(This chapter is based mainly on the observations of Dr. Bernard Aschner)

There is an anecdote in the history of medicine that Louis IX, King of France, had been suffering from a very dangerous malignant fever. All the available medical authorities at the time had been consulted, but in vain. The King had been declared to be a hopeless case. Finally, he was abandoned to the sorcerers and charlatans. One of them, quite in accordance with an ancient doctrine, administered an emetic with the result that the King recovered within a few days.

Dr. Aschner says: "The modern physician, so greatly spoiled by too many scientific paraphernalia, instruments and gadgets, has, unfortunately 'unlearned' the mysterious ways of nature. Once upon a time the physician understood. When an attack of migraine ended with spontaneous vomiting, he rightly concluded that an emetic, given at its onset, would quickly prevent its development—and it does."

The unpleasant symptoms of partitas (mumps) may often be speedily reduced by the emetics as formerly prescribed by classical medicine. This is also true in regard to ulcers of the mouth, tongue and gums, where vomiting often helps more quickly than anything else, irrespective of whether the cause is connected with the stomach or whether it is merely a case of local infection.

Medical doctors have much to learn from the veterinary surgeons, who are less influenced by changing theories, and who prefer to keep to methods that have been proved in practice, but is this so to-day? They have successfully used emetics in the past in the treatment of diphtheria in pigs. In medicine for humans, however, this powerful remedy has come to be rejected and has disappeared into oblivion. Even in very severe diphtheria of children, emetics sometimes remove the danger of suffocation and obviate the necessity of tracheotomy. The "violent" vomit clears the obstructing membranes from the upper respiratory passages and also reduces the inflammatory condition. It is because of this effect that few remedies cause TONSILLITIS to subside so quickly as an emetic.

Protection from infection can be obtained merely by the timely administration of emetics during an epidemic of whooping cough, despite direct exposure.

A physician of Reval (capital of Esthonia) once wrote a letter to Dr. Aschner, in which he stated that his five-year-old son had told him that on those days when an attack of whooping cough was accompanied by a bout of vomiting his breathing became free and his headaches ceased to trouble him. Noting this the child finally discovered a way of inducing vomiting by drinking large quantities of tea and thus found relief.

The doctor went on to ask why learned physicians lagged so far behind a child in instinctive powers of observation—why, indeed, they did everything they could to prevent the helpful vomiting process by prescribing sedatives, such as codeine and belladonna.

Hippocrates says repeatedly that unless a case of pleurisy is purged upwards by means of emetics in the early stages it may progress to pneumonia and suppuration, with its grave and often fatal results.

Most cases of pleurisy, in Europe at least, are to-day generally considered to be of tubercular origin. We wait until the exudation has reached a substantial level and then the surgeons are proud of the large quantities of fluid they are able to drain from the chest by means of syringes and other ingenious devices.

Classical medicine could, and still can, restrict and even prevent the formation of exudates at the onset, by upward and downward purging.

Vomiting has first a stimulating effect upon all the internal organs and, subsequently, a spasm-soothing one.

In states of suffocation emetics may dramatically save endangered lives even when they arise from the heart and lungs.

A physician in Talinn, another Baltic capital, some years ago, sought the advice of Dr. Aschner on behalf of his daughter, who had consulted many specialists about her bronchial asthma, but without finding any permanent relief from their treatments.

Modern remedies such as ephedrine and adrenalin and anti-allergic therapies had all been tried with only transitory results. The repeated administration of an emetic, however, together with a decoction of vegetable drugs—arnica and the roots of helenium, the classic but forgotten specifics against this disease—permanently cured the condition within a few weeks.

There is an old Sanskrit saying: "After thorough vomiting head and heart feel relieved and purged. The soul experiences a sense of well-being and serenity."

Induced vomiting is of tremendous help also in mental disease and in anxiety states. It can be looked upon as a kind of natural "shock" treatment. Over specialized psychiatry has completely dis­carded this traditional and often highly effective method. Sometimes the cure succeeds almost at once, or within a few days, so that relatives and onlookers are amazed at what appears to be a "miracle," so asserts Dr. Aschner. I have found that vomiting therapy is also most effective in cases of acute lumbago, as the following example will show:

A few years ago the wife of a doctor called me out to her husband as he was prostrate in bed with acute lumbago. His condition was so painful that osteopathic treatment was out of the question, his severe muscle spasm would not permit of any movement at all.

It then occurred to me to ask the doctor if he could vomit easily. "Yes" he replied, "but why?" I suggested that he drank as many glasses of water, each sweetened slightly with honey, as he could with comfort. Then he was to tickle the back of his throat with a feather or with a finger so that vomiting would be induced. This he did, he drinking a dozen glasses of water. The effect was spectacular as all the lumbar muscles lost their spasm, with the result that the doctor was free from all pain and was again quite mobile.

He told me that he had been several years in India in medical practice and had come across many "strange" methods of treatment, which worked, but never had he heard of such effectiveness of the vomiting therapy.

Besides the drinking of a few glasses of water and tickling the back of the throat to induce vomiting, herbal emetics are used, but these should be prescribed by practitioners who possess the requisite knowledge and skill in their administration. When the emetic therapy is combined with a sensible diet and other treatments that may be indicated, splendid results can be expected to follow, so that patients are seen to gain more vitality and a speedier cure.

Conditions that have been found to respond to the emetic therapy are asthma, bronchial troubles, skin diseases, throat infections, gastritis, liver and gall bladder complaints, general catarrhal con­ditions, acidosis, enfeebled circulation, hysteria, gangrene, eczema, psoriasis, anxiety states.

In these and other ailments the emetic treatment can lessen their severity and may be looked upon as a "short-cut" to recovery, but like every other treatment of illness it has to be judiciously employed.

If at the very first signs of a migraine vomiting is induced it will not develop. That is the experience of those who have tried the method.

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