11/62 Letter from HLC to Dr. W. H. Ketchum: "...Enclosed
is a copy of a diary written by my Grandfather [of EC
readings given] between October 22 and November, 1911..."
serving as a stimulus for memory recollection by Dr. Ketchum.
Dr. Ketchum begins to speak:
You know, that fellow Cayce - well, - you just didn't
know where he was going to hit you, that's all! He'd
come up with the darndest things after he'd get under
one of these hypnotic spells. We'd ask him questions,
sometimes; sometimes we wouldn't.
Case of (Boyetna?) [pellagra]. [
5778] case diagnosed by
Cayce as a case of malnutrition. I was called to see this
boy - not a "boy", really, he was a man. He hadn't been
treated by any other doctor, but he was still sticking by
his work. He was doing shovel work in a pit for a brick firm
by the name of Dalton which employed about 400 men. ...Was
buried in the ground and they had to go down with a ladder
and set fire to all the coals down there. One day the phone
rang and Mr. Dalton asked me to come up and see [
5778] as
he called him, for he said he had fallen over in the pit.
He had tumbled over a fainting spell, and there he was
unconscious. He was breathing, but he had had a "spell."
Two or three colored boys lifted him up and carried out and
laid him under a tree. Then we piled some straw on a road
wagon and took him to his home. That was the first case of
malnutrition that I ever saw. Cases like his were very rare,
and when I first saw him I had no idea what the diagnosis
was. Prior to this the only pellagra I had ever heard of
was in Italy. Italy was full of pellagra - in other words,
malnutrition - and it was brought about by improper foods.
This was the first case I ever saw and it had been overlooked
until Cayce explained the exact approach. Then it was very
easy to diagnose that it was exactly the same as a number of
cases at the hospital, but I didn't know about them at that
time. Up to then it was a puzzle; but every puzzle is simple
after it has been explained.
At this time Cayce was living in Hopkinsville, Kentucky,
where he had moved from Bowling Green, Kentucky. We set him
up in Hopkinsville - bought him an outfit - prettiest stuff
you ever saw! Dandy new camera and all, must have spent
the biggest part of five thousand dollars just to outfit
his office.
When I went in about this [
5778] case, Cayce laid down on the
cot and after he laid there awhile he explained that it was
all a case of malnutrition. After going into detail, he
named the different foods needed in the process of bringing
him back to health. The next day after this Cayce reading
I saw Dr. Board coming down the street. I called to him and
said, "Dr. Board, you're quite the talk in western Kentucky
and I've got a fellow out here I want you to see. He's right
on the road on the way out to the hospital." He said he'd be
glad to go. I had gotten my new car just a few weeks before
- the first one I ever had - this was in 1905 or '06. So
we drove out to see this [
5778] and we went in and looked
at him, and Dr. Board tried to get a line on him. After he
got through he said, "Have you got plenty of time?" I said,
"Sure." He said, "Let's go on out to the hospital. We've
got four cases out there exactly the same as this. My boys
have been wrestling with them for a year and they have never
diagnosed them."
"Now I had had Cayce's diagnosis, but Cayce didn't name it at
all. Cayce had said the man was "slightly off up here." He
had functioned with malnutrition and then they may go out
of their heads and they are skinny and simply a case of
malnutrition. This [
5778] was one of the first cases
reported in the United States. Dr. Milton Board read a paper
before the Kentucky Medical Society and presented his cases
out there at the hospital. But he didn't tell anything about
Edgar Cayce, though! See the point?
Well, when Dr. Board and I were having lunch at the hospital
he said to me, "Did you say you had a diagnosis for this
case?" I said, "Yes, but I'm not going to tell you!
You're an old practitioner and I'm just an embryo!"
He said, "Well, where did you get it?"
I told him I picked up a new medical book the other day,
published by a Philadelphia concern, and the description was
a perfect description of my case, and also of the four cases
he had. He turned to his wife and asked her if he had a copy
of that book. She said he had and she went and got it for
him. He opened it up, and right here - "PELLAGRA"! He said
to me, "But how did you get..."
I said, "My 'boy', Cayce."
He said, "The hell you say!"
I said, "That's the truth."
He said, "You mean that fellow diagnosed that case for you?"
I said, "That's the truth."
Now, this Dr. Board was a member of the Kentucky Medical
Society when they had me on the spot. They had heard
of Cayce, but they were afraid of him because he was
"different." Like Billy Mitchell. Too far ahead of his time
to be acceptable. So Dr. Board read his paper and it was
published in the Kentucky Medical Journal, and from that
copied into the A.M.A. Journal. Then they began picking up
cases of Pellagra from all over where the people had been
eating nothing but hog and hominy. The papers were full of
it for months. Now-a-days you don't hear anything about it
anymore, but back then it was quite a problem. Just like
Cayce said right out in his reading, "Too much hog and
hominy!" Said he needed vegetables and a well-balanced diet,
which all pellagra patients respond to. [
5778]'s case was
just as typical as I ever saw anywhere, and he finally died
because he was too weak to get well.
I got together with Cayce in good cases, bad cases, mediocre
cases, and all kinds. Surely if I had a case that I didn't
know what it was, or if it was different from the others,
I would go over and ask Edgar if he would "sleep" on it.
What he said wasn't written down in those days, but I
could remember it all.
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation