THE DANGER OF ANTI-TOXIN TREATMENT FOR DIPHTHERIA


They had an outbreak of chickenpox after three weeks and she took it and they sent her home from the Hospital in a private car, with a temperature of 101, full of chickenpox and swollen glands. They did not have her back again but the specialists report was that the falls were due to hysteria and could be avoided.


ON the 16th May of this year I received a heart-rending letter form an unknown correspondent worded as follows :-.

DEAR SIR, – A friend has been passing on her copies of your valuable magazine, “HEAL THYSELF”, and I must say I am amazed at the wonderful cures, really they seem to be too good to be true and since reading them, I feel I want to place my daughter under a good to be true and since reading them, I feel I want to place my daughter under a good homoeopathic doctor. Can you give me any information, please? Is there a real good one near here? Worcester, Hereford Cheltenham or Gloucester are our nearest towns; Birmingham, too, is easily accessible, if there was a specially good man.

My case is this. My daughter aged ten, has been under various doctors for nearly a year and is no better. They all say she is suffering from some gland trouble, which they admit they know very little about. She has been taking Thyroid gr. 1 and Pituitary gr. 5 for months. I must tell you that she was perfectly normal and healthy until last July when she was anti- toxin against diphtheria.

There was an epidemic here and a scare, and I foolishly gave my permission for her to be 1A done, thinking it might save me further trouble, although I had very little faith in it. She has never been vaccinated. The day after the injection, she slept all day, only awaking to vomit, and from that day, she has steadily put on weight and sleeps for hours during the day. I have told the doctor and house surgeon at the hospital where she has been that I feel sure the anti-toxin is to blame, but everyone denies it.

Last autumn she started falling about, not fits. She did not lose consciousness and was not rigid or foaming. The use simply went out of her legs. She would crumple up. She would have about ten or twelve attacks a day. My doctor said: “You must see a specialist.” I saw the supposed best man in the Midlands, at Birmingham. He had her in the Childrens Hospital there for three weeks under observation.

They had an outbreak of chickenpox after three weeks and she took it and they sent her home from the Hospital in a private car, with a temperature of 101, full of chickenpox and swollen glands. They did not have her back again but the specialists report was that the falls were due to hysteria and could be avoided. He suggested we let her fall and hurt herself and she would then stop it. We tried this but it was useless.

About Christmas, I had my local doctors permission to write to a man at Bristol. He advised me to send her to Bristol General Hospital under another doctor. They kept her there about a month and sent her home with a months supply of pituitary and thyroid and just said it was gland trouble. The child is still putting on weight and now weighs about 7 stone 10 or 12 lbs. She is still awfully sleepy and “dopey”. She generally has two or three hours solid sleep during the daytime. She has a big appetite and it is difficult to satisfy her. No doctor has given me a diet sheet, though I have asked for one several times.

I try to keep her off fats and starch and sugar. While taking pituitary she seems better and does not have so many falls, but one wonders what will be the outcome of all this drug-taking, and my doctor says she must take it. Boots the chemists refused to supply me, saying it was too strong for a child, but after getting a confirmation of the prescription, they got it for me. Now, do you honestly think homoeopathy would help her? I feel certain if only a doctor would work on the anti-toxin theory they might start on finding a cure, but they all ignore it.

I must tell you I am a widow without a pension and cannot afford any ridiculously high fees, but am prepared to pay a reasonable fee. I belong to the Hospital Saturday Fund and had no difficulty in getting her into both hospitals, but feel now they cannot help any more.

They have done nothing. I remember Dr. Hadwen and often heard him give religious addresses and had he still been alive I would have gone straight to him. This has been a revelation to me, how helpless allopathic doctors are. They all seem to me to either be afraid of looking into the case too closely in case they find symptoms which they would have to admit, or else they are really not at all interested in the call.

Before she was given anti-toxin she was a happy, light-hearted child, but now she has completely changed and is often almost violent in her tempers. She is an absolutely different child.

I am afraid I have taken up a lot of your valuable time, but I shall be very thankful indeed if you can help me.

Yours truly,

M.W. EDWARDS.

Hope End, Pound Bank,

Great Malvern, Worcester.

May 15th, 1936.

Immediately on receipt of Mrs. Edwards letter, I sent her Sulphur 3x for blood clearing purposes, to be taken first and last thing in alternation with Opium 30 for the somnolence of the child. In large doses, Opium produces coma; in small doses, such as the 30th potency, it cures coma. Between meals, the child was to be given a dose of Diphtherinum 30 every Friday as an antidote to the diphtheria anti-toxin, and she was to be given every Tuesday between meals a dose of Thuja 200, which possibly might act as an antidote as well. The letter containing these two medicines was sent on the 19th. I assume that the mother started treatment at once.

On May 28th the mother reported that the medicine had not been of any help so far; “at the time of writing, she is much more sleepy than usual. Is this as you expected?” I told the mother to continue the medicine and added the combination of Nux vomica and Carbo vegetabilis before meals, because Nux Vomica antidotes numerous medicines. To my great satisfaction, the mother wrote on June 6th; “Perhaps the last two days she has been slightly brighter.”

On June 8th I sent Baptisia 1x, a dose to be taken night and morning, because Baptisia is valuable in septic conditions and raises the natural bodily resistance to microbes. On June 10th, Mrs. Edwards wrote: “I am very pleased to be able to tell you that the improvement has been maintained; my daughter has been able to keep awake all day for three consecutive days, a thing she has not done for nine months.” This was very cheering information, and it was followed on June 16th by a letter telling me; “The improvement in my daughter was maintained for five consecutive days. She had no day-sleep during this time.”.

In the mothers opinion, Nux vomica had helped most. However, I gave the child again Sulphur 6x and Opium 30, in alternation, and on June 18th I sent Nux vomica 200, a dose to be given last thing every Friday and Tuesday. I very much hope that the improvement produced so far will continue, and will become more pronounced in the course of time, but I shall be glad if any of my readers who have some useful advice to offer will write to me at 26 Park Crescent, Portland Place, London, W.1.

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.