D C Das Gupta This infant system of medicine, the new healing art, within this short period of one hundred and fifty years, has recorded a tremendous speed of progress even in the face of strong opposition, adverse criticism unmerited ridicule and state negligence. Un-aided and ridiculed, the homoeopathic system has advanced near to perfection and has saved many an unfortunate sufferer from the very jaws of death.
Uterine haemorrhage and haemorrhages in Typhoid fever, presenting these characters will find their remedy in Lachesis. Whenever a local affection assumes a malignant character and from thence proceed blood-poisoning and prostration of the nervous energies, Lachesis is indicated, e.g., Traumatic Gangrene, Carbuncle, Malignant Erysipelas, Putrid Sore Throat, etc.
The emblematic figures of Asklepios, an an old man reclining on a staff with snakes coiling around it and his sister Hygeia as a woman holding a snake in one hand and a bowl in the other are well known. The Roman mark of healing “Caudeceus is represented by flying wings attached to a staff with a pair of snakes coiling round it. According to Hindu ideas Seshanaga holds his hood of a thousand heads over the head of Sri Bhagawan, the Lord of the universe. Siva, who revealed the Ayurveda to the world, has been shown with coils of snake round His neck.
Nerves specially affected by the snake poisons seem to be the Pneumogastric, Spinal, Accessory; constantly symptoms of the larynx, of the respiration and of the heart are characteristic. All of them cause choking, constrictive sensation coming from the irritation of the Pneumogastric. All of them have dyspnoea and heart symptoms.
Remember that in a considerable proportion of the cases the convulsions may persist in the form of epilepsy and remember that nearly all or quite a large number of children who suffer from convulsions, manifest in later life nervous disorders of different sorts. Convulsions if frequently repeated may cause permanent mental impairment and they often leave behind, too, traces of cerebral damage in the form of stammering or a squint.
Woodward reports the case of a baby who had been suffering with his teeth for more than a week. Salivation was copious ; he was constantly working at his mouth and crying piteously much of the time. He was extremely restless, had lost his appetite, could not sleep, and was getting very nervous. Finally, an attempt to eat induced convulsion involving the entire body ; for a time he was insensible.
Under normal conditions there is a physiologic balance between the circulation of blood and the lymph, so that no more fluid exudes into the tissue than it needs; but in diseased conditions this balance is frequently disturbed and the amount of transudate increases in such a manner as to cause the tissue to become distended. This condition is known as dropsy.
Lycopodium will suit cases whether arising from cardiac, renal or liver troubles. Dropsy is prominent particularly in the lower half in the body; urine scanty; hypertrophy of the heart and dyspnoea, worse when lying on back or from motion. The swollen legs are covered with ulcers from which serum continually oozes this condition is seen in two other drugs, namely Rhus tox and Arsenic alb.