There is not always an aggravation of the pain itself from warm drinks, but the patient is often unable to swallow warm fluids. The swallowing of warm fluids often causes choking, and after a swallow of warm tea is taken the patient will clutch at the throat and it seems as if he would suffocate. He says,
“Oh I do not give me any more warm drinks.”
Something cold will relieve. The dyspnoea and the distress about the throat is increased by swallowing something warm. Now, in the sore throats of Lycopodium, warmth often benefits, but it is also true in some cases of Lycopodium sore throat, they want cold drinks and cold feels good to the throat.
Very often in the more acute symptoms of Lachesis a warm drink in the stomach is hurtful and causes nausea and suffocation and increases the choking and palpitation and the fullness in the head, whereas in the chronic cases of Lachesis, those that have been poisoned years before, there will be a sensation of nausea and tendency to vomit from taking a drink of cold water and then lying down.
The nausea comes on after lying down, that is, let the patient take a drink of ice cold water and go to bed and nausea will come on. Such a state is peculiar to Lachesis. It has been a later observation of those who have long before proved Lachesis. The symptoms of Lachesis have sometimes to be taken years after.
Lachesis has ulcers in the throat. It has aphthous patches, it has red and grey ulceration, it has deep ulceration. The tendency to ulceration upon the margins of mucous membranes is peculiar to Lachesis.
Also ulceration upon the skin, where the circulation is feeble. It seems that the pain in the throat is particularly marked between the acts of swallowing, and the pressure of the bolus going over the inflamed tonsils relieves the pain.
Always choking when swallowing, choking and gagging in the throat.
The cough is a choking cough and produces a sensation of tickling. This is like the Belladonna cough. Belladonna antidotes a Lachesis cough, it has a cough so much like Lachesis that no one can tell them apart.
Again the throat takes on extreme dryness in Lachesis, and this dryness is without thirst, dryness with aversion to water. Much inclination to swallow; the tendency is to continuously swallow, yet it is painful. Empty swallowing is more painful, than the swallowing of solids. Some Lachesis patients suffering from cardiac affections are annoyed with constriction of the throat, choking in the throat when anything warm is swallowed, and sometimes when going into a warm room, choking and palpitation of the heart.
Tendency to chronic sore throat or recurrent sore throat and ulceration with every recurring sore throat. Liquids, of course, you will see, are analogous to empty swallowing, and empty swallowing causes more pain than the bolus which presses upon the sore throat, because it is of the nature of a slight touch. The slight touch increases the soreness and pain in the throat. Slight pressure of the collar increases the pain in the throat.
With the sore throat the muscles and glands about the neck become painful, inflamed and swollen, and very tender to the touch. With the sore throat, very commonly, there is pain in the base of the brain or in the back of the head, and soreness of the muscles of the back of the neck, which is often relieved by lying on the back and aggravated by lying on either side.
If you look into the throat it has a mottled, purplish appearance. Put all these things together, with the copious flow of tenacious saliva, and you will be able to manage cases of diphtheria that commence on the left side and spread to the right, whether the membrane is scanty or copious.
Tonsilitis with suppuration of the tonsils, when the left tonsil becomes inflamed and after a day or two the right one becomes inflamed and swollen, and they both finally go on to suppuration, or when one swells and suppurates and the other swells and suppurates. Diphtheritic appearances of the throat, spreading from left to right. The pharynx is full of thick, white, ropy mucus in the morning; must hawk out a mouthful of mucus in the morning.
Abdomen: The abdomen is distended with flatus. The abdomen is tympanitic in typhoid condition, much rumbling in the distended abdomen. The clothing cannot be tolerated, not even the slightest touch of the clothing, and yet it may require hard pressure to bring out soreness that is deep in the abdomen. This state is as it is in inflammation of bowels, ovaries and uterus, the patient lies on the back with the clothing lifted from the abdomen.
Violent labor-like pains, menstrual colic, present in typhoid, in puerperal fever, in malignant scarlet fever, in the more malignant affections of zymotic forms of the continued fever.
Lachesis has a series of liver troubles with jaundice; congestion of the liver, inflammation of the liver, enlarged liver and the nutmeg liver. Cutting like a knife in the region of the liver. Vomiting of bile; vomiting of everything taken into the stomach. Extreme nausea; continuous nausea with jaundice. White stool. It has cured cases with gall stone.
“Cannot endure any pressure about the hypochondria.”
In the chronic state the sensitiveness of the skin is so great over the abdomen, and about the waist and hips, that the wearing of the clothing creates pain, great restlessness and uneasiness, the patient grows increasingly nervous and finally goes into hysterics. Sensitiveness over the lower abdomen; can scarcely allow her clothes to touch her.
Female: It seems strange at first reading that Lachesis can be such a common remedy at the menstrual period.
It is also laid down as a remedy for the climacteric period. Now if you will study the cases of many women at the climacteric period you will find that many of them have the flushes of heat and the surgings in the head and the great circulatory disturbances that are found under Lachesis. This is also true of the complaints, the headaches, etc., that come in women at the climacteric period and at the menstrual period.
The Lachesis symptoms are strong in women during menstruation. There is violent headache, boring pain in the vertex, nausea and vomiting during menses.
The discharge in the female, either as a menstrual flow or as a hemorrhage, is black blood. Pain in the left ovarian region, or going from left to right. Induration of one or both ovaries. It has cured suppuration of the ovaries. The uterine region is very sensitive to touch, to the slightest contact of the clothing; in inflammation of the ovaries, pains in the ovaries and uterus going from left to right. Pains in the pelvis going upwards to the chest, sometimes a surging of pain going upwards, grasping the throat. Labor pains surge up, with clutching at the throat, or the labor pains cease suddenly, with clutching at the throat.
The menstrual pains increase violently until relieved by the flow. The menstrual sufferings are before and after the flow, with amelioration during the flow. The menstrual flow intermits one day and then goes on for one day, and during the intermission there is likely to be pain or headache.
Menorrhagia with chills at night and flushes of heat in the daytime. During the menstrual period violent headache, especially at such times as the flow slackens up.
It is a general feature of Lachesis to be relieved by discharges.
Catamenia flow but one hour every day; on stopping, violent pains follow in region of left ovary, alternating with gagging and vomiturition.
It is especially useful at the menopause, because of the flushes of heat. Uterine hemorrhage, fainting spells, suffocation in a warm room; orgasm of blood most violent. Complaints during pregnancy.
Inflammation of the veins of the leg. Varicose veins, blue or purple, extreme sensitiveness along the veins; sensitive to the slightest touch, though relieved by pressure.
The study of Lachesis is only a commentary on some of its important parts.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.