Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1935

Letter ID: 1342

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

May 29, 1935

The oculist says that R’s eye defect is slight and glasses may relieve the headache.

The objection to eye-glasses is that once you start the eyes get not better but worse and worse. So if it is only slight there is no use in spoiling the eye-sight in order to get rid of the headaches.

The oculist suggests Opo-calcium – a thyroid combination. I gave him thyroid pills, but the oculist says it should be continued longer...

It is a very good idea – but I believe it creates an irritation on the skin and R is likely to get wild and give it up.

S took one pill of Aloes et Ferri and from the next morning she had burning in her eyes. I washed her eyes and that gave an uneasiness in the head! Now I realise that I should have left her to you.

All that is of course S’s imagination. She decides in herself that the medicine is the cause of the burning and the uneasiness. Perhaps she decides it beforehand – or rather something in her decides it. If her imagination were equally effective for cure it would be a great thing.

M complains of pain in the heels. There is no tenderness in the bone; some tenderness in the pad of fat. Internally salicylates can be tried, but there is no rheumatic history.

No salicylates. It will spoil her stomach without curing her heel.

It may be “policeman’s disease” as the French call it, “maladie de sergent de ville”; I have forgotten the technical name for it, but it is supposed to come from too much standing. I had it myself for something like a year because of walking or standing all day – that was when I used to meditate while walking. The Fr. medical dictionary says there is no remedy but rest. I myself got rid of it by application of force without any rest or any other remedy. But M is not a policeman and she does not walk while she meditates – so how did she get it?