IN the last months of her life, baby Gloria Thomas suffered such terrible eczema her skin would weep and peel, sticking to her clothing when she was changed.
Despite her bleeding, crying and malnutrition, her mother and homeopath father failed to get conventional medical help before she died a painful death, a Sydney jury has been told.
Thomas Sam, 42, and his IT professional wife, Manju Sam, 36, have pleaded not guilty to their nine-month-old daughter's manslaughter by gross criminal negligence in Sydney in May 2002.
In the Crown's opening address to the New South Wales Supreme Court jury, Mark Tedeschi QC said Gloria's parents failed to get her proper medical attention in the last five months of her life.
He said Thomas Sam's sister had pleaded with her brother on a number of occasions to get Gloria some conventional medicine.
"He responded by saying: 'I am not able to do that,'" Mr Tedeschi said.
"Instead, Thomas Sam and Manju Sam gave to Gloria various types of homeopathic drops."He said Gloria spent much of the final months "crying, irritable, scratching"."The only thing that gave her solace was to suck on her mother's breast."Born in July 2001, Gloria thrived until November when a nurse noticed her eczema and told the mother to see a skin specialist.Instead of doing this, Mr Tedeschi said the mother took her to a GP who was extremely concerned at the eczema, saying it was the most severe case he had ever seen.Although the GP wrote a referral letter to a specialist, the parents never saw him.Mr Tedeschi said Gloria's skin would break when her clothing and nappy were changed and she became thinner and weaker, which allowed infections to enter her body.The eczema and infections placed "an enormous toll on her body" which meant all the nutrition she took in was spent on fighting this off, instead of being used to grow.At four months, she weighed 6.5kg but at nine months she was down to 5.3kg and died of septicemia.Mr Tedeschi said the parents were married in India.
The father was educated in homeopathy in India and in Australia undertook a masters degree in health administration, while his wife had a science degree and a postgraduate diplomat in computers.
"They both come from very supportive, giving families," he said.
Thomas Sam worked as a homeopath in Sydney and taught the subject at a Sydney college.
Mr Tedeschi will continue his opening address tomorrow, at the trial before Justice Peter Johnson.
Thomas Sam, 42, and his wife Manju Sam, 36, from Sydney, Australia, are undergoing trial for manslaughter by gross negligence for the death of their nine-month-old child, Gloria. She died from infection caused by severe eczema after they shunned effective conventional medical treatments for homeopathy, a form of alternative medicine that has been described as pseudoscience. Articles in peer-reviewed academic journals including ''Social Science & Medicine'' have characterized homeopathy as a form of quackery.

An example of severe eczema. Gloria developed severe eczema at the age of four months and the parents were advised to send the child to a skin specialist. Thomas Sam, a practising homeopath, instead decided to treat his daughter himself. His daughter's condition deteriorated, to the point that the baby spent all her energy battling the infections caused by the constant breaking of the skin, leading to severe malnutrition and, eventually, her death. By the end, Gloria's eczema was so severe that her skin broke every time her parents changed her clothes or nappy, and in the words of the Crown prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, "Gloria spent a lot of the last five months of her life crying, irritable, scratching and the only thing that gave her solace was to suck on her mother's breast." Gloria also became unable to move her legs.

Mr. Tedeschi also told the court that, over the last five months of her life, "Gloria's eczema played a devastating role in her overall health and it is asserted by the Crown that both her parents knew this and discussed it with each other." However, despite their child's severe illness, and her lack of improvement, the Sams continued to shun conventional medical treatment, instead seeking help from other homeopaths and naturopaths. Gloria temporarily improved during the rare times they used conventional treatments, but they soon dropped them in favour of homeopathy, and she consistently worsened.

Allegedly, Thomas' sister pleaded with him to send Gloria to a conventional medical doctor, but he replied "I am not able to do that". The parents are also accused of putting their social life ahead of their child, taking her on a trip to India and leaving her to servants while embarking on a busy social schedule, and giving her homeopathic drops instead of using the prescription creams they had been given.

Gloria was finally taken to the emergency department shortly before her death. By this time, "her skin was weeping, her body malnourished and her corneas melting", according to the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Speaking in the parents' defense, Tom Molomby, SC, said that, as the parents came from India, where homeopathy is in common use, they should be declared not guilty due to cultural differences.

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine which treats patients with massively diluted forms of substances that, if given to a healthy person undiluted, would cause symptoms similar to the disease. Typical treatments take the dilutions, with ritualised shaking between each step of the dilution, past the level where any molecules of the original substance are likely to remain; for homeopathic treatments to work, basic well-understood concepts in chemistry and physics would have to be wrong. There is no evidence that homeopathy is more effective than placebo for any condition.