IT is, of course, quite unbecoming for an author to review a book which he himself has written because a review consists, as a rule, in a critical appreciation of the volume under consideration. The author cannot very well criticize his book unfavourably, and it would, of course, be still more unbecoming if he praised it. However, I think it is permissible if the author of a book explains to those who may be interested why he has written a certain book and what the book contains.
I am the son of an extremely successful physician and surgeon who possessed that rarest of all gifts, a gift which I call the divine gift of healing. It happened to my father not infrequently that a foreigner who had arrived at nearby hotel felt desperately ill, asked the hall porter for the nearest doctor and went to consult my father about whom he knew nothing.
The patient told my father about some severe pain which was tormenting him, and my father listened attentively to his complaints. After a few minutes the patient not infrequently drew himself up and said: “Doctor my pain has gone. I dont think I need you,” and left the house. This happened so frequently to my father that it became something like a joke to him.
My father had an enormous clientele. He saw from fifty to ninety patients every day, working unremittingly from early morning until late at night. He did not know half-holidays. He worked eve on part of Sundays. On Sunday afternoons he collapsed, completely exhausted. He never took a holiday since his honeymoon trip. He lived for his patients, and at last he become ill.
Practically his only illness was his last, and it was a terrible one. He suffered acutely for a long time, and he often regretted the fact that he had never had time for recreation, had never had time for writing down his experiences. So his accumulated experiences, which might have been invaluable to the medical profession, were lost. His sorrow that he did not put his experiences on paper impressed me deeply when I was a boy.
Like so many young men I tried hand at numerous things, and became a successful author and journalist. I took particular interest in foreign affairs, in practical economics, in industry, foreign trade, and especially in the organization of the British Empire. I foretold the Great War ever since 1900, collaborating with the late Joseph Chamberlain, with Lord Roberts, Lord Beresford and other eminent men, but my warnings were in vain.
I not only wished that the Great War should be avoided but I proposed in numerous articles in the great monthlies and quarterlies that for defensive reasons the British Empire should be organized, that Imperial unification should be established on the basis of mutual customs preferences, etc. With Lord Roberts I advocated universal military service on defensive grounds. My hope of preventing the great tragedy of the war was shattered. I abandoned political work, which had proved so disappointing in its results.
After the War I concentrated on practical economics, on the recreation of British agriculture, on the improvement of railways and canals, etc. My health gave way. I went to doctor after doctor, to health resort after health resort, but my search for health proved vain. At last I was sop weak that I could scarcely sign my name, and I had given up hope of regaining my former strength.
In desperation I thought I would try my inexperienced hand at treating myself. While I was so desperately weak I was urged by my doctors to live on strengthening foods. I ate large quantities of meat, took wine and spirits, etc., but the more strengthening food I ate the worse I felt, but the more strengthening food I ate the worse I felt; so I thought I would try an entirely different regime. As my digestion had been completely ruined, I imagined that I had to concentrate on the simplest foods which theoretically should be the most digestible. For several weeks I lived, like a prisoner, on nothing but dry bread and water.
The experiment was unsuccessful. I felt desperately ill. To cut a long story short, I experimented with diets of every kind, reading books on dietetics. I simplified my diet from week to week and and from month to month, and at last I discovered that a vegetarian diet very rich in vitamins suited me best. Gradually I recovered my health, and I was able to achieve physically and mentally things which I had never been able to do in the time of my youth and strength.
I went for thirty mile walks on Sunday, and achieved the most extraordinary literary output. In the past I had laboriously written articles. Often an article took me two or three weeks. Nowadays I can dictate a similar article in twenty minutes, and I dictate books at the rate of ten pages an hour.
The happiest time in ones life is when one regains the health which one had lost. I felt a joy a happiness such as I had never experienced in the past. I felt the urge to communicate my experiences in self treatment to the public, and I wrote some articles and some medical books. They were very successful. During the time of my very long illness I was deeply jaundiced, I had lost a large amount of weight, I looked cancerous and I feared that I was cancerous.
I studied diseases and especially cancer, and came to the conclusion that cancer was preventable. I felt compelled to put down my ideas, and wrote a book, “Cancer: How it is Caused, How it Can be Prevented”, which was favourably introduced by that prince of surgeons, Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane. It was extraordinarily successful. The first edition of two thousand copied was sold out in three days. It had to be reprinted. Then I published a book, “Good Health and Happiness” which once more was highly successful.
I had a large circle of reader. Many of them appealed to me for help. I did not feel competent to treat the sick and advised them to go to the doctors. I often sent people to practitioners whom I thought highly competent, but the results were only too often disappointing.
At last a man came to me and told me that he had consulted three leading specialists in Harley Street, that all three had declared him absolutely incurable, and he refused to be sent by me to a doctor or specialist. He told me verbally: “I shall sit on your doorstep until you are willing to treat me,” and he sat down on my doorstep. The man was desperately ill, deeply jaundiced, and he came accompanied by his young wife who also pleaded for me to treat him. With the greatest reluctance I took him on and to my amazement he became better.
A little while after a lady wrote to me from Swansea that her husband had been seriously ill for some considerable time, He had been sent to the Swansea General Hospital for careful examination by a team of specialists. He was kept at the hospital for four days, was carefully examined under an anaesthetic, and then wife was sent for and was told: “Your husband suffers from inoperable cancer of bowel and bladder and has only a week to live.” The hospital authorities did not wish the man to die on their premises and he was sent home.
His wife rushed to the nearest book shop and asked for books on cancer. It was a book shop of W. H. smith, and the only cancer book they had in stock was my own. She read the book during the night and the next morning wrote to me: “I entreat you on my knees to save my husband. He is all in all to me,” Of course I thought it quite impossible that I, a layman, should be able to cure him. However, I had not the heartlessness to reply unfavourably, so I sent to Mrs. G.D. a diet sheet, and the incurable patient became better and eventually completely well.
He became a most enthusiastic admirer and sent me between forty and fifty patients. Hesitatingly I took on case after case and my methods proved extraordinarily successful. I put all my patients on a vegetarian diet extremely rich in vitamins. Every patient had to eat quantities of broad bran from the corn chandler, the virtues of which ?I had seen in the treatment of horses and cattle.
I regulated the bowel, believing with Sir, Arbuthnot Lane that chronic constipation leads to self-poisoning and then I began to study the science and art of homoeopathy. I discovered that by combining dietetics and homoeopathy one can achieve miracles. My clientele grew from year to year, and now I require four highly efficient secretaries to deal with my gigantic clientele.
While engaged in curative work I often remembered the deep regret of my stricken father that he could not bequeath his experiences to future generations. I often urged eminent doctors and surgeons of my acquaintance to put down their practical experiences, but for some reason or other I was unsuccessful in my plea. At last I though that it might be worth while that I, though a layman, should explain in plain English how one can cure apparently incurable disease and disorders.
Thus I wrote my book: “New Lives for Old. How to Cure the Incurable.” I that book I described a considerable number of my cures in some details, but perhaps the details I gave were not sufficient to enable doctors and laymen to adapt my methods. I therefore wrote another book entitled, “My Testament of Healing,” in which I have endeavoured to explain my methods in the fullest detail so as to enable both doctor and laymen to cure cases of every kind which usually are considered intractable or incurable.
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.