A very tall and totally emaciated financier told me that he had spent thousands of pounds, that no doctor had been able to put flesh on him and to cure his anaemia. A glance at his eyes caused me to say: “You eat too much fat.” immediately the reply came: “I never touch fat.” “But what about butter?” “Oh, I eat a lot of butter.” Endeavouring to get fat the man had consumed every day more than half a pound of butter for many years guided by the doctors. I recommended that he should not touch butter in any form during a month and during that month he gained eight or ten pounds in weight and lost his anaemia.
Wise old Hahnemann recommended in his Organon and in many other writings that the doctor should regulate the life of patients, their diet, etc., before using drugs, particularly if such regulation should urgently be required. Hahnemann was a great pioneer in making used of open air, sunshine, water, exercise, rest, etc., and I think I follow in Hahnemanns footsteps in acting as I have acted, and I think both doctors and laymen might with advantage study the common sense recommendations of Hahnemann and his methods of treatment. No one can be move firmly convinced of the advantages of homoeopathic treatment that I am.
However, I cannot help thinking that homoeopathic treatment by the most experienced homoeopathic physician or layman may fail if the patient continues taking salt or mustard by the tablespoonful, smokes twenty cigars per day or fifty cigarettes. Of course if takes some considerable time to “take the case” in accordance with Hahnemanns directions.
It takes about equally long to investigate the diet and other common sense factors which may be responsible for the disorder or disease complained of Investigation of these factors is particularly difficult because patients always believed that they lead a very sensible life. The tea fiend will assure you with emphasis: “I like tea hot and strong and plenty of it?. The cigarette fiend will make similar observations and the salt maniac will assure you that salt is exceedingly beneficial and so will the mustard maniac.
Some time ago two ladies asked my advice. One had a huge goitre and the other complained about terrible weakness and anaemia, treated in vain by numerous doctors. The goitre lady took practically no drink, terribly clogged in consequence. The other lady, wishing to keep her blood pure and wholesome, lived principally on salads, raw fruit and a little whole-meal bread. She shunned flesh, fish, fowl and eggs, did not take milk because “milk was meant for calves,” did not touch tea, but took prodigious quantities of water, thinning her blood. I told the goitre lady to take plenty of liquid of every kind, took away from the anaemic lady her salads and raw fruit, giving her a substantial diet instead, and both improved greatly.
Regulation of diet is a very important matter, but other things are equally important. A lady with a totally wasted frame told me that she took three hot baths every day ” as hot as possible,” staying in the hot water at least ten minutes, because that was the only way she could get warm. She did not perspire and therefore did not need hot baths at all. I explained to her that the little strength she had was wasted by these hot baths and she gave them up, much to her benefit. Other people take not enough hot baths. Often the substitution of slightly salted water for fresh water proves exceedingly beneficial, particularly to those who feel better at the seaside. Some people suffer from too much sleep and others from insufficient sleep and rest.
Some take too little or no exercise and others take too much exercise. Occasionally one can cure insomnia by changing the meal times, or by telling the sleepless to have something to eat in the middle of the night. They are kept awake by blood vigorously circulating in their heads. As soon as they have eaten something, the surplus blood goes from the head to the something, the surplus blood goes from the head to the stomach to help in the process of digestion and the patient falls asleep.
Occasionally one discovers that a mysterious disease is due to the use of carbolic tooth powder, carbolic or other strong gargles, carbolic smells throughout the house “to kill the germs,” faulty drains, the use of cooking utensils which may be injurious to health, badly constructed gas fires and ordinary fires, which fill the room with noxious emanations, a small leak in a gas pipe under the strangulation neckbands among women, etc. I saw a very stately old lady who suffered from a mysterious disease which caused her to fall frequently, causing numerous fractures. I saw her, a majestic figure, sitting very upright and very imposing in a high wheeled chair.
She told me of the innumerable treatment she had had by physicians, surgeons, osteopaths, etc., without result. She wore round the neck a black velvet band, covered with diamond brooches. It pressed severely on the important nerves and arteries of the neck. “How long have you had your trouble, madam?” “For eight years.” “I admire very much this beautiful and becoming neckband you wear, how long have you worn it?” For eight years”.
A man came to me telling me that his body was covered with huge tumours. The doctors had told him that only surgeons could deal with them and the surgeons had told him that there were too many tumours to operate upon. Upon my enquiry he told me, as do so many people who live faultily: “My diet is the healthiest imaginable.” He lived on white bread, butter, cheese and milk.
He took on an average per day, half a pound go butter, half a pound of cheese and from three to six pints of milk, which, after all, is only a temporary diet even for a calf. I explained to him that he lived on the diet of the calf. that the prodigious quantity of milk taken in the form of milk, butter and cheese contained probably far more lime than his system could make use of and that the surplus lime was excreted into the tissues, forming tumours, exactly as surplus salt is occasionally sent into the tissues where it is kept in solution, causing dropsy.
I think the physician should act as a detective and explore very carefully all the possibilities of disease, the way of living of the patient, his diet, his exercise, rest, sex matters, and so forth. Wise old Hahnemann taught that the most important symptoms are the symptoms of the mind. People will readily tell all about their eating and drinking, exercise, rest and so forth. They will not as readily discuss their sex life, their vices, their shortcomings, their mental symptoms. Drunkards have told me: “I take occasionally a glass of wine.” Syphilitics have assured me that they had never had a sex disease.
I have found that direct questions are injudicious. If one tells a man of a difficult case which proved incurable until the patient one day confessed that he drank, or that he had had an infection, or that he was furiously jealous, or terrified of ghosts and that that belated disclosure produced a cure in a case which otherwise would have been a failure, the patient will often say: And then all is plain sailing. Some people are excessively shy and reserved and modest. A lady whom I treated in vain for rheumatism during six months at last blushingly told me about her bladder trouble, a vital disclosure which pointed to Causticum as the remedy.
Acting as a detective one must look at peoples fingers for the evidence of too many cigarettes, take their breath for the evidence of alcoholism, study the shape of nails, fingers, shape of hands, etc., watch them at their meals and so forth. A doctor friend of mine was taking tea with me at the Club and complained bitterly that he was getting very stout, attributing it to his years. I noticed he out six pieces of sugar into a small teacup while I took one. “How many cups of tea do you take in the afternoon>” “Three or four.” “Do you always out six pieces of sugar into each cup?” “I do”.
In winter a miserably thin man came to me, complaining about emaciation and terrible chilliness. Through my mind went various homoeopathic remedies. His diet was not unreasonable. “What kind of underclothing do you wear?” “None, I wish to harden myself.” My prescription consisted of thick underclothing and no more cold baths, and the man was rapidly cured without homoeopathic remedies. It think Hahnemann would have treated the case in exactly the same way and would not even have suggested treatment by olfaction.
A while ago a heavily-built man, thirty years old, living in Sheffield, came to me complaining about epileptic attacks. His Sheffield doctor had treated him with the usual dopes, bromides and luminal. On his advice he had seen two great London specialists, one of them is one of the Kings doctors. The specialists listened to the man three minutes, charged him three guineas and prescribed likewise bromides and luminal. Obviously the whole profession was unanimous. As the man was steadily going downhill, notwithstanding the united wisdom of doctors and consultants, he came to me.
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.