AN APPEAL TO MY READERS
A LADY who is very dear to me has some exceedingly serious trouble with her eyes, and I appeal to my readers for assistance.
Six years ago, she became unable to see at night, but, being energetic and wonderfully healthy, disregarded this symptom. Then she found that she could not see very well except in a strong light and that she could see only straight ahead, her field of vision becoming more and more limited. She could look only straight ahead, as a man would through a telescope, and therefore walked into people and walls. Yet, she has almost normal eyesight for reading.
A months ago, she reluctantly consented to see one of the foremost eye specialists in Harley Street, who sent the following opinion to her doctor.
I saw your patient this morning and find that her vision is right eye 6/12 and left 6/18. The error of refraction is small, being as follows:-
R. + 0.25 cyl. Axis 110
L. + 0.50 cyl. Axis 80.
The field of vision is limited to about 10 all round in each eye, except up and out, where it extends to about 20-25.
The media are clear. The fundi show discs rather waxy in appearance with very small arteries. The retinae seem to be thin and in some places in the mid-periphery there are a few “bone corpuscle” pigment spots. Through the thin retinae can be seen many white streaks which represent sclerosed choroidal vessels. In my opinion, the condition is one of primary sclerosis of the choroidal arteries with secondary degeneration of the retinae, or possibly a retinitis pigmentosa with choroidal sclerosis.
I am afraid that there is not much to be done for the condition directly, but all methods should be adopted to increase the eye circulation and to combat the advance in sclerosis.
Hyperdermic injections of strychnine into the temples have been tried without much success, but I think that nowadays one might try a prolonged course of vitamins with possibly some liver extract.
I shall be grateful if you will let me know what her general condition is, more especially about the blood pressure and kidneys.
In plain English, the lady suffers from hardening of the arteries of the periphery of the internal eye. This hardening has increased very gradually during the last six years, and, if it should proceed further, sight would be lost completely.
She is a magnificent specimen of womanhood, married, fifty-five years old, immensely strong, loves the open air and vigorous exercise, works hard in the garden, enjoys walks of twenty miles and more, comes of very healthy stock, and there is no sign of arterio-sclerosis elsewhere than in the inner eye.
She has had no illnesses except a severe attack of shingles, which attacked the left side of the face, and ever since she has complained about occasional severe pains on the left side of the face, feelings of fullness, occasional swelling of neck glands, occasional outbreaks of shingle-like spots on the body, etc. running of salty water from nose, salty saliva and now she has a fiery red tongue. The sclerosis on the eyes is equally great on the right and on the left eye, and there are also some pigment patches and blind spots.
As the distinguished specialist did not know of any treatment except improving the circulation in and about the eye, I sent her to Miss Scarlett, of 28 Park Crescent, Portland Place. She is most expert practitioner who has helped me and many people greatly. I was told years ago that I had cataract on both eyes, that nothing could be done except operation.
Yet she has improved my eyesight immensely, so that I can now read without glasses. Miss Scarlett is giving her treatment, local massage, electricity, light, hot applications to the back of the neck, hot foot baths, general massage, vigorous neck exercises, eye exercises, etc., which are proving very helpful.
Before her trouble began, and until recently, the lady, who is dark-skinned and who was dark-haired (her hair is now white), lived on a high protein diet. She was very fond of meat, spices, condiments, alcohol, strong tea, smoked many cigarettes. She was typical Nux vomica. Her bowels have always been superlatively excellent. Laxatives have never been necessary.
She frequently must rush to the place of retirement at 5 or 6 in the morning. She perspires freely, perspiration being strong-smelling. So there are plenty of Sulphur symptoms. I have given her Sulphur and Nux vomica in various potencies, Thuja, because she has been vaccinated a number of times, and a few doses of Pyrogen, because of the old shingles infection.
The lady has considerably improved during the month, in the course of which she received the medicines mentioned and the treatment of Miss Scarlett, but I do not feel satisfied that everything has been done that can possibly be done. Therefore I appeal to the numerous readers of this magazine for their advice and assistance, which will be received with the utmost gratitude.
I think I ought to add that the ladys menstruation has always been absolutely normal, or supernormal, and that there was no trouble whatever at the change of life. Of course, the high protein diet has been abandoned for a low protein diet, with an abundance of fruit, vegetables, bran etc. Can the trouble be due to smoking?.
Having just discovered that the so-called salty discharge is burning and relieved by heat, I have started a course of Arsenic, especially as she is ultra tidy and as hot applications benefit. As she lost all her teeth through abscesses at the roots, it seems to me that a nosode is strongly indicated. In Boericke and Deweys Tissue Remedies, Magnesia phosphorica is recommended for retinitis pigmentosa.
The Anglo-Indian and European are foolish and mis-guided enough to supplement their diet – the fresh food produced in the country-by tinned fish and meat, canned and bottled fruits and vegetables, and to eat bread made from steel-rolled Delhi flour. In the towns an increasing number of Europeans and Anglo-Indians live in hotels and boarding-houses, where the diet tends to become poorer and ever poorer in vitamins and more and more devitalized. This is especially the case amongst the poorer classes of Europeans and Anglo-Indians, who suffer very generally from chronic vitamin starvation.
When civil surgeon of Simla I was appalled at the tragic frequency of cancer in all its forms amongst the poorer Anglo- Indians and country-bred Europeans, while the Himalayan coolie and cultivator living in the small hills displayed an almost complete immunity from the same diseases. – COLONEL HALLILAY, The Practitioner, January, 1925.
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.