ON January 5th, 1939 I was visited by Miss M., who wished to consult me about chronic boils from which she had been suffering for six months, and for which she had been treated in vain. She suffered a great deal of pain, had become very weak, and at last she had been told her trouble was incurable. In my directions I summarized her case as follows:.
“You have come to me complaining about numerous abscesses and boils extremely painful. In June, 1938, you had an extremely painful stye or boil on the left lower eyelid. In November, 1938, extremely painful boils came in the right ear, then in the left ear and under the left arm. You have been told by the doctor that there is no further treatment for this condition.
There seems to be a toxic factor about you. You had abscesses at the root of the front teeth when sixteen, and the teeth had to be taken out. You had much colitis, treated with a vaccine. You also had septic pneumonia after a severe attack of influenza, and nearly died. There is obviously a very septic condition within you because every cut gets septic, notwithstanding the use of antiseptics.
“You are well formed and well proportioned, very pleasant to look upon, neither too stout nor too thin, but you are somewhat flabby and you are extremely anaemic, and have always been so, and in consequence your heart has been weakened. It has a hard beat and is too fast. You are chilly, have icy feet, even in summer, but they do not feel clammy. You have twice been vaccinated. The first vaccination as a baby had a fearful effect shown by huge scars on the leg. The second vaccination did not take.
I attribute your condition to vaccinial poisoning. You sleep soundly, get periods every twenty-four days, they last four to five days, needing ten diapers. There is considerable pain relieved by doubling up. You take boiling hot tea and coffee, to your extreme danger, feel a sinking at eleven in the morning, find it difficult to hold yourself upright are restless, get easily fagged, prefer heat to cold”.
Orthodox doctors and specialists who have such a case of boils think it their duty to examine the boils, inspecting them, as a rule, with a strong magnifying glass which impresses the patient. Miss M. had cotton wool in her ear, but I did not ask her to take it out to look at the boils. The interrogation made it obvious to me that there was some septicity about her, and that the boils needed treatment not with poulticing, which acts only on the outside and not on the underlying blood condition, nor with injections which are risky and only too frequently disappointing or disastrous.
The pain of the boils was relieved by heat, and the lady craved heat, was restless. These characteristics called for the use of Arsenic. One of the best homoeopathic medicines for boils in general is Hepar sulphuris, so Hepar sulphuris was also indicated. The most dangerous boil of all is that produced by an infection with anthrax. Such an infection produces a pustule which is very frequently called a malignant pustule. It is, indeed, extremely malignant. Anthrax infection is liable to kill the patient with extraordinary rapidity.
Strict homoeopaths usually employ only one medicine at a time. I have found the orthodox homoeopathic procedure unsatisfactory. It seemed to me that the three remedies mentioned were indicated. I therefore gave the lady Anthracinum 6, Hepar sulphuris 3x, and Arsenic 3, and told her to take dose in constant alternation every half- hour, and on improvement, every hour.
I wished to be quite certain that the lady should improve immediately. There was undoubtedly a powerful toxic factor within her system, hence every cut turned septic, notwithstanding the use of antiseptics. In other words, every cut produced pus. To combat the underlying and fundamental septicity and to clear her system of pus, I resolved upon giving her Pyrogen. Pyrogen is made from putrid meat. Putrid meat, of course, is equivalent to pus. In addition to the three remedies mentioned she was to take a dose of Pyrogen 30 first and last thing.
In view of the fact that she had been vaccinated twice and that the first vaccination had upset her badly, there was the possibility that the toxic condition was due to vaccinial poisoning. As an antidote to vaccinosis I gave her Thuja 200, a dose to be taken last thing every Monday. As she was frequently attacked by influenza I gave her a dose of Influenzinum 200 to be taken every Thursday night, and she was to take a dose of Anthracinum 200 last thing every Saturday.
Septicity of the body is favoured by the consumption of flesh, fish and fowl, which produce putrefaction, so she was to live on a strict vegetarian diet, her bowels were to be moved with the help of large quantities of bran, the most strengthening food which I know, and which, incidentally is very rich in iron and is valuable for the anaemic.
The lady had come to me complaining of violent earache. Earache is one of the worst pains known. I was curious and anxious to see her first report. On January 12th, she sent me the first weekly report. She wrote:.
“You asked me to report after a week. I have had no more return of earache, and the boils are clearing up nicely. I am so grateful to you for this. It seems wonderful. I found the change of diet a bit difficult at first, and had some indigestion and slight constipation. Now I am getting more used to it. On Saturday night I took a dose of Anthracinum 200 which made me feel very odd, drowsy and yet tingling all over. I am beginning to feel stronger”.
That was a most satisfactory beginning. I gave her the same medicines as before, but as she was extremely anaemic I added China mother tincture tablets to be taken after meals. On January 15th, she wrote to me;.
” I have no more boils in my ears”.
On January 20th, Miss M. visited me. She was a totally different woman. I wrote to her on that day: ” I was extremely delighted with your visit. You came to me on January 5th with extremely painful boils in the left ear which the doctors had declared incurable after many months. You look a totally different woman. You are less anaemic. Boils in the ears have disappeared and the pain disappeared after twenty-four hours, but you are still somewhat anaemic and weak. You complain of frontal headaches and fullness at the back of he nose”.
She had not complained about this trouble before. I concluded that there were septic developments in the antrums and sinuses, the cavities which stand in connection with the nose, and it was possible that her septicity was due to septic developments within those cavities.
As the boils had disappeared in record time I thought it quite safe to leave off the treatment for boils and to start on the cavities. I gave her treatment for these, considering the boil disorder which had been treated in vain for six months, completely cured. As a matter of fact this disorder has apparently disappeared. She had never complained since about a recurrence.
Furunculosis, the unending appearance of painful boils, is one of the most intractable disorders known. It is the despair of many doctors and specialists. A few homoeopathic doses combined with an eliminating and strengthening diet settled the trouble with dramatic rapidity within a few days.
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.