LACHESIS


LACHESIS symptoms of the homeopathy remedy from Homeopathic Drug Pictures by M.L. Tyler. What are the symptoms of LACHESIS? Keynote indications and personality traits of LACHESIS…


Introduction

      THE greater the poison, the greater the remedy;and some of the most rapidly-acting and heroic medicines in desperate diseases are the snake poisons. They cure, of course, just the conditions they produce: but, when used for healing purposes, these poisons must be given in smalls, innocuous doses; and only to persons whose symptoms (physical, mental or moral) resemble the poison symptoms. Where this is the case, the curative power is amazing.

We have quite a number of proved snake poisons, each valuable where its symptoms fit. We will consider one of the most important_ LACHESIS.

Lachesis, the venom of the Surukuku snake of South America, was first obtained and proved by Dr. Constantine Hering, one of the most brilliant of Hahnemann’s immediate followers. We have told the tale elsewhere, so will not repeat. But his handling of the live snake and its poison nearly cost him his wife. He was rendered unconscious and delirious: but, on recovering, he demanded of his wife,. “What have I been saying and doing?” That, recorded, was the first crude proving of Lachesis.

Later proving (in many of them the higher potencies were used) have given us a very wonderful medicine. We must try to emphasize its more striking features-because it is indispensable in so many severe and desperate conditions. We shall borrow largely from Kent’s illuminating Lecture, besides drawing on experience, and on the provings recorded in Allen’s Encyclopedia and Hering;’s Guiding Symptoms.

Lachesis is very BLUE, OR PURPLE. In heart disease a purple, bloated face should make you think of Lachesis. One remembers a patient in hospital., dying of heart disease, with dropsy, a big liver, and a purple face-one of those pretty hopeless cases! Here, Lachesis so altered the seriousness of the condition that she was able, later to be discharged, and to come up to the outpatient department for further treatment-when her face was seen to be no longer purple!.

Another great Lachesis symptom is often found in those very bad cases of heart disease with failing heart, the aggravation during, or after sleep. This is Lachesis, pre-eminently. Lachesis is afraid to go to sleep. because of the increased sufferings- pain suffocation-or whatever they may be. And yet these “bad:” hearts need, above all things, sleep.

But BLUENESS anywhere points to Lachesis. Kent says, if there is an inflamed spot, it is purple. Ulcers eat in, have false granulations, are putrid, bleed easily-black, blood, which coagulates and looks like charred straw. Parts turn blackened slough. Enlargement of veins is also a prominent condition of Lachesis.

Lachesis affects supremely the THROAT and the MIND. We will take the throat first. Intense suffering in the throat, even when there is little, apparently, to account for it-thought there may be very much! Here, Lachesis is one of the out-of-proportion remedies. Arsenicum is another: for Arsenicum has a state of collapse quite out of proportion with the physical condition-so far as it can be diagnosed: and Lachesis has sufferings in the throat quite out of proportion with the physical condition-so far as it can be diagnosed:and Lachesis has sufferings in the throat quite out of proportion to what came be observed there. Choking sensations. Feels as if grasped by the throat. Sensation of a lump in the throat: of constriction. Lachesis cannot bear a touch on the throat, and needs to loosen the clothing there. Cough excited by touching the throat. And all this is worse, since it is Lachesis, from sleep. Fullness of neck and throat: difficulty breathing: choking when going to sleep: and the throat symptoms worse from hot drinks.

Everywhere, lachesis sleeps into an aggravation. And Lachesis does not like heat:is worse from hot drinks: may faint in a hot bath.

But the throat sufferings of Lachesis are often serious, and of a destructive nature. Ulceration of the throat-red-grey-deep- spreading., Curiously, in the throat troubles of Lachesis, whether nervous or pathological, empty swallowing is far more painful than the swallowing of solids. When one thinks of the enormous masses a snake can “get outside” one can easily remember that the swallowing of solids does not worry Lachesis!

In Lachesis, again, we have a great remedy for diphtheria. This begins on the left side, though it may extend to the right: for Lachesis is pre-eminently a LEFT-SIDED remedy. It differs here from Lycopodium, which has many spheres of usefulness in common with Lachesis-even diphtheria: only Lycopodium is a RIGHT-SIDED remedy, and if it extends, it is to the left.

I came across an old Lachesis diphtheria case the other day. A wee boy of 52, in our Children’s Ward, with a patch of diphtheria in throat, temperature 103.4, was given six dozes of Lachesis 200. The K-L bacillus was found in Swab and culture;but the patch promptly disappeared: and a second culture twenty-four hours later, proved sterile. He was discharged, well, in six days.

And here one may as well quote a Mercurius cy case of diphtheria, with like happy result.

A few weeks ago, a nurse, with a patch on tonsil, proved swab and culture, to be diphtheria, was given six doses of Mercuriuscy. 10m,. and sent off to a fever hospital, were, thirty-six hours late, her throat was found to be sterile. They’ phoned in surprise, questioning the diagnosis, and were told to come and see the slides, which had been kept. It is interesting to know further that, being a probationer, the girl’s throat had been recently swabbed (before admission to work in the Wards) and had then been sterile.

Observe that, with the correct Homoeopathic remedy, this “swab negative” happens (with diphtheria) in 24 to 48 hours;and the advantages of such homoeopathic treatment must be patent to all. There is less risk of infection: there is the speedy cure of a most distressing and dangerous disease: and. as Hahnemann expresses it, here you have “a gentle, rapid and permanent cure- the cure undisturbed by after-sufferings.” This cannot be said of anti-toxin treatment-which, by the way, is not meeting with universal commendation in these days. In the Lachesis cases of diphtheria, the trouble not only is, or begins, on the left side, but the tongue is not the filthy tongue of the mercury salts.

We will take the mental and moral symptoms next: they are very interesting, and have led to beautiful cures.

Kent says, “self-consciousness, self-conceit, envy, hatred, and cruelty: an improper love of self. All sorts of impulsive insanity: with face purple and had hot: perhaps choking, and the collar feels tight.” But short of the actual insanity which he describes, certain things stand out, as point to Lachesis. JEALOUSY; SUSPICION; “as when a girl never sees a whispered conversation going on, without thinking they are talking about her, to her detriment.” Lachesis is an important remedy in states bordering on insanity; as when “a person imagines her people are trying to damage her-suspects that people are contriving to put her into an asylum; that they are trying to poison her-or wonders if it is only a dream. Dreams of the dead: that she is dead, or about to die: that preparations are being made to lay her out.”

Or; again, “thinks that she is under superhuman control: that there are commands-partly in dream-that she must obey. She may think she is commanded to steal to murder;- and she has no peace of mind till she confesses to something she has never done. Then, religious insanity: thinks she is full of wickedness, and has committed the unpardonable sin: that she is going to die, and go to hell.” Kent says, “the physician must not make light of these things: they are very real to the patient, and must be treated with respect:- as if they were so.”

Jealousy: Suspicion: and then LOQUACITY. With many of us, lachesis stands for loquacity, and loquacity for Lachesis. “Makes speeches in select phrases, but jumping off to the most heterogeneous subjects.” One word often leads in to the midst of another story. Kent says also,. so sensitive to surroundings, and so disturbed by noise. she can hear the flies walking on the walls, and distant clocks. In this Lachesis resembles one of the Opium states, and compares with Lyssin;.

Here is an example of the jealousy of Lachesis.

A young man with a severe streptococcal infection of the back of tongue and throat-patchy and suggestive of diphtheria got a few doses of Lachesis in high potency. His throat was quickly well; but he proved Lachesis is an extraordinary and unexpected way. He “did not know what had happened to him”during that week-end in the country. He had become taciturn-suspicious-and” so frantically jealous that he had broken off his engagement”- perhaps a blessing in disguise, as it turned out. The proving soon worse off: but here one may say that, had not jealousy been latent in this youth, even Lachesis could not have evoked it. You cannot get out what is not their.

Here is a second case, that had been published, but is so illuminating as to the curative power of Lachesis in what was practically insanity, that it will be useful here.

Margaret Lucy Tyler
Margaret Lucy Tyler, 1875 – 1943, was an English homeopath who was a student of James Tyler Kent. She qualified in medicine in 1903 at the age of 44 and served on the staff of the London Homeopathic Hospital until her death forty years later. Margaret Tyler became one of the most influential homeopaths of all time. Margaret Tyler wrote - How Not to Practice Homeopathy, Homeopathic Drug Pictures, Repertorising with Sir John Weir, Pointers to some Hayfever remedies, Pointers to Common Remedies.