SINCE the beginning of Homoeopathy Arsenic has been used a remedy for cancer and occasionally with brilliant results. It has been employed as a rule in the low and medium potencies. I personally have had the most satisfactory results with ARsenic in the 200th potency, and I think I ought to describe two my cases for the benefit of the medical readers of this journal.
Eight or ten months ago a “Mrs. L.”, a very old patient of mine, told me that her mother had been operated upon for cancer of the breast, an extensive operation having been made, and was now experiencing in the cancer scars the most terrible pain of a contracting kind which drove her almost mad. Mrs. L.s mother was a stout woman with an enormous and ferocious appetite. To the dismay of her wise daughter she took masses of meat with the maximum of condiments, alcohol, and all the other heating and irritating foods, and I had warned the daughter years ago that if her mother would not vary her diet she might become cancerous.
The event which I had foretold had happened and the poor woman was sent by her orthodox doctor to the orthodox hospital and had her breast and pectoral muscles amputated, her glands taken out, etc. but she was not told anything about the diet which was undoubtedly the cause of her trouble. Her wise daughter was opposed to the operation but the mischief had been done.
When this terrible pain of the screwing contracting character occurred I concluded that Cactus grandiflorus might be a suitable remedy and I sent her some of this, I believe in the 30th potency, and the result was very favourable. Then I heard from her daughter over the telephone that she was terribly restless and irritable and that she was suffering from severe pain of a burning character, relieved by not applications. ARsenicum was clearly indicated and I resolved to try Arsenicum in the 200th potency prepared by Epps Thatcher & Co. I sent her a small supply in sugar pilules without any directions except that she was to take a dose of three when absolutely necessary.
The result of this treatment has been miraculous, the pain has completely disappeared, the woman has put on a prodigious quantity of weight, she eats more than ever before, she refuses to give up fish, meat, fowl and spices in maximum quantities, but in any case she has wonderfully improved under my treatment. Instead of looking deeply jaundiced she has a brilliant colour, she considers herself cured, and for all I know she may be cured. I have never seen the woman and may never see her.
Two months ago I was visited by a “Miss R”, employed by one of the greatest publishing firms, who told me a pitiful tale about her mother. A year ago she had bee ” a complete success”. Surgeons are apt to claim as a complete success all those operations under which the patient does not die on the operating table. For several months she had been losing weight at a terrible rate, she was deeply jaundiced, and she had a fearful pain in the back, most likely cancer, but she was told by her doctor and her children that it was only arthritis. Miss R., in telling me about her mother, broke down completely and wept. The mother had obviously only a few days to live.
Without a moments hesitation I gave Miss R. three Ignatia 3x pilules, an excellent remedy for depression, and she brightened up promptly although she did not know what the pilules had been intended for. Then she told me more about her mother. The poor woman was deeply jaundiced, had terribly foul mouth, was strengthless, lying in bed like a corpse, and was experiencing the most fearful pain notwithstanding the daily administration of Morphia. I took my courage in both hands and told the young lady that the doctors medicines must be stopped immediately. No more Morphia or anything else from the doctor.
To clear out her system from the numerous drugs she had received I gave her Sulphur 6x night and morning and Nux vomica and Carbo vegetabilis before meals. The prescription of Nux vomica was particularly indicated because the lady was a very imperious temperament, dark eyed, dark haired, dark skinned, found of meat spices, etc. I put her on a purely vegetarian diet and then prescribed a dose of Carcinosin 200th potency to be taken every Saturday. Of course I had the very gravest doubt that anything could be done because the poor lady seemed to be in the process of dissolution.
To my amazement I heard after a few days that the old lady was distinctly better and she had got out of bed for half an hour. Then her excursions from bed became more prolonged. She dressed herself and came down for half a day, and now her daughter tells me that her mother is coming to see me at my West End rooms at an early date. This is another case where I have never seen the patient.
If a case is carefully taken and the right symptoms are ascertained the homoeopath can treat with wonderful success patients whom he cannot see for some reason or other. Of course it remains to be seen whether Mrs. R will get completely well or not. At any rate I have given her and her family the greatest happiness and comfort while before my arrival there was nothing but suffering with gloom and unhappiness.
The doctor who prescribed morphia and other drugs still calls frequently and cannot understand how it is that Mrs. R. has improved so wonderfully. So he ascribes the event to his benumbing medicines. He discovered that the patient had adopted a lacto vegetarian diet and he said with great determination a to the old lady: “You cannot get health out of milky pap, vegetables and fruit with a few eggs or cheese thrown in, you must have plenty of meat and fish”, which are undoubtedly cancer producing and cancer aggravating.
I have other cancer cases which have been treated very successfully with Arsenicum 200th potency, but I do not wish to weary the reader. I obtain the Arsenic from Epps Thatcher & Co. and as it has done me wonderful services I think that those of my readers who wish to try this remedy should get it from this firm. It may be that the other homoeopathic firms provide an equally effective drug but I have no experience except of Epps Thatchers ARsenicum 200th potency which has done priceless services to me.
We consider tuberculosis a nutritional disease in the sense that the germs of tuberculosis, which are contained in the body of practically every adult inhabitant of a city, are not allowed to spread and to overwhelm the organism so long as this is in a good state of nutrition. Dr. C. FREIHERR VON PIRQUET, An Outline of the Pirquet System of Nutrition.
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.