Children as Special Patients 191pattern exactly as if the symptoms were her own. If the return to any given
food is accompanied by a deterioration in the baby’s condition, that food
should be avoided. Foods that cause no problems may be retained in the
diet. All the rules given for behavior of food allergies and how to test for
them apply when doing this: in other words, it is no use testing the baby by
having the mother eat a food which has not yet cleared from her bowel. The
five-day period must elapse, otherwise the baby is receiving doses from the
mother’s colon, via her blood and milk, enough to keep a masked allergy or
intolerance in ferment.
If you are a parent, tired and worn out by sleepless nights, give it a try. I wish
you luck and the baby many hours of contented rest.
Casebook 11. A child’s story
Young Michael, aged eight, was addicted to eating candles and also to eating
the black carbon that forms ’round the top of gas stoves. The former he
would eat whenever he could get them, which wasn’t often since his parents
refused to have them in the home any longer. The latter was in plentiful
supply, and no amount of vigilance on the part of his mother seemed to
be of any avail in thwarting him. Sometimes he would rise in the dead of
night, when even the most trusty wardens sleep, and indulge in his unique
and disgusting gourmet habit.
If that was strange, it was only a beginning to the sad and complicated
tale that his parents unfolded to me. Michael was without doubt mentally
subnormal; yet he had not been so since birth. He had made good progress
at first and now seemed to be going backwards, though nobody seemed
sure why. He was now at a special school. But how bad was his condition?
I listened attentively while his father explained that he was deaf; that got
me interested. It is almost proverbial to me that deaf people, because they
cannot hear and so often fail to understand, appear stupid. But when I heard
that Michael suffered from recurring unpleasant infections of the ear, nose
and throat, that got me very interested indeed. Without building up the
parents’ hopes too much, I suggested that his respiratory troubles might be
due to an allergy. The elimination diet could help to locate these allergies,
if food were the cause; then his infections might clear up, his hearing might
improve, and then ... well, we would see.
They agreed to start him on the diet plan. I met these good people
several times over the subsequent weeks, and the picture gradually became
clearer. Michael, it seemed, was quite a handful. Far from presenting the