HOW TO CURE INFLUENZA


The homeopath is in a vastly superior position. He treats every disease, including, of course, influenza, according to the symptoms observed in the patient, without enquiring overmuch into the official designation of the complaint. On improvement, doses should be given less frequently.


  ONCE more influenza stalks the land. During the last ten years about 200,000 people died in the United Kingdom from influenza and its consequences, while in 1918 the disease slew about 150,000. Orthodox medicine is helpless when faced with it. Doctors give quinine, aspirin, high diet, low diet, nothing but oranges, etc. When the modern doctor is not furnished by the laboratory with a “specific” serum or vaccine, he is as helpless as a child.

The homoeopath is in a vastly superior position. He treats every disease, including, of course, influenza, according to the symptoms observed in the patient, without enquiring overmuch into the official designation of the complaint. Effective treatment without diagnosis is infinitely superior to the most scientific diagnosis without adequate treatment.

Influenza may slight or severe, deadly or very deadly. No one can foretell its course at the onset. Therefore it is wise to take the matter seriously. At the slightest indication of trouble, whether it is or is not serious, the possibility of influenza should be considered. The disease may begin with running eyes and nose, cough, a slight temperature, depression, stomach upset, etc.

Under these circumstances, the best course, when influenza is about, consists in treating every doubtful deviation from normality as influenza, whether there is heart or shivering, fever or no fever, troubles in throat or chest or anywhere else. Of course, the skilled homoeopath draws on the whole rich store of our remedies in every individual case, matching disease symptoms with the indicated drug which has produced the same symptoms with the indicated drug which has produced the same symptoms in provers.

My readers cannot keep in stock all the remedies which may be required, and therefore I would give a few for the principal once. However, before describing the various medicines, I would remind my readers that a most excellent medicine which should be applied at one is ordinary plain common sense. Those who feel out of sorts in influenza time should keep themselves thoroughly warm, avoid exposure, draughts, constipation, indigestion, and take an abundance of liquid, such as extremely weak China tea, lemon water, orange juice, barley water, etc., to wash themselves out.

Very frequently an attack which begins with chill or shivering can settled by common sense alone. A very hot bath, possibly strengthened with salt, soda or mustard, a hot drink, and a good sweat in bed which can be promoted by an abundance of blankets or by a newspaper between the blankets if too many would be too heavy, will frequently put matter right without medication.

By a very hot bath outside and a hot drink inside we raise the body temperature, produce an artificial fever, and kill the disease organisms in Natures way. The principal influenza remedies are:-.

ACONITUM NAPELLUS 3x. this remedy should be given in the first place. It normalizes temperature and acts like quinine without the objectionable features possessed by quinine. It is indicated if there is shivering, chilliness, fever, anxiety, restlessness, far of death.

EUPATORIUM PERFOLIATUM 3x is a most excellent remedy for that from of influenza which is characterized by intolerable pain in the bones of limbs, back, skull, etc.

BAPTISIA TINCTORIA 3x is indicated in gastric influenza, in attacks during which the patient complains about a very foul tongue, foul taste in the mouth, nausea, evil breath, foul smelling motions and urine, foul perspiration.

GELSEMIUM 3x is excellent in all those forms of influenza where there is shivering, trembling, and where the nervous system is affected and upset.

At the first sign of influenza give doses of Aconite preferably dissolved in very hot water, every hour or two if the trouble is slight, but every half-hour, ten minutes or five minutes if the trouble is very severe and acute. On improvement, doses should be given less frequently.

If the principal complaint is bone pain, then Aconite should be followed by Eupatorium, given more or less frequently, or, if the case is urgent, Aconite and Eupatorium may be given alternatively, preferably dissolved in hot, but not boiling, water. If the leading symptom is shivering, trembling, nerve affection, then Aconite and Gelsemium are indicated and should be given in the same way, and the combination of Aconite and Baptisia will be helpful if there is gastric influenza.

A patient who has recovered from an attack of influenza, particularly from a severe attack, should, after recovery, keep indoors for at least days. A deceptive sense of well-being often induces the patient to go out into the open, and he may come back with death in his chest. My gardener, a magnificent man, the fifties, had chest. My gardener, a magnificent man, in the fifties, had got over an influenza attack during which he had kept indoors.

It was Saturday when he felt normal. He put on hat and coat and did the family shopping. He came back after half an hour. Next day pneumonia developed and in a few days he was dead. I dare say Homoeopathy could have saved him. Unfortunately he sent for his panel doctor. I hope my readers will err on the side of caution.

J. Ellis Barker
James Ellis Barker 1870 – 1948 was a Jewish German lay homeopath, born in Cologne in Germany. He settled in Britain to become the editor of The Homeopathic World in 1931 (which he later renamed as Heal Thyself) for sixteen years, and he wrote a great deal about homeopathy during this time.

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.