of eating is responsible for his ill-health, and then he will, as a rule, change his habit. I induce people who take boiling hot drink, and their number is legion, to hold a finger in a cup of very hot water. When they have burnt their finger they realize that it is dangerous to swallow tea at 150 or 160 degrees.
Hahnemann regulated first the methods of life of his patient, and then prescribed for him. I do both simultaneously. As a rule my patients are vastly better within a week, and then the question arises whether the improvement is due to the changed diet, to medication, to the prohibition of certain exercises, baths or whatever I may have ordered. As my only aim consists in making my patient well, it is quite immaterial to me which factor has been most helpful.
Many homoeopathic doctors have told me that my homoeopathic prescriptions were inadequate, and that my successes were due to my diet. If doctors tell me this, I usually reply: “You know from my writings what diets I give to people. If I have such great successes owing to my dietetic prescription, why do you not act similarly? If you did, your successes in treatment would be much greater”.
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.