Sulphur is excellent as a blood-clearing medicine. It drives out the morbid material which is within the body and which should be driven out. So Sulphur night and morning will benefit him in all probability, unless Sulphur should be contra-indicated.
If a patient cannot stand great heat, puts his feet out of bed because they get so hot, gets a sinking in the stomach at eleven in the morning, has an impure skin, Sulphur should be prescribed because it will prove very helpful. If, on the other hand, the patient should crave heat, is tidy, restless, then he may need Arsenic, and Arsenic should be given in the 3x or 6x potency.
The giving of weekly doses of Scarlatinum will not produce scarlatina, and Diphtherinum will not produce diphtheria, but these medicines will show whether there are residues of scarlatina poisoning and of diphtheria poisoning in the system. If the patient reports that after a dose of Scarlatinum he became feverish, tossed about all night, got a rash, then we know that there is some scarlatina poison still within him, and it should, of course, be eliminated as soon as possible.
If he has no reaction at all we can assume that there is no scarlatina poison in existence. He may react to the Diphtherinum by swelling of glands at the neck, a temperature or some other symptoms which indicate that there is some diphtheria poison within him, or he may show by his reaction that there is vaccinial poisoning within his body, and then Thuja will do him much good.
The patient in question would undoubtedly have benefited if he had been given Rhus tox. alone, and he would be grateful for the benefit received, but he would not be completely cured. Only his rheumatic pain would be relieved, and he would come again and again to the prescriber with complaints about rheumatism and other troubles.
If, on the other hand, the whole body should be treated on broad lines as suggested, then he will not only find that his rheumatism disappears but his general health will be vastly improved and he will be set up for life, and will be correspondingly grateful.
Of course, constitutional treatment as outlined causes a great deal of trouble to the prescriber. It takes about an hour to investigate the case thoroughly, and it takes another half-hour to dictate directions to a good shorthand writer. But then there is the possibility of making an unsound man a sound man, of making a delicate woman a strong woman, of making an ailing child a sturdy child. So the method outlined is thoroughly worth while.
One can discover a great deal by interrogation. It is frequently quite unnecessary to examine the patient. However, it is advantageous to follow up the interrogation by a physical examination of the body as a whole. The patient complaining of rheumatism is, let us say, a man aged 48. He has told the prescriber all he knows, answering the numerous questions put to him.
But the prescriber may have omitted a number of questions which he ought to have asked, and he will regretfully remember what has been left out after the patient has gone. He will be reminded of many facts and discover many new factors if he investigates the body. The average patient who has rheumatism wants to show to the prescriber the shoulder, the ankle or knee which is painful, although there is not much to be seen.
The wise prescriber will ask the patient to undress completely. He will look at the man, and he may find that, although his face and hands are spotless, there are numerous pimples and pustules on back and chest. He may discover that a man has a poor chest with poor expansion, or a prolapsed stomach stomach and bowel, or that he has piles, or that he has an enlarged testicle or an unretractable foreskin which may lead to inflammation of the penis, called Balanitis, which may require an operation.
Or he may discover that the patient has varicose veins which need attention, or that he has very flat feet, fearful bunions, crippled toe nails, etc. All these defects are patiently borne because the individual has become used to them. The prescriber should kindly draw the patients attention to all these defects and tell him: “You have a badly swollen testicle which may lead to an operation, or serious varicose veins which may burst and cause tremendous loss of blood at a very unfortunate moment.”
I have seen a woman lying in the street in a huge pool of blood coming from a burst varicose vein. Or one may say: “You have flat feet which can be put right quite easily, or unsightly bunions which may cripple you.”.
The patient may wish to have only his rheumatism dealt with, but if he is a sensible man and can afford it he will be grateful to the prescriber and then the prescriber can embody in his directions provisional measures for dealing with all the factors discovered.
He may, for instance, give foot exercises to the individual with flat feet or weak ankles, he may prescribe Calcarea florica for the varicose veins, and there is the possibility that the absence of Calcarea florica was responsible for the rheumatism. He may prescribe deep breathing for the inadequate chest, and so forth. If he surveys the body as a whole he may be able to rebuild the patient, earn his gratitude and secure a valuable patient.
Mr. Blank, aged 48, may have gone to the homoeopath because he has been to half a dozen orthodox doctors who prescribed salicylates which relieved his rheumatism temporarily but did not cure it. He will probably remember that the orthodox doctors perfunctorily looked at the painful leg or shoulder, and perfunctorily prescribed salicylates and sent him away. Possibly, in order to demonstrate their zeal, they listened, quite unnecessarily, to his heart and lungs, or pretended to listen to his heart and lungs.
He will be amazed if, for the first time in his life, a prescriber takes a real interest in his body as a whole and points out to him all the defects and deficiencies which can be discovered by a complete physical examination and by a searching interrogation.
He will be amazed and delighted at the zeal of the homoeopath who enquires carefully into his medical history and inheritance, and he will arrive at the conclusion that the homoeopath will make a new man of him, he will feel tremendously encouraged, and it is quite likely that when he goes home he will tell his wife and his friends that he has never been so thoroughly examined, and the result may be that within a week the sufferer from rheumatism has sent several new patients to the conscientious prescriber who has treated him in a way in which he has never before been treated.
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.