HOW TO CURE THE SICK


The prescriber should not only ask what is eaten and drunk. He should ascertain the way in which the food is cooked. Overlong cooking of vegetables and stews destroys the vitamins. Simmering for countless hours will make the food more palatable, but will ruin it. The addition of soda or bicarbonate of soda to the water in which vegetables are cooked destroys the vitamins.


THE HANDLING OF PATIENTS.

IF a student of medicine has learned a great deal in the orthodox medical schools or by study and self tuition, then he will have to handle patients. The efficiency and ability of the doctor are shown in the way he manages the sick and ailing who come to him. One can imagine a doctor of the greatest competence who nevertheless fails with his patients because he has not the right way with them. I knew two very eminent consultants. One was a specialist in disease of the digestive tract and the other was a mere specialist.

They were brimful of knowledge and they were highly respected by all medical men who knew them. They were well known for their scientific publications, but they had the misfortune of upsetting many of the patients whom they wished to treat. It happened to both these men that sick person shot up in bed, and asked with horrified gaze : “Who is that man ?” “That is Dr. So-and-so. the great specialist.” “Good gracious” exclaimed the patient, “take him away at once, I cannot bear the look of him.

Some were horrified at the first sight of these two men, others were greatly upset on closer acquaintance. The one man who was a specialist in diseases of the digestive tract had received so many rebuffs and humiliations that he was afraid to look people in the eyes. He gave the impression of a thief who had been caught in the act, or he between his legs.

The other man, the nerve specialist, had very powerful magnifying glasses on his nose through which he peered at his patients. Many of the nerve patients, seeing man peer at them with eyes twice their natural size, were upset, but they were still more upset when the specialist asked abrupt questions in the tones which were much disliked and resented. Both eminent men had to give up. Both had to start another occupation.

There are kindly insinuating doctors, there are abrupt, hectoring doctors who order, there are jocular doctors, there are doctors who look like undertakes. Many doctors have adopted a certain pose which they think suits them, but the patients look through the mask which they have adopted, and they have the feeling that they do not deal with a human being but with an actor who plays a part it indifferently.

The first thing which a doctor or lay healer should do is that he should be natural. His manners may not be perfect, he may lack many attractive qualification, but the genuineness of the man or woman will appeal to the patient, especially if the prescriber seems warm-hearted, sympathetic, kindly and understanding. The man of dry science does not appeal to anyone, not even to scientists. A sick scientist dose not want to have science he wants sympathy and understanding. He does not want a lecture on morbid anatomy, physiology, or pathology, he wants helpful advice.

An attractive waiting room and reception room are most important for everyone who wishes to succeed in the art of healing. If the rooms dedicated to the patient are gloomy, gaudy, in disorder, depressing, the patients gets disheartened. If, on the other hand, the rooms look cheerful and there is a happy atmosphere about the consulting room, it will encourage the patient immediately. Every patient should be received like a friend, whether he is a duke or a dust man, and should be made cordially welcome.

If a doctor or lay prescriber uses scientific instruments, they should, in my opinion, be kept out of sight. Most patients go to the doctor, not in order to have science forced down their throats, but to be given hope, confidence and relief. Hope is the finest tonic. Even if a case is absolutely incurable, one should not be cruel enough to allow the poor devil knows that he has cancer, that he has been given only a few weeks to live, one must cheerfully explain to him that miracles happen every day, and must point out to the patient all the facts which are in favour of his recovery.

He may have been operated upon, have been given radium, and at last may have been told that nothing further could be done, and to his inquiry the reply may have been given that he has so many or so few weeks to live. The prescriber can immediately retort : “It is very foolish to allows oneself to be depressed by a diagnosis which possibly is mistaken. Miracles happen every day. Many patients who were pronounced incurable by the highest authorities have become cured. I, personally, have seen numerous cases of that kind.

Besides, you Sir, have led a blameless life, have lived a sensible diet, come from good stock and have good vitality and many points in your favour, although you have lost a good deal of weight and look jaundiced. Very likely an improvement if the diet and better weather will do more for you than all the scientific treatments you have received so far.

Besides, Homoeopathy has never been tried on you, and Homoeopathy has to its credit a very large number of cancer cures in cases declared absolutely incurable by the highest orthodox authorities. Your previous advisers have neglected the factor of diet, the human factor, the question of inheritance of causation, etc. We shall start now on a totally different line, and I should not wonder if you would respond well to the new treatment”.

A few words of this kind will give unspeakable happiness to the patient, and in nine cases out of ten he will feel vastly better at the end of the interview than at the time when he entered the consulting room. Of course, it is not sufficient to be kindly, natural, and to encourage the patient. He should be carefully examined.

The prescriber should begin by inquiring into the health of the patients family. He should ask what the parents of grandparents died of, how many children they had, whether they are alive and healthy or what diseases they have suffered from, and then he should make up his mind if there is in the family a tuberculous strain, a nerve strain, a rheumatic strain, or whatever there may be.

Consequently, the individual asking for advice should be treated at once for the inherited tendency which may possibly be an important factor in the causation of the complaint.

Whatever the disease of disorder may be, a man or woman with a tuberculous tendency should be treated as if he or she had tuberculosis. It is quite unnecessary to examine the lungs, because only gross lesions can be discovered in the ordinary examination. Besides, enquiry will establish whether the patient is likely to suffer from tuberculosis. The tuberculous are apt to have a raised temperature towards evening. to have night sweats, etc. Whether there is cough, sputum and other indications of active tuberculosis seems to me a secondary matter.

If a patient suffering from cancer comes from a family in which there has been much tuberculosis, he should not only be treated for cancer but should be treated for tuberculosis as well, because somehow tuberculosis seems to be allied to cancer, and cancer is apt to develop on a tuberculous foundation. It can of no harm if a cancer patient is given a few doses of Tuberculinum or Bacillinum in a high potency once a week or so.

When the health history of the patient and his medical inheritance have been ascertained and every important factor should be put on paper by the prescriber, then the patient should be cross-examined very carefully. It the patient says : “I am racked with a cough”, the prescriber should immediately ask : “What kind of a cough is it ? A dry or moist cough ? Is the sputum raised easily or only with difficulty ? Is it loose, gluey, lumpy, stringy ? What is its colour ? What taste and smell is there ? and so forth. By looking up his repertory the prescriber will immediately be able to find suffers.

Every statement of the prescriber should be explored in every direction. If he complains about indigestion he must be asked ” “What form dose the indigestion take. Have you slight pain, violent pain, pain on a small surface such as a shilling or on a large surface ? Does it come on before, during or after meals ? What makes it better and what makes it worse ?” Pain in the stomach which is relieved by eating suggests Anacardium and a few other remedies.

The Anacardium patient has violent pain or great discomfort, and improvement sets in as soon as he eats or drinks something. In other cases pain in the stomach or abdomen is relieved by the voiding of gas.

If th patient complains about his heart, the prescriber should immediately remember that the so-called heart trouble may really be trouble in the lungs, or the heart may be embarrassed by the pressure of gas from an inflated stomach, by the pressure of an overloaded stomach, or both. In other words he must try to sift out every statement of the patient and get all the essential facts by careful enquiry.

Many people with heart disease have no idea that they have heart disease. They frequently say : “I am troubled with my breath,” or “I am troubled with my lungs.” In each individual case the prescriber must decide how much he can safely tell the patient. Many a patient has been terrified so greatly by the doctors and specialists that he has given up hop. Some of them have committed suicide. Some doctors think it good policy to frighten the patient in order to be sure that he will do what the doctor wishes him to do.

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.