Trigonocephalus lachesis. The Surukuku Snake of South America.
N O. Ophidia.
Trituration.Dilution.
“The first trituration and first dilution in alcohol of the snake poison Trigonocephalus lachesis was made by Hering on July 28, 1828. The first cases were published in the Archives in 1835. In 1837 this remedy was introduced into our materia medica.”
To the genius and the heroism of Hering the world owes this remedy and many another of which this has been the forerunner. When Hering’s first experiments were made he was botanising and zoologising on the Upper Amazon for the German Government. Except his wife, all those about him were natives, who told him so much about the dreaded Surukuku that he offered a good reward for a live specimen. At last one was brought in a bamboo box, and those who brought it immediately fled, and all his native servants with them. Hering stunned the snake with a blow on the head as the box opened, then, holding its head in a forked stick, he pressed its venom out of the poison bag upon sugar of milk. The effect of handling the virus and preparing the lower attenuations was to throw Hering into a fever with tossing delirium and mania much to his wife’s dismay. Towards morning he slept, and on waking his mind was clear. He drank a little water to moisten his throat, and the first question this indomitable prover asked was: “What did I do and say?” His wife remembered vividly enough.
The symptoms were written down, and this was the first instalment of the proving of Lachesis. The natives crept back one by one next day, and were astonished to find Hering and his wife alive. The snake grows to seven feet and upwards in length, has fangs nearly an inch long, a reddish brown skin
marked along the back with blackish brown rhomboidal spots. Nearly all the provings of Lachesis were made with the 30th and higher attenuations.
Allen’s Encyclopedia gives more than 3 600 symptoms of this drug and its symptoms occupy more than a hundred pages in Hering’s Guiding Symptoms. Hundreds of homoeopathic practitioners have used this remedy, relieving and curing thousands of cases in different conditions, wherever its fundamental characteristic symptoms were met with.
The four grand characteristics of Lach. are : (1) < By sleep. (2) Excessive sensitiveness of the surface with intolerance of touch or constriction. (3) Left sidedness, and the direction left to right: symptoms begin on the left side and either remain there or proceed to the right. (4) > From the onset of a discharge.
CAUSATION
Ill effects of suppressed discharges injuries, sprains, puncture wounds, bites. Ill effects of grief,fright,
vexation, anger. Jealousy, disappointed love, masturbation. Never well since menopause. Alcohol. Delirium, tremens from night-watching, over-fatigue, loss of fluids, over-study.
MODALITIES
Better appearance of discharges, warm applications, open air, belchings, hard pressure. Better from cold drinks, bathing affectedpart, sitting bent, eating, especially fruits, warm applications.
Worse from sleep after sleep, morning, spring. Worse from heat of room of summer of sun. Worse from empty swallowing, liquids. Worse from slight touch or pressure of clothes, around neck, waist. Worse from retarded discharges, start and close of menses. Worse from menopause,alcohol,
cloudy weather, standing or stopping, motion, closing eyes,hot drinks.
According to Hering, Lach. is particularly suitable to those of melancholic disposition (such provers showed most symptoms) ; next, to choleric individuals. Phlegmatic and lymphatic persons are also suitable, but principally when their dispositions border on the melancholic, with dark eyes
and tendency to laziness and sadness. Lach, does not suit sanguine persons with high colour, fine, delicate skins, and impressible natures, unless the disease should have imparted to their disposition a choleric or melancholy tinge. Lach. especially suits choleric women with freckles and red hair.
The delirium of Lach. is of the low, muttering type; at times the patient sinks into a torpid state, with cold extremities, tremor of body and hands, tremor of tongue. Tremor of tongue is a leading feature of many Lach. states. It not only trembles, but it catches in the teeth or lower lip when the
patient attempts to put it out.
AUTHORITIES
1, C. Hering, effects of 30th dil.; 1b, same, effects of triturating and of 1st and 2d trits;
2, Stapf, 30th dil.; 3, Bute, 30th; 4,Bauer, 30th; 5, Behlert, 30th; 6, Detwiler, 30th;
7, Gross, 30th; 8, Kummer,30th; 9, Reichhelm, 30th; 10, Roemig, 30th; 11, Wesslhoeft, 30th;
12, Kehr,30th; Koth, 30th; 14, Matlack, 30th; 15, De Young, 30th; 16, Helffrich, 30th;
17, Schmoele, 30th; 18, Lingen, 30th; 19, Berridge, effect of 60m, Fincke, in apatient
ALLEN
Emotional. Maintains great quietness and firmness of mind, during very vexatious and exciting events (seventh and following days),1a.
Lively, without any cause,2.
Excited mood the whole morning (second day, second proving);
decidedly improved health, suffering only from too much smoking (third day),1a.
Excited for a very long time in the evening, lively, in spite of constant sticking pressure beneath the scapulae,1.
A kind of ecstasy, as sublime impressions, or excessive joy, throughout the day; he constantly wishes to talk and do much, and even more seems to be at his command (third day),1a.
Fanciful imaginings, with the evening fever,1a.
It seems to him during the day that he has dreamed everything that has happened, only somewhat different,1a.
Great irritability; soothing poetry moved him to immoderate weeping; he was obliged to cry for joy; as for example, when reading in Schiller’s Tell, he could not proceed; an unmanly rapture compelled him to desist; in exciting scenes he broke into tears, and so on for a great many days; after much
crying, pain above the eyes,1a.
Much talking during the febrile condition, in the evening,1.
Loquacity; in the evening, with physical laxity, sleepiness without being able to fall asleep; without sitting up he talks a great deal, wishes to tell stories, constantly goes from one to another; during this he, however, recollects himself and soon knows when he has mixed and distorted anything; he
then corrects himself, but repeats the same mistakes; thus he is tormented half the evening (first day),1a.
An unusual inclination to be communicative,2.
Great inclination to be communicative, extraordinarily vivid imagination; therewith extremely impatient at tedious and dry things,1a.
Lively and communicative, even with a disagreeable feeling of fulness,2.
Social and communicative,2.
The more cause for fretfulness, the greater inclination for humor, jest,
satire, and humorous fancies,1a.
Depression of spirits, with chilliness,1.
Depressed and anxious, with shortness of breath,1.
Great sadness in the morning, weak for a short time in the forenoon, otherwise physically well (thirteenth day),9.
So great apprehensiveness while riding in the open air that it seemed to him some great evil was impending, like an evil foreboding; it torments him for more than an hour (after three to four hours),1a. [20.] Very easily frightened, in the evening (first day),1a.
Very easily frightened, with sensitiveness of the brain,2.
Sudden doubts arise about truths of which he had hitherto been convinced, in the afternoon,17.
It frequently seems to him wrong to read long at a time, although the subject interests him,2.
Mistrustful and thinking evil,1a.
Towards evening very unusual almost crazy jealousy, as foolish as it is irresistible (after six hours),1a.
Peevishness (transient),3. -Becomes easily peevish and mistrustful; believes himself intentionally injured by all his environments, and attaches the most hateful significance to the most innocent occurrences,7.
Unusually contentions and obstinate, so that he quarrels with everything about him,11.
He sits up late at night at mental work, with great activity,1.
He is impelled to productive work in the evening, although he had been much fatigued during the day; he sits all night, without the slightest sleepiness or exhaustion; writes with the greatest freedom and increased vigor about everything that he knows; new things constantly throng in his mind; also next
day, after very little sleep, he is just as excited; it only gradually diminishes without subsequent reaction of mind; on repeated provings,1.
Increased power of originality in all mental work, increased activity of fancy; scenes and occurrences throng to him in an unusual amount,1a.
No sooner does one idea occur to him than a number of others follow in succession while he is writing it down, so that he is unable to finish the record,1a.
Gladly sits in meditation,2.s-Longing for amusement, without however experiencing ennui, with lively fancies about which he himself laughs,2.
Mentally very indolent, with physical weakness (sixteenth day),9. Aversion to work,2.
Disinclined to his own proper work; either an indifferent or sad mood, with weariness and general laxity (fifteenth day),9. -Must force himself to attend to business (later action),2.
An unusual confusion as to time; he dated everything the 26th, when it was only the 6th; and on Wednesday he asked whether it was Saturday,3.
Constantly obliged to pay attention to his spelling, in a language in which he is usually fluent,1.
Writes a letter with numerous mistakes in spelling, without noticing them himself, in words written both in Roman characters and in the usual German text (in one who hardly ever made such mistakes),11.
Weakness of memory, so that it was difficult to pay attention to what was said to him,2.
Loss of consciousness (two days after the bite), with somewhat irregular motions of the limbs; covered with cold clammy sweat; pulse small, slow, almost imperceptible.
From other sources
The mind is profoundly disturbed. There are rapidly alternating states: exalted powers, rapid succession of ideas; and again there is weak memory; frequent mistakes in writing; confusion. “Frantic loquacity, jumps from one subject to another is a strong characteristic ; “talks, sings, or whistles constantly; makes odd motions with arms , insane jealousy “intense sadness and anxiety” ; “irritable, irascible, peevish, malicious.”
A curious symptom in the mental sphere is a derangement of the time sense. It occurs also in Merc. (to which Lach. is an antidote); but is more prominent in Lach., when a patient is always making mistakes in the time of day, and confounds the morning hours with the evening hours,
Lach. will generally put this right, if it does no more.
Peculiar sensations of Lach. (in addition to those already mentioned) are: As if frightened by visions behind him; as if knives were being thrust into brow; as if tongue bound or tied up; as if a part of right side of head cut away; as if a thread was drawn from behind to eye; stitches as from knives in eyes; eyes as if they had been taken out, squeezed and put back; ears as if closed from within; as if stuffed up; as if insects whizzing in ears; as if he had a moustache of ice; as if a small crumb lodged in throat. as if he had had a blow on neck; as if a stricture in rectum. As if heart hanging by a thread and every beat would tear it off; as though heart turned over and ceased beating for a moment; as if heart hadn’t room to beat. As if neck constricted with a cord. (Lach. is one of the remedies for “gridle pain”) as if burnt or scalded in different parts (tongue, tibia, hypogastrium).
Great anguish, insupportable anxiety, and uneasiness, from which patient seeks
relief in open air.
Fear, and presentiment of death.
Discouragement; distrust; easily affected to tears.
Mental dejection and melancholy, with apprehension, uneasiness about one’s malady, great tendency to give way to sorrow, to look upon the dark side of everything, and to think oneself persecuted, hated and despised by acquaintances.
Dread of death; fears to go to bed; fear of being poisoned.
Thinks she is some one else; in the hands of a stronger power; that she is dead and preparations are being made for her funeral; that she is nearly dead and wishes some one would help her off.
Sadness when awaking in the morning or night (particularly in the morning); no desire at all to mix with the world.Restless and uneasy; does not wish to attend to business, but wants to be off somewhere all the time. Sadness, and disgust to life.
Mistrust, suspicion, and a strong tendency to take everything amiss, to contradict and to criticise.
Frantic jealousy.
Indolence, with dislike and unfitness for any labour whatever, either mental or bodily.
Timidity of character, with variableness and indecision.
Great apathy and extraordinary weakness of memory, everything that is heard is, as it were, effaced, even orthography is no longer remembered, and there is forgetfulness even of things on the point of utterance.
Confusion as to time
Mistakes are made in speaking and writing, as well as in the hours of the day and the days of the week. Imbecility and loss of every mental faculty. Over excitement and excessive nervous irritability, with a tendency to be frightened.
Perfect happiness and cheerfulness followed by gradual fading of spirituality, want of self control and lasciviousness; felt as if she was somebody else and in the hands of a stronger power. Amativeness.
State of ecstasy and exaltation which even induces tears, desire to meditate, and to compose intellectual works, with a sort of pride.
Frantic loquacity with elevated language, nicely chosen words, and rapid and continual change of subject matter.Loquaciousness, with mocking jealousy, with frightful images, great tendency
to mock, satire and ridiculous ideas.
Nocturnal delirium with much talking, or with murmuring.