LACHESIS MUTUS

LACHESIS MUTUS

(Bushmaster or Surucucu)

Lach.

Like all snake poisons, Lach. decomposes blood, making it more fluid, hence a tendency for hemorrhage is notable. It’s significant in conditions like purpura, septic states, and diphtheria, where the system is thoroughly poisoned and prostration is profound. The remedy is guided by modalities. It is crucial for delirium tremens with marked trembling and confusion, during climacteric, and for melancholic patients. It treats ill effects of suppressed discharges, diphtheritic paralysis (Botul.), and diphtheria carriers. There’s a sensation of tension in various parts, and patients cannot bear anything tight.

Mind: Great loquacity, amative, sad in the morning, no desire to mix with the world. Restless, uneasy, avoids business, wants to be off. Jealous (Hyos.), mental labor best at night, euthanasia. Suspicious, nocturnal delusion of fire, religious insanity (Verat., Stram.), derangement of time sense.

Head: Pain through head on awakening, at root of the nose, pressure, and burning in vertex. Waves of pain, worse after moving, sun headaches, flickerings, dim vision, pale face (apoplexy), vertigo (Meniere’s disease), relieved by onset of a discharge (menses or nasal catarrh).

Eyes: Defective vision post-diphtheria, extrinsic muscles weak. Sensation as if eyes were drawn together by cords tied at the root of the nose.

Ears: Tearing pains from zygoma into ear with sore throat, hard, dry cerumen.

Nose: Epistaxis, sensitive nostrils, coryza preceded by headache, hay asthma, paroxysms of sneezing (Sil., Sabad.).

Face: Pale, trigeminal neuralgia on the left side, heat running up to head (Phos.), tearing pains in jaw bones (Amph., Phos.), purple, mottled, puffed, swollen, bloated, jaundiced, chlorotic.

Mouth: Swollen, spongy, bleeding gums (scorbutic), swollen, burning, trembling, red, dry, cracked tongue catching in between teeth (glossitis), aphthous and denuded spots, burning, rawness, nauseous taste, toothache, pain extending to ears, pain in facial bones.

Throat: Sore, worse left side, swallowing liquids, quinsy, septic parotiditis, dry, intensely swollen internally and externally, diphtheria with dusky, blackish membrane, pain worse with hot drinks, chronic sore throat with much hawking, mucus sticks, cannot be forced up or down, very painful, worse slightest pressure or touch, starts on left side in diphtheria, purple, livid throat, sensation of swelling needing swallowing, worse with saliva or liquids, pain radiates to ear, collar and neck band must be loose, empty swallowing more painful than swallowing solids.

Stomach: Craving alcohol, oysters, any food causes distress, pit of stomach painful to touch, hungry but cannot wait for food, gnawing pressure better by eating (gastric ulcers) but returns in hours, perceptible trembling in epigastric region.

Abdomen: Liver region sensitive, cannot bear anything around the waist (jaundice), suitable for drunkards, abdomen tympanitic, sensitive, painful (Bell.).

Rectum: Constipated, offensive stool, anus feels tight, pain darts up rectum with sneezing or coughing, hemorrhage from bowels like charred straw, black particles, protruding, constricted, purplish hemorrhoids, stitches in them with sneezing or coughing, constant urging in rectum, not for stool.

Male: Intense sexual excitement.

Female: Climacteric issues, palpitations, heat flashes, hemorrhages, headache in vertex, fainting spells, worse with pressure of clothes, short, feeble menses, pains relieved by flow (Eupi.), painful, swollen left ovary, inflamed, bluish mammae (mastitis), painful coccyx and sacrum, especially when rising from sitting, effective at start and end of menstruation.

Respiratory: Upper trachea sensitive to touch, sensation of suffocation, strangulation lying down, lung edema, needs open window, glottis spasms (laryngismus), sensation of something running down from neck to larynx, deep breath necessity, precordial cramp-like distress, dry, suffocative cough fits, tickling (asthma), little secretion, sensitive, worse with larynx pressure, after sleep, in open air, breathing almost stops on falling asleep (Grin.), painful larynx to touch, sensation of a plug (Anac.) moving up and down with a short cough.

Heart: Palpitations with fainting spells, especially during climacteric, constricted feeling causing palpitations, anxiety, cyanosis, irregular beats.

Back: Coccyx neuralgia worse rising from sitting, must sit still, neck pain, worse in cervical region (cervical spondylitis), sensation of threads stretched from back to limbs and eyes.

Extremities: Right-side sciatica better lying down, tibia pain (may follow sore throat), tendon shortening.

Sleep: Sleeps into aggravation, sudden starting on falling asleep, sleepy yet cannot sleep (Bell., Op.), wide awake in the evening.

Fever: Chills in back, icy cold feet, hot flushes, hot perspiration, paroxysm returns after acids, intermittent fever every spring.

Skin: Hot perspiration, bluish, purplish, boils, carbuncles, ulcers with bluish-purple surroundings, dark blisters, bed-sores with black edges, blue-black swellings (ecchymosis), pyemia, dissecting wounds, purpura with intense prostration, senile erysipelas, wens, cellulitis, varicose ulcers.

Modalities: Worse after sleep (Kali-bi), Lach. sleeps into aggravation, ailments come during sleep (Calc.), left side, in spring, warm bath, pressure or constriction, hot drinks, closing eyes. Better with discharge appearance, warm applications.

Relationship: Antidotes: Ars., Merc., Heat, Alcoholus, Salt. Complementary: Crotalus cascavella often completes Lach.’s curative work (Murx.), Lyc., Hep., Salam. Incompatible: Acet-ac., Carb-ac. Compare: Cotyledon umbilicus (climacteric problems), Nat-m., Nit-ac., Crot-h., Amphisbaena vermicularis (right jaw swollen, painful, lancinating pains, headaches, vesicles and pimples), Naja, Lepi.

Dose: Eighth to 200th potency. Doses should not be repeated too frequently. If well indicated, a single dose should be allowed to exhaust its action.