Understanding Lac caninum

Dr. Claudio C. Araujo, M.D. F.F.Hom. (Lon.) et al.

Insanity is at the patient’s door. He knows it, the Lac can. patient is fully aware of his mental condition. He hides from everyone else the turmoil that has surmounted his mind. He knows that - in a given time - his skillfulness that had accompanying him through all his life to do his job will be gone. His memory is fading away and now he lost his confidence in himself.

He cannot perform his duties anymore and he can’t trust his abilities to decide.

In fact, he can’t trust even his words, believing that the words coming up from his mouth lost their value, they can’t be trusted - even by himself.

He became someone on the edge of a nervous breakdown. His family is complaining, his friends are saying that he doesn’t look for them anymore.

He´s feeling as if he had lost all his friends. This sensation came at the moment he started to feel himself as someone that should be left aside. He felt himself dirt, he believed himself someone repugnant, that his body being a “mass of disease” and now she looks at her body with “disgust and horror”.

A clinical case may help us to understand this remedy: 

In the year 2010 I saw in my office a four-year-old little girl. Her mother brought her to my attention due to repeated attacks to a severe spasmodic cough that was always ending up in vomiting plus a constant running nose.

She was very much worse from any change of weather. 

From time to time, she has also otitis, with high fever. She suffered from frequent colds. She has no appetite. Cough fatigues her. Constipation.

A very kind and sweet personality, “she never breaks anything”, protective and affective. 

She is not jealous and has accepted well the arrival of her young sister. 

She divides everything she has with the other children.

She herself stated that her only fear was from snakes.

She is very kind, never complaining, she loves music, she learns everything really fast. She sits and plays for hours, quietly.

She is very sweet with her sister, embraces her, kisses her. She is also very fond of her mother. Cautious, obedient, very easy to deal with.

Since the birth of her sister, she scratches her ear until it starts bleeding. She digs in with her nails deeply in her ear and then goes to her parents and everyone else to show how she has bled. “She has her hands full of blood and wanted to show it to everyone” her mother says. 

She says that now she has a new name, she called herself Katia.

Katia is a mermaid, has a tail and lives under the sea.

She has to wash her hands every time before she has to touch her sister.

Her mother never asked her to do it, but she wants to. 

After some time, she washed her hands every single hour. “She cannot stop anymore to wash her hands”.

She says that she is ugly. “My sister is beautiful, but I am ugly.”

She wants to please her friends at school. She wants to do their homework but don’t do her own.

She was treated with Lac can. with single doses, high potencies, in a period of two years and got much better. Her first change I perceived was that she started to write down her own name. And of course, she stops hurting herself and was clinically free of symptoms.

But I remembered this case and used it as an example of when and which are Lac can’s first perceptions of reality. It seems that the main problem is related to herself, his first perverted sensation belongs to herself.

Woke at daylight feeling that she is a loathsome, horrible mass of disease (while the breasts were affected); could not bear to look at any portion of her body, not even hands, as it intensified feeling of disgust and horror; could not bear to have any one part of her body touch another, had to keep even fingers apart; felt that if she could not in some way get out of her body, she should soon become crazy; could not think of anything but her own condition ; feels weak, and nerves thoroughly out of order.

Imagines to be dirty. 

My little patient wanted to be someone else. She wanted to change her name; she wanted to be a mermaid. Lac can. is very unhappy with herself. She didn’t trust herself and she didn’t like herself.

She believes that she is incompetent and has no much intellectual power, up to the point when she fully disbelieves of herself.

Depression of spirits, doubts her ability and success, thinks she will have heart disease and die of it. 

Fears she will become unable to perform her duties. 

Is impressed with the idea that all she says is a lie; it seems to be very difficult to speak the truth, but continually distrusts things; when reading anything she rapidly changes the meaning, omitting or adding things.

Kent: She is impressed with the idea that all she says is not so, thinks everything she says is a lie, as if there is no reality in the things that be.

My little patient wanted to tear her ears with her nails, and this is probably a symptom frequent in this remedy. Lac can. thinks about it, to trespass herself with a knife. A continuous thought that kept coming to the prover’s mind. Her extreme aversion to herself can be exemplified with this symptom:

When paroxysms of intense nervousness come on, feels like tearing off her clothes; takes off her rings; cannot bear anything to touch her, especially over left ovarian region, from which she frequently lifts bed clothes.

On lying down either by day or night begins to think how horrible it would be if a very sharp pain, like a knife, should go through her, and thought of it causes great mental distress.

No desire to live.

From the environment, Lac can have one main delusion: snakes, vermin and insects are all crawling outside and inside her. My little patient was afraid of snakes, she stated it by herself. Where does it fit in the whole picture?

Sensation or delusion as if surrounded by myriads of snakes, some running like lightning up and down inside of skin; some that are inside feel long and thin; fears to put her feet on floor, lest she should tread on them and make them squirm and wind around her legs; is afraid to look behind her, for fear that she will see snakes there, does not dream of them and is seldom troubled with them after dark; on going to bed she was afraid to shut her eyes for fear that a large snake, the size of her arm, would hit her in the face. 

Worries herself lest pimples which appear during menses will prove to be little snakes, and twine and twist around each other. 

Sits and looks under chairs, table, sofa and everything in room, expecting yet dreading to see some terrible monster creep forth and feeling all the time, that, if it does, it will drive her raving mad; she is not afraid in dark, it is only in light where she can imagine that she can see them. 

As if an insect was crawling on shoulders, neck and hands.

Lac can.if feeling herself  becoming sick and rotten. She is a mass of disease. When looking to herself, she imagines herself getting sick and that her body is decaying. She must get rid of her own body, otherwise she will go mad. 

Woke at daylight feeling that she is a loathsome, horrible mass of disease (while the breasts were affected); could not bear to look at any portion of her body, not even hands, as it intensified feeling of disgust and horror; could not bear to have any one part of her body touch another, had to keep even fingers apart; felt that if she could not in some way get out ofher body, she should soon become crazy; could not think of anything but her own condition ; feels weak, and nerves thoroughly out of order.

Lac can believe that is about to becoming sick. The prover even understands each of his new symptoms as a new disease, forgetting that she was under the action of a remedy.

Every time a symptom appears she feels very confident that it is not attributable to medicine, but that it is some settled disease.

Fear of disease; of consumption; of heart disease.

Altogether with her sensation of becoming incurable sick, there is this sensation: She has no friends, and her life is meaningless.

Despondent, hopeless; thinks her disease incurable; has not a friend living; nothing worth living for; could weep at any moment.

My little patient’s mother suggests that her little girl was a very kind and lovely child, obedient, happy, and solicitous to everyone. That her daughter´s only ailments were her getting sick from time to time. The Lac can. patient hides her feelings and her despair. It was only under some light pressure and my questions for more details that her mother told me that she was hurting herself, that she was showing some symptoms pointing to a more serious mental condition - a compulsive disorder - hurting herself and washing her hands endlessly. 

Lac can. will be someone that will “move on”, even at the brink of collapse.

Kent: Although the patient has all these strange feelings, yet she goes around all day about her business, and no one knows them unless she confesses them. 

Sees faces before her eyes, < in dark; the face that haunts her most is one that she has really seen. 

Sees big eyes and creeping things. θ Diphtheria. 

Wakes distressed, obliged to rise and to occupy herself in some manner; fears she will be crazy.

Sensation as if she was going deranged, when sitting still and thinking, sometimes she has most horrible sights presented to her mental vision (not always snakes), feels horribly afraid that they will take objective form and show themselves to her natural eye. 

Kent: One or two provers had many symptoms, and so not all are reliable; but this remedy so intensifies the imagination and senses that it would be easy for them to imagine symptoms, and that itself is suggestive. Full of imaginations and harassing, tormenting thoughts.

Wandering features in the mental sphere, wandering and alternating states. Cannot collect the thoughts. She wants to leave everything as soon as it is commenced, a condition of irresolution common to quite a number of remedies. 

Where lives the Lac can. patient? Where is she?

There’s this frightening image at his/her side: The Lac can. patient believes been encircled by snakes, insects and vermin. The world is not a safe place.

Snakes and insects might be poisonous beings and may bite Lac can. Another idea should be associate as a follow up to this threat: Lac can. is about to get sick, as will be everyone who was bitten by a poisonous snake. The Lac can. patient imagine one’s flesh decomposing, becoming a “mass of disease” as it may happens to someone bitten by a poisonous snake. Next step, in this chain of events: insanity is taking over the Lac can. patient. The impression of becoming insane is only a further reflection related to one´s fears and images coming from her altered perception of his surroundings. Lac can. is living daily with these sensations – of getting sick and rotting, altogether with all those images of snakes, vermin and insects all over her body, plus dark faces during the night.

It’s easy to understand her impressions and fears of insanity. Anyone with those sensations of herself - of getting sick and rotting altogether with all those sensations of snakes, vermin and insects all over her body, and being friendless and having a meaningless living - that are following our patient, would have this feeling of becoming insane. 

Another group of important symptoms are related to her personal value as a person. She feels as a “mass of disease, dirty, repugnant – meaning she is someone not to be loved. 

This complex group of impressions about the world and about one self is what Lac can. is carrying inside,  don’t matter how the patient really looks. When looking inside searching for support and self-confidence, Lac can. faces this impression, stored in his mind: she is a dirt mass of disease, she will becoming sick at any moment. If she looks aside, snakes and poisonous insects are prone to jump on her. 

How can someone be living with that self-image, how can someone feels the right of being loved?  This is the mind set of Lac can., this is what is before her eyes: From one side, there is this violent and dangerous world, disguised as a dangerous jungle and there’s nothing within herself that she can count on. With respect to her inter-relational life, she is someone to be avoided, she is dirty, prone to get sick to the point of becoming a mass of disease.

Groups in Lac caninum

Symptoms from Henry Allen, Hering & Kent

                                         Dr. Claudio C. Araujo M.D., F.F.Hom. (Lon.)

With the Environment

Snakes

Sensation or delusion as if surrounded by myriads of snakes, some running like lightning up and down inside of skin; some that are inside feel long and thin; fears to put her feet on floor, lest she should tread on them and make them squirm and wind around her legs; is afraid to look behind her, for fear that she will see snakes there, does not dream of them and is seldom troubled with them after dark; on going to bed she was afraid to shut her eyes for fear that a large snake, the size of her arm, would hit her in the face.

Worries herself lest pimples which appear during menses will prove to be little snakes, and twine and twist around each other.

After menses, imagines all sorts of things about snakes. 

Wakes at night with a sensation that she was lying on a large snake.

Dreamed a large snake was in bed. θ Tonsillitis. 

Insects, monsters, spiders, et cetera

Sits and looks under chairs, table, sofa and everything in room, expecting yet dreading to see some terrible monster creep forth and feeling all the time, that, if it does, it will drive her raving mad; she is not afraid in dark, it is only in light where she can imagine that she can see them.

Sensation as if she were going deranged, when sitting still and thinking, sometimes she has most horrible sights presented by her mental vision (not always snakes), feels horribly afraid that they will take objective form and show themselves to her natural eye.

Imagines she sees spiders. θ Diphtheria.

Frequent sensation of a film before eyes, with vertigo, and while thus suffering would see a small dark object, like a mouse or bird, coming up to her left.

While looking at an object, appears to see just beyond or out of axis of vision, an object passing across field of sight; but on adjusting eye to see it, is gone; it always appears as a small object, like a rat or bird, sometimes on floor, at others in air.

Sees faces before her eyes, < in dark; the face that haunts her most is one that she has really seen.

Sees big eyes and creeping things. θ Diphtheria.

As if an insect was crawling on shoulders, neck and hands.

Work

No inclination for least exertion, would like to do nothing but sleep; much lassitude.

When walking seems to be walking on air; when lying does not seem to touch bed. Suffering from very unpleasant nervous symptoms; not in low spirits, but weak, and nerves so thoroughly out of order that she cannot bear one finger to touch the other, and often feels as though she should lose use of her limbs; sensation as if throat was closing, sensation is between throat and nose; feels as if something in throat was either enlarged or relaxed, and has a desire to keep mouth open; talking difficult; disposition to talk through nose; sometimes cannot swallow, because there seems to be a kind of muscular contraction in throat; sleep restless, frequently wakes with sick headache, which seems to commence at nape; wakes with severe pain at lower part of back; pain leaves when about work a short time, does not return until next morning ; nerves very much overwrought, afraid of being unable to perform duties. θ Nervous affection.

Kent: Although the patient has all these strange feelings, yet she goes around all day about her business, and no one knows them unless she confesses them. 

Humor

Fits of weeping two or three times a day. θ Parenchymatous metritis.

Sleepless and crying continually. 

When paroxysms of intense nervousness come on, feels like tearing off her clothes; takes off her rings; cannot bear anything to touch her, especially over left ovarian region, from which she frequently lifts bed clothes.

Attacks of rage, cursing and swearing at slightest provocation (Lil., Nit. ac.) ; intense ugliness ; hateful.

Very cross and irritable only while headache lasts.

When awake, very irritable and cries constantly. 

Exceedingly nervous and irritable. θ Parenchymatous metritis.

Easily excited. θ Parenchymatous metritis. 

Too excited to allow examination of throat. 

Feels weak, and nerves so thoroughly out of order, that she cannot bear one finger to touch another. θ Nervous throat affection. 

Very easily startled. θ Parenchymatous metritis.

Chronic "blue" condition; everything seems so dark that it can grow no darker. Gloomy feelings, < as headache gets worse. θ Parenchymatous metritis.

Sleep prevented by being very cold for one hour after retiring, with great nervousness. 

Very restless all night; could not keep clothes over her.

Restless sleep at night, bad dreams. θ Metritis.

With Oneself

Is impressed with the idea that all she says is a lie; it seems to be very difficult to speak the truth, but continually distrusts things; when reading anything she rapidly changes the meaning, omitting or adding things.

Depression of spirits, doubts her ability and success, thinks she will have heart disease and die of it.

Fears she will become unable to perform her duties.

Woke at daylight feeling that she is a loathsome, horrible mass of disease (while the breasts were affected); could not bear to look at any portion of her body, not even hands, as it intensified feeling of disgust and horror; could not bear to have any one part of her body touch another, had to keep even fingers apart (cannot bear one foot to touch the other, Lac f.) ; felt that if she could not in some way get out of her body, she should soon become crazy ; could not think of anything but her own condition ; feels weak, and nerves thoroughly out of order.

Imagines to be dirty. 

Every time a symptom appears she feels very confident that it is not attributable to medicine, but that it is some settled disease. 

On lying down either by day or night begins to think how horrible it would be if a very sharp pain, like a knife, should go through her, and thought of it causes great mental distress. 

No desire to live.

Fear

Fear of death, with anxious expression of countenance.

Fear of becoming insane.

Has great fear of falling down stairs at times.

Fear of disease; of consumption; of heart disease.

Very nervous; constant dread; a feeling as if she was going to become unconscious. θ Diphtheria.

Despondent, hopeless; thinks her disease incurable; has not a friend living; nothing worth living for; could weep at any moment.

Cannot bear to be left alone for an instant. θ Diphtheria.

Fear of insanity

After inhaling gas for extraction of teeth, very strange sensation in head (such as he felt when going off under gas); sometimes imagines heart or breathing are going to stop, or otherwise frightens himself, and this makes heartbeat violently; occasionally very depressed, and fancies he is going out of his mind.

Wakes distressed, and obliged to rise and occupy herself in some manner; fears she will be crazy. θ Parenchymatous metritis.

Wakes distressed, and obliged to rise and occupy herself in some manner; fears she will be crazy.

Sensation as if she was going deranged, when sitting still and thinking; sometimes she has most horrible sights presented to her mental vision (not always snakes), feels horribly afraid that they will take objective form and show themselves to her natural eye.

With the Others

Thinks that she is looked down upon by every one; that she is of no importance in life and feels insulted thereat.

Intense ugliness and hatefulness; writes to her best friends all sorts of mean and contemptible things.

 

Imagines that he wears someone else's nose.

Dreams of going on a journey, and was separated from party, and had to walk a long distance, and arrived at station just in time to see train start off.

Child cries and screams all the time, especially at night, and will not be pacified in any way. 

Maud R., aged 10, a light brunette, parents healthy, while playing one and a half years before, fell forward and hurt her chest. Nothing was thought of it at the time, but when brought to me she was pale, emaciated, capricious with no desire to play.

Sleep disturbed by frightful dreams, during the day piteously begs her mother to take her, she is so afraid. She feels as though snakes were on her back. In response to advice, Lac can. 50m., one dose dry on her tongue, was given, and in 24 hours the child be came more lively and cheerful, and very soon all abnormal sensations disappeared and never returned.- E. T. Balch, Hom. Phys.

Child partially paralyzed after diphtheria; could not walk; pain all over, cough, aphonia, loss of appetite, emaciation.

Female Sexuality/Lactation

Sexual organs extremely excited; very much < from the slightest touch, as putting the hand on the breast, or from the pressure of vulva when sitting, or the slight friction caused by walking.

Loss of milk while nursing, without known cause. 

Serviceable in almost all cases where it is required to dry up milk.

Given for an ulcerated throat to a nursing woman, it cured throat and nearly dried up milk.

Intellectual

Very forgetful; in writing, uses too many words or not the right ones; very nervous. 
Omits final letter or letters of a word, when writing; in speaking substitutes name of object seen, instead of object thought of.

Very absentminded; makes purchases and walks off without them; goes to post a letter, brings it home in her hand. 

Cannot collect her thoughts, confused feeling.

Very restless; cannot concentrate her thoughts or mind to read; wants to leave everything as soon as it is commenced.

Finds it very difficult to read understandingly anything requiring mental effort.

In writing, uses too many words or not the right ones; omits final letter or letters in a word ; cannot concentrate the mind to read or study ; very nervous

Very forgetful; in writing, uses too many words or not the right ones; very nervous.

Cannot remember what she reads but can remember other things.

Generals

For nervous, restless, highly sensitive organisms:

Symptoms erratic, pains constantly flying from one part to another; changing from side to side every few hours or days.

Eyes sensitive to light. θ Rheumatism.

Must have light, yet is intolerant of sunlight. θ Diphtheria. 

Tendency in retina to retain impression of objects, especially of colors; or somewhat of object last looked at is projected into next.


Heaviness, weakness, general languor. θ After diphtheria. 


Profound depression of vitality. θ Diphtheria. 


General weakness and prostration very marked.

Great exhaustion, with "poisoned" feeling. θ Diphtheria.

Profound prostration, to extend of refusing to make effort to take a dose of medicine. θ Diphtheria. 

In morning so much prostrated that she could not turn in bed; so tired. θ Diphtheria. 


Sinking spells every morning, attended with great nervousness. θ Parenchymatous metritis. 

Often feels as if she would lose use of limbs. θ Nervous throat affection.

Kent: One or two provers had many symptoms, and so not all are reliable; but this remedy so intensifies the imaginationand senses that it would be easy for them to imagine symptoms, and that itself is suggestive. Full of imaginations and harassing, tormenting thoughts.

Wandering features in the mental sphere, wandering and alternating states. Cannot collect the thoughts. She wants to leave everything as soon as it is commenced, a condition of irresolution common to quite a number of remedies. She is impressed with the idea that all she says is not so, thinks everything she says is a lie, as if there is no reality in the things that be.

Every time a symptom appears she thinks it is a settled disease fear and anxiety that some horrible disease has come upon her, a delusion that she was suppurating and in a loathsome state; infested with snakes.

Horrible sights are presented to the mental vision, nor always makes, and she fears the objects will take form and present themselves to her eyes. Imagines he wears someone else's nose. Imagines she is not herself and her properties not her own. Imagines she sees spiders, snakes, vermin. She cannot bear to be alone. 

This is on the borderland of insanity or delirium.

Although the patient has all these strange feelings, yet she goes around all day about her business, and no one knows them unless she confesses them. Chronic sadness, everything so dark; irritable, ugly, hateful. Full of vertigo, but it is a sensorial symptom, unusually refined; not the vulgar swaying or tossing or feeling as if things were going round. It affects the whole body, as if she were swimming or floating in the air, spirit-like.