What was wrong with Amir Shakkar, and what was Sai Baba's prescribed remedy for his condition?

Amir Shakkar was afflicted with severe rheumatism, a condition that caused him great sorrow and physical pain. When he narrated his illness to Sai Baba and prayed for deliverance, Baba gave him a unique and seemingly counterintuitive remedy. As Chapter 22 explains, instead of a conventional medicine, Baba's instruction was for Amir to stay steadily in the Chavadi. This was Baba's "medicine of His word." Despite the Chavadi being old, dilapidated, damp, and full of discomforts, Amir was told to reside there for nine months, accepting Baba's word as the ultimate cure for his ailment.