MRS. McD. brought to me, on May 19th, 1939, her son aged fourteen, who had been suffering from asthma since he was nine months old. The parents were normal and they had three children. The other two were perfectly healthy. The asthmatic boy had been under treatment for more than thirteen years, but doctors and specialists had completely failed in their best endeavours.
He had been given numerous treatments, he had been injected with pituitrin. Pituitrin is the extract from the pituitary gland. As all treatments, both scientific and unscientific, on the part of the medical profession had failed, the parents took the advice of a friend and brought the boy to me.
He was tall and well made but extremely pale. I discovered that attacks were apt to come on after exercise, such as running. I did not know what tests the scientists had made and I did not enquire. I waned to find out what was the holding capacity of his chest, and asked him to do a little deep breathing. His chest was rather narrow and chest expansion on breathing in was totally insufficient. It was perfectly clear to me that his blood was not sufficient aerated or oxidized, and that the trouble could be cured only by teaching him to breathe more deeply.
People with inadequate and poorly acting chests cannot do much if they are told to do deep breathing. What is necessary is that someone assists them at breathing exercises and teaches them to empty and refill their lungs. This can be done if someone stands behind the patient, puts his arms round the chest, knitting his fingers together. When the patient has taken as deep a breath as he can he should then breathe out, the assistant squeezing the chest with a trembling motion and ensuring that the chest is completely emptied of air.
When that has been done the patient can breathe a little more deeply. After a few assisted deep breaths the chest action becomes more normal and the patient begins to breathe more deeply. After five minutes young McD. could breathe much more deeply than he had done for weeks. The boy steadily improved because his mother and father helped him with deep breathing in the way I had shown them.
Hitherto slight over-exertion had brought about a violent asthmatic attack. One day young McD. took part with the other body in a field drill. The boys marched out with rifles and had to do a good deal of running. Probably the youngster greatly over-strained himself. Anyway his strength gave way, he felt very ill and came home in a fever, but to the amazement of his parents there was no asthmatic attack.
Apparently the asthmatic attacks which had been in evidence for almost fourteen years were cured in a month by assisted deep breathing, but of course other treatments were given at the same time. I gave the boy the indicated homoeopathic remedies and a suitable diet. In a months time he had not only lost his asthma but had become far more sturdy and far more manly, he had lost his anaemia and had made vast progress in every direction.
ANOTHER CASE OF ASTHMA.
A wealthy manufacturer, in the sixties, living in the Midlands, began to experience slight breathing difficulty which became worse, and at last it developed into severe asthma. His local doctor treated him in the best way he knew, but he became worse, and at last was unable to walk upstairs, and life was a constant struggle for breath.
He received all the best and what is called the most scientific treatments which frequently merely means the most elaborate, most artificial and most expensive treatments, but nothing was of avail; he became worse and worse, lost a great deal of weight, and at last his doctor frankly admitted that he was at the end of his knowledge,and advised him to see the best London specialist.
He came t London, saw the best man he could find, was placed in a Nursing Home and was watched night and day and innumerable tests were made. The tests perhaps did great credit tom the scientific investigators, who made them, but the asthma remained as bad as ever, and at last Mr. B. got into his Rolls-Royce and went back to his native town. He was profoundly disheartened by his stay in London and had given up hope.
His wife had been my patient for a long time, and she prevailed upon her husband to call me in. His doctor met me and told me in his opinion nothing could be done for his patient because he suffered not merely from asthma but also from tuberculosis, heart disease, arterial sclerosis and various other ailments.
I enquired: ” Have you ever tried assisted deep breathing on him ? ” The doctor told me he had never heard of such a thing and it had never been tried on his patient. The London specialist also had given no chest treatment, but had employed the usual medicines and injections which had proved completely useless.
Without enquiring into scientific details of the case I put my arms round Mr. Bs chest and asked him to breath in and out, and assisted him in emptying his lungs. Most asthmatics find it very difficult, if not impossible, to empty their chest. They can breathe in but cannot breathe out.
After a few minutes Mr. B. began to breathe more deeply, and he felt greatly relieved after ten minutes of assisted deep breathing. His wife quickly enquired: ” How often ought my husband to do deep breathing? Two or three times a day ?” I replied: ” Twenty or thirty times a day and as often at night as possible to train his chest to breathe deeply and naturally.”.
his wife and nurses immediately set to work, and very promptly Mr. B. felt vastly better. Unfortunately he was not willing to go on. He seemed to hanker after the futile treatments with powerful medicines, injections, etc., and then I suggested to him that he should get an iron lung which would teach him to do deep breathing, but he refused to fall in with my suggestion.
There are obstinate patients who refuse to be saved by commonsense methods, and unfortunately he was one of that class. He was determined to have a heating diet which caused an inflammatory condition within the chest, and his doctor unfortunately did not oppose him.
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.