Some of the patients are not merely depressed, but they are suicidal. In deepest depression, Aurum (Gold) is most helpful, particularly if the depression, Aurum deepest at night. Incidentally every patient who suffers much more at night than in the daytime should be suspected of Syphilis, acquired or inherited, for syphilitics suffer most at night time. No one can tell why this should be the case, but the fact is unchallengeable.
A great medicine for those who are restless is Arsenicum. The ARsenicum patient is, as a rule, spare of build, active, ultra- tidy, and is unable to sit still or lie still. Body and mind are never at rest. The Arsenicum patient loves heat, desires hot foot, hot drink. Very frequently Arsenicum patients are money mean or miserly.
In cases of extreme restlessness one should think of Tarentula. A Tarentula patient not only cannot keep still, but his movements are extremely jerky and rapid. Onlookers cannot understand how the patient can keep it up. A child was brought to me. She was a charming girl but she jumped about like a doll on a rapidly pulled string. She did not jump about pleasure, but aimlessly and jerkily.
Night and day she displayed the utmost restlessness, to the despair of those around her. I sent first a few doses of Arsenicum 6x which did a little good. I then gave Tarentula 200, and a few doses changed the character of the child completely. It appears that the bite of the Tarentula Spider produces similar symptoms. This is in accordance with the principle that like cures like.
There are cases of apparent mental decay. There are patients who are slow in answering question, they have lost their memory, they have lost their will power, they do not feel suicidal, but they are weary of life, they do not trust anyone, and they tell everyone that they are afraid they will lose their reason. People who are going to lose their reason never say so.
Being aware that their reasoning power is disappearing, they try to hide the fact from those around them. Those who display the characteristics mentioned may be greatly benefited by Mercurius, especially if there are other Mercurius symptoms such as hypersensitiveness to changes in the weather and temperature. Mercurius patients are as sensitive as Mercury in a barometer.
Besides, Mercurius patients usually are thin, have evil smelling breath, a mouth very wet with saliva, they are apt to perspire heavily, and perspiration does not relieve them.
Much mental suffering and anguish are caused by sex factors among men, and especially among women. Love disappointments have frequently produced disorders of the mind. After all, sexual passion is the strongest passion we know, and if that passion is foiled, grave consequences may ensue. The change of life occasionally produces extremely serious mind symptoms in women, and similar, but lesser, symptoms may occur at every menstrual period.
There are women who are perfectly normal except before, during or after the menstrual period, when then may become mentally totally abnormal. There are women who, every month, are tearful, terribly depressed, morose, violent, incredibly excited, etc. Grave mental disease following the change of life is often favourably influenced by Lachesis, the well-known serpent poison, which I give as a rule in the 30th or 200th potency, preferably the latter.
Some women become sexually highly excited either at the monthly period or about the change of life. Not a few women lose their reason after the change. One of the best medicines for climacteric insanity is Lachesis, the serpent poison, which, as I have said, I usually give in the 30th or the 200th potency.
There are many minor symptoms which are described as purely nervous, and which are treated as incurably by orthodox practitioners. There are men and women who cannot keep their feet still. They fidget even in their sleep. Zincum 3 will act as a specific and their restless feet will become normal, even if they have been restless for decades. Those who are oversexed may find great benefit if they are given Onosmodium, and particularly Hyoscyamus.
The sedatives given by orthodox medicine are dangerously strong and dangerously poisonous. As sedatives one can give Chamomilla, Valerian, Ignatia and various other medicines. One has to make ones selection by studying the Materia Medica. Somnambulism is a curious condition of the mind which causes people to walk about in their sleep. That condition can, as a rule, be cured with homoeopathic medicines, among which phosphorus 3 a Opium 30 are perhaps foremost.
Those who have been weakened by sexual excesses should be given phosphorus 3 or diluted phosphoric acid, then drops in water after meals, and those who are shameless will be greatly benefited by a few doses of Hyoscyamus.
Those who are extremely sensitive and weak are apt to do well when given Theridion 30 or Selenium 6,30 or 200. The mentally afflicted who are benefited by music should be given Tarentula, particularly if they have the restlessness associated with that medicine. Haughty people will do well in innumerable cases with Platinum, People suffering from religious mania should be given Sulphur or Psorinum, or both Sulphur and Psorinum, and the result will surprise the prescriber.
The delusions from which patients are pat to suffer are past counting. Some see ghosts, others see spiders or rats. Some find that all objects look very tall, others that they look very small. Some feel sure that they are being poisoned, that people are laughing at them, others are sure that they are in their grave, or that something terrible is going to happen, etc. For those afflicted with a fear complex, Scutellaria will prove most useful.
Of course, only an inadequate outline can be given, but the few facts mentioned may help prescribers, and the information supplied may induce readers to study the subject adequately with the help of the Materia Medica, and of the great repertories of symptoms.
I have found diseases of the mind as curable as diseases of the body. Perhaps I have been very fortunate; perhaps it is due to the fact that I have unending patience and perseverance, and that people are apt to give me their confidence. In diseases of the mind it is particularly important that patients should trust the individual who wished to treat them. Scientific examination if of little value compared with the establishment of perfect sympathy between the healer who wishes to cure and the patient who wishes to be cured.
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.