I then gave her a dose of Ignatia which she swallowed with contempt. The mother started telling me at length what the doctors and specialists had said. She told me among other things that her daughter had lost more than 60 pounds in weight, and all the doctors and specialists had declared her daughter incurable, and informed her quite frankly that she could only get worse.
The recital of the views of the specialists made my blood boil. I brusquely told the mother: “I am not interested in the slightest in what the various specialists have said because they have done no good to your daughter, but I am very interested to learn what they have done.” It then came out that they had treated the poor woman with nothing but dopes. She was given dope to alleviate the intolerable pain, dope to make her sleep, dope to steady her nerves, etc. I had difficulty in controlling my anger.
Miss C. had a ghastly complexion, full of blotches which were largely caused by bromide, but I noticed a faint odour which told its own tale. I asked her mother, “How often does your daughter have a motion ?” “About once every fine days.” “And what is the character of the motion ?” “It is pestilential.” “What is her urine like ?” “Like thick soup.” “So the poor child has been poisoned from the bowels for years and years and the doctors and specialists have done nothing for the bowel poisoning, but have added to these poisons chemical poisons of the most dangerous kind”.
The hands of poor Miss C. were absolutely useless. They were completely distorted. She could not wipe her nose. I took one of her hands, manipulated it vigorously, and immediately it became slightly usable. Meanwhile the passes I had made on her head, the dose of Ignatia, and my general attitude had obviously done good. Miss C. looked distinctly better and brighter, and could not deny it when she looked into the mirror. For the first time in the course of years she had been given some reasonable hope.
I gave the girl a lacto-vegetarian diet, regulated the bowel with liquid paraffin, ordered the gradual reduction of sleeping draught, and gave her a combination of Nux vomica and Carbo vegetabilis to be taken before meals for her digestion, one grain of Thyroid to be taken after meals to increase her appetite. To clear her horrible skin and complexion she was to take a dose of Hepar sulphuris 2x first and last thing, and as her stiffness and pain were relieved by movement she was to take a dose of Rhus tox. 3x between meals.
If one wishes to treat a difficult case one must not only deal with the most striking symptoms presented by the patient, but must enquire into the past and deal with the far off causes of the disease. This point is usually neglected by doctors. Her trouble were obviously associated with very serious attacks of scarlatina and of diphtheria which had occurred many years ago.
Besides aluminium was used in the kitchen, which very frequently produces stiffness of limbs and even paralysis. So the patient was to take a dose Scarlatinum 200 last think every monday, A dose of Alumina 200 last thing on thursday, and dose of Diphtherinum 200 last thing on Saturday.
The painfully stiff and useless limbs were to be massaged and manipulated with unrefined cod-liver-oil. Gradually various changes were effected. As the girl had been badly upset by vaccination occasional doses of Thuja 200 were administered.
On June 8th Miss C. was brought to me for the second time. I wrote to her mother: “I found your daughter greatly improved, to my great joy. She looks a totally different woman. She is very different as regards complexion, liveliness, feeling of muscles and hands and flexibility of joints, etc. It is absolutely essential that she has three motions a day and that she flushes her inside with quantities of liquid such as vegetable water, nettle tea and potato water.” I gave her occasionally homoeopathic tonics. the result has been very gratifying.
Her weight had boon steadily going down until she came to me. In three months she gained 10 pounds n weight, could stand and could walk short distances unaided. Her fingers became more flexible and more usable. Instead of looking deeply jaundiced she acquired a beautiful clear skin, bright eyes, glossy hair and looked many years younger.
The process of treatment will necessarily be long drawn out, but the facts given suffice to show that even in the most desperate cases something can be done, and that very few diseases are incurable, that the diagnosis of incurable disease made by distinguished specialists can safely be disregarded in innumerable cases.
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.