ONE meets frequently cases which been treated for years with the greater incompetence by doctors and surgeons. One finds cancer cases where year after year operation follows operation and none of the surgeons employed ever think for a moment that the trouble is due to some condition of the blood which needs treatment.
One finds cases of skin disease where only outward treatment has been given for twenty years by so-called specialists, although the trouble obviously comes from the blood and requires inward treatment, not outward applications. One finds cases of boils and carbuncles which have become chronic, and which are treated year after year with incision and outward application by so-called specialists, who are obviously incompetent.
An illustration of orthodox incompetence will be given by the following letter which I have just received from New Zealand, regarding a Mr. A.W. This case should serve as a warning to those readers of mine who may be troubled with a chronic disease which needs internal treatment, and which, unfortunately, is treated with incompetence by surgeons who have not the slightest notion of how to treat the diseases and disorders of their patients.
“DEAR SIR, Having been recommended to you you some friends, I called at your place two weeks ago in order to consult you regarding treatment for myself. Unfortunately, you were absent, and as I was forced to leave Wellington two days later, I was unable to call on you again.
“I had a conversation with Mrs. B., and she said personal interviews was not absolutely necessary so long as I gave you a full description of the symptoms, etc., of my complaint. I offer my apologies for any irrelevant details I may give, but you will understand that the fullness of my description is only due to my eagerness to describe fully the symptoms.
“I am thirty-five years of age, short of stature, with a tendency towards obesity. Occupation, carpenter on the New Zealand Railway, chiefly in connection with bridge, which is rather heavy work. In 1914, when just over thirteen years of age, I received a knock through a stone on the left and one month later, after a week in bed with a severe ache in that region, I entered hospital with what the doctors term Osteomyelitis.
“It was found necessary to remove a large part of the tibia in order to excavate the inflamed marrow and pus, and i had to remain in hospital for thirteen months. During that time the disease also attacked the left foot and elbow, and these parts also had to be opened. This condition has persisted right up to the present day at varying intervals during more than twenty years,m and the disease has attacked many parts of the body-the left hip joint several times, right arm and cheek and down the ribs of the right-hand side.
For the most part it has kept to the left side of the body, and nearly always reverts to the left tibia, this area having been opened on round about twenty occasions in all. Both the elbow and left hip joints have also been opened several times and the latter is at present the seat of the trouble. I entered the Christchurch Public Hospital in August 1931, because of a bad hip, and remained there until August 1935, in the meantime having several operations performed on the hip-joint both in the front and around the buttock. During this period I also had to have some decayed bone removed from the left tibia just below the knee.
“Since I felt hospital i have had to use crutches with a high boot (or sole) on the good side in order to keep the affected joint off the ground. During the period 1931-5 I had a discharging wound in some part of the hip, and since leaving the hospital it has been discharging pus either from the hospital it has been discharging pus either from the left buttock or the lower left region of the abdomen, where it is now coming from a small wounds.
“I enclose a copy of the last operation and X-ray reports which may help you to understand the trouble.
“The symptoms of the complaint do not vary greatly, only that the pain is much more severe when decayed bone is found in the affected area.
“The first indication of an attack is a slight soreness and stiffening of the area surrounding, both of which gradually increase until the pain becomes so severe that I find it necessary to place myself in the hands of a surgeon. This condition is accompanied by rising temperature, but the latter, together with the pain, etc., immediately begin to disappear as soon as the affected area has been opened and the pus or decayed bone removed. When the pain is severe I generally lose any desire for food, but recover the appetite shortly after an operation.
I am in a very good condition generally, at present, though somewhat nervous and self-conscious. I am not quite sure of the number of operations I have had, but a conservative estimate would be somewhere between forty and fifty. On each of these occasions either chloroform, ether, or a combination of both was used, and I have not taken into consideration many minor operations of a few minutes duration under gas.
“I cannot recollect any further information which may assist you, but if your require anything more in detail, please notify me and I shall endeavour to do my best.”.
“Last Operation Report: One kidney full of thick yellow pus evacuated. Cavity extends over brim of pelvis apparently. Incision made, pus spurted out.
“Last X-ray Report: Pelvis and Hip-joint. There is partial destruction of the head of the femur, and practically no definition of the joint. A cavity is shown in the upper part of the ischial bone in the region of the lower border of the acetabulum. No sequestrum is indicated.
“I omitted to mention that I had an operation on the left buttock about last May, and the above reports were made on that occasion. There is not sign of movement of the hip-joint.”.
The poor fellow underwent scores of large operations and countless smaller ones in the course of 23 years, and the surgeons will continue operating year by year until he is dead, unless he should place himself under a competent homoeopath. EDITOR , “HEAL THYSELF>”.
No men despise physic so much as physicians, because no men so thoroughly understand how little it can perform; they have been tinkering the human constitution four thousand years, in order to cure about as many disorders; it is true that each disorder has a thousand prescriptions, but no a single remedy, Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832).
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.