THE ANIMALS PAGES


THE ANIMALS PAGES. Upon my asking her whether the dog tried to get near the fire or away from the fire, she told me that she did not know. I therefore lit a gas fire, made her sit down close to it and call the dog, but the dog would not come. So I took hold of the little fellow and put him on her lap and bade her caress him. However, the dog jumped down and went to the window.


We ought to be fair to our dumb friends and helpers. Hints on their treatment will be a standing feature of “THE HOMOEOPATHIC WORLD”.

HOW A VIPER-BITTEN DOG WAS SAVED

By DR. B.

OVER thirty years ago, when I was in Switzerland on a holiday, I made the acquaintance of a charming Dutchman. One day he said to me: “Doctor, would you mind looking at my sister-in-laws dog?” “At a dog?” said I. “Yes, I know,” he replied. “But this is a very special dog, prize winner, and a great favourite with the lady and it has been bitten by a viper and looks as if it would die.”.

“Very well, I will come and see it.”

When I reached the pension, or hotel, I forget which it was, I found a charming little smooth-coated fox terrier lady dog lying on her right side with black blood oozing from her mouth. The left front leg and shoulder were swollen and black in colour. The poor little thing was practically unconscious, a pitiful sight.

I thought the animal would die, but I said that I would try a remedy. I gave it Lachesis 30 in repeated doses and to my great delight Foxy recovered.

With more knowledge, I think Crotalus would have been even more homoeopathic to the case, but anyway the dog got well when no orthodox veterinary surgeon could have done anything to save its life.

Lachesis is the poison of the South American Surukuku snake and Crotalus is the poison of the Rattlesnake. Both cause the symptoms shown by the little dog and therefore cure the symptoms if given in very small doses. The skilled homoeopath can cure countless disorders and diseases which are quite incurable to the orthodox physician.

SCIATICA IN A HORSE.

IT must have been in 1897 that the following incident took place. I was practising in the wilds of Southern France, in a very hilly country, since made known by R. L. Stevensons Through the Cevennes with a Donkey.

One day I was riding home on a little Irish mare, and as I approached my village I saw a man riding quickly down a side- hill-road so as to meet me a few hundred yards further on. When I reached him, he asked me to go as soon as possible to his wife, who had been taken suddenly very ill. I told him that I would have to go home and get some drugs, but would not be long.

Arrived home, I gave my horse some oats, and when she had finished, we went at a quick pace to the mans village, or hamlet, about five miles away. He was waiting for me in the farmyard, so I handed him the reins and hurried into the house. I usually looked after my little mare myself but the case was urgent, and I counted on the man taking care of her.

The woman did all right, but when I went to the stable to fetch my horse, I found her standing on three legs, the near hind one being off the ground. The floor of the miserable stable being covered with big loose stones the size of ones head, and worse than that, exactly opposite the flanks of the horse was another door, and neither of them shut properly. The man had neither rubbed her down, and she was dripping wet, nor had he covered her with a rug.

Well, I could not ride such a lame horse, so putting the bridle over my arm, I started off on my five mile walk home. The peasants of course all knew me well, as I was the only doctor for miles round, and as I walked along, first one then another would call me from the hillside, and ask me what was wrong, and if I had had a toss.

At last I noticed that before I stopped to talk, the limp had ceased, and the noise of the hoofbeats was rhythmical, but after five minutes rest, the moment we started, one heard the irregular rhythm of the hoofbeats once more.

At the entry of the village was the smithy, the smith acting as local vet. Naturally he also asked me why I was on foot, and when I had recounted to him the tale, he advised me to send the groom down with the mare to him, when he would apply the actual cautery to the leg, then the groom would have to stand her in the river for a couple of hours. I replied that I would cure her with my little pills without troubling him. That was greeted with laughter, as, of course, he had no faith in them, nor had I in his terrible remedy.

To any homoeopath the remedy is obvious. The little mare had Rhus tox. 12 given in globule form, in a piece of bread, three times a day, and in three days I was on her back again. She was quite well.

Some months later, when in London, I called on a homoeopathic yet. I knew and told him the story. He said that she had had an attack of acute sciatica, and complimented me on the rapid cure.

Now I had no idea what was the matter with my horse. I imagined that she had sprained her leg among the big stones. She could not tell me that she had pain and was suffering from sciatica, but with the slight knowledge of homoeopathy that I possessed, and I had only been in practice, a few months, and had had to dig out my knowledge without any outside help, enabled me to spot the right remedy at once.

With those symptoms there was only one possible remedy. Many people confound Rhus tox. and Bryonia, and yet there is a great difference between them, though both are pain remedies.

Rhus tox. is always better for motion.

Bryonia is always worse for motion.

So when I heard the rhythmical hoofbeats after we had been walking a bit, and the limp after we had stood still for a little. I had no doubt but that she would very soon be cured by Rhus tox.

A DOGS SKIN DISEASE.

LADY P. brought me a long haired white terrier, whom she loved exceedingly, and she was in great distress about him. He scratched himself night and day. A patch on his body as large as ones hand, and a considerable portion of his bushy tail were completely denuded of hair and one could see the raw flesh, ugly sores, and an oozing yellow fluid. The dog obviously suffered greatly and he was deeply depressed. Lady P. asked anxiously whether the dog suffered from mange and whether there was any danger of infection. As I am not a vet., I could not give an exact diagnosis but told her that I would try to cure him.

Upon my asking her whether the dog tried to get near the fire or away from the fire, she told me that she did not know. I therefore lit a gas fire, made her sit down close to it and call the dog, but the dog would not come. So I took hold of the little fellow and put him on her lap and bade her caress him. However, the dog jumped down and went to the window.

Six times I put the dog on Lady P.s lap and six times he went to the window. That seemed to be sufficient proof that the dog was “worse by heat and better by cold,” a symptom which seemed to point to Sulphur. If the dog had enjoyed the heat, I should have given him Arsenic. I gave Lady P. a little box of Sulphur 1x, one tablet to be given three times a day. Next day Lady P. telephoned me that the dog was much better and scratched much less. In a week he had stopped scratching altogether, the sores had disappeared, and in a fortnight the dog was practically normal, hair having rapidly sprouted on the terribly denuded places and mistress and dog felt very happy. J.E.B.

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.