Mirza Tahir Ahmad James Tyler Kent
Lac Defloratum is said to have been prepared from skimmed milk. I do not agree with this statement. I believe that the milk will still have some fat particles in spite of being apparently skimmed.
The milk definitely becomes dilute after the removal of fat, but, a little bit of fat must remain. Based on the homoeopathic view, if the medicine is prepared from ordinary milk, it should have the same features as that prepared from skimmed milk because of the residual amount of fat in it.
Lac Defloratum is very useful in children who are allergic to milk. They cannot digest milk and instead they develop diarrhoea. Most often, one dose of Lac Defloratum CM may prove effective, so much so that they will not get the allergy again. Sometimes, the allergy may partially remain, or it may not respond to the treatment after some time.
Lac Defloratum is of a cold nature, while Lac Caninum is of a hot nature. The patient of Lac Defloratum is very cool minded. He feels cold even while clad in warm clothing in hot weather. Blowing lightly on the face will make him feel cold. This kind of strong feeling for the cold is different from that associated with Arnica, Lachesis and Psorinum. The patient feels extremely cold all over. He is sensitive to the even the draft of cold air and will start suffering from rheumatic symptoms. He hurts all over the body, but more so over the head. This pain is not the result of any infection but is rheumatic in nature. There is pain along the course of the nerves on the face and the head. If the patient feels extremely cold, Lac Defloratum must be kept in mind for his treatment.
The symptoms become relieved with warmth. However, the patient will never feel warm enough; he stays cold. The symptoms become relieved with rest and local pressure. The skin is very sensitive, as in many other homoeopathic remedies. The hypersensitivity of the skin is due to the irritability of the nerves, but in Lac Defloratum, it is due to the sensitivity towards the cold.
Lac Defloratum has mostly been overlooked in the treatment of diabetes, even though its singular use can cure the diabetic, if other symptoms of Lac Defloratum are also present. A single dose in high potency may cure the patient. I have seen diabetics getting better many times. Diabetes is not the kind of disease that must need continuous treatment for every patient. A suitable homoeopathic treatment can cure the diabetes completely, but in some patients the treatment may have to be continued. Some symptoms of diabetes may be present in a patient of Lac Defloratum even if he is not an established diabetic i.e. the frequent passage of thick urine and intense thirst.
Homoeopathic remedies are related to specific groups of diseases. Once the basic symptoms of a disease are taken care of, other diseases with similar group of symptoms may also be cured.
When a patient hates milk, or his symptoms become worse on taking milk, or he develops nausea, vomiting, headache, eructation and gas in the stomach etc; a single dose of Lac Defloratum CM can cure all these symptoms. At times, it may have to be repeated after a while. If two such doses, one after the other, do not benefit, it should be abandoned. If it is going to be effective, it is effective immediately, or not at all. When the first dose has offered some relief but the symptoms have recurred, a second dose may be tried but no more.
The symptom complex of Lac Defloratum also includes the aftereffects of malaria, such as lack of blood (anaemia), swelling (oedema), symptoms of diabetes and weakness of the heart etc. Instead of trying to remember all the symptoms, one must remember that the nature of this remedy is very cold. The skin is very sensitive to cold. Whenever there is hypersensitivity to cold, and any of the symptoms pertaining to the heart, malaria or diabetes appear, then Lac Defloratum will most probably be found more useful in the treatment of all these diseases as well.
I have no personal experience of using Lac Defloratum for the treatment of heart problems, so I cannot say for sure as to what potency would be ideal. However, while dealing with the heart, the treatment should be started in low potencies. If the patient starts getting better, this should be repeated and the potency should gradually be increased. The heart responds in a very slow and steady way; therefore, only low potencies are safe.
The Lac Defloratum patient loses his memory and avoids intellectual work. This medicine is also useful in the treatment of fatty degeneration of the heart and the liver. This condition is commonly found in alcoholics but may be found in people who consume too much fat. Streaks of fat start depositing in the liver, which gradually increase with age. The affected part of the liver loses its function and cannot produce chemical secretions in the required amount. The usefulness of this remedy in the treatment of fatty degeneration shows that it dispels the bad effects of fatty disease.
A Lac Defloratum patient is usually very sad. He wishes to die and looks for a simple straightforward way to achieve it. He is not aggressive. He is sad, with no sign of explosion. He wants an easy way to die without much trouble. Perhaps the poet Ghalib was also of Lac Defloratum disposition. He said: “I wish somebody would sing to me in such a beautiful and enchanting way, with the voice having the speed and radiance of lightning so that I may die without any discomfort”. What a lovely death! Alas, he did not get such a singer to solve his problem.
The patient of Lac Defloratum feels dizzy even on raising his arm. His dizziness is like that of Conium. In Conium, the patient feels dizzy on lying down or closing his eyes, while the bed spins around him. In Lac Defloratum too, the situation is somewhat similar, while in Lac Caninum, the patient feels dizzy while walking, and he finds the entire world swinging around him. He finds himself in a fantasyland. Similarily a patient of Cannabis has his own imaginary world, in which he feels like he is flying or floating in the air. Its prominent sign is that perception of the passage of time is affected. Sometimes the passage of time seems to flow rapidly, while in the state of grief and sorrow, time stands still for him. There is a kind of strange situation in Lac Defloratum time is prolonged with the feeling of joy, whereas normally, a good time passes away rapidly. The mind of a Lac Defloratum patient is not focused on something in particular but goes astray. He trusts nothing.
In Lac Defloratum there is one particular characteristic that the women suffer from headache before and after the periods. The headache occupies the nape of the neck, the forehead and the temples. Yellowish offensive leucorrhoeal discharge, before and after the periods, is also a solid sign of Lac Defloratum. Once both these symptoms are present, the treatment becomes very easy. Lac Defloratum is also useful in the treatment of vomiting during pregnancy.
When a female patient with a cold body who has a tendency towards being overweight develops diabetes, Lac Defloratum may be a possible treatment for her. If a woman delivers an overweight child, while on normal food intake, it may very well be that her diabetes may be passed on to the child. If she is of a cold constitution, and her body remains cold then Lac Defloratum can offer a complete cure. Therefore, it must be used without any delay as soon as the diagnosis is made. Obese ladies with the feeling of cold all over and who are unable to digest milk will find this medicine very useful. It will also cure the vomiting during pregnancy in any woman who does not have a natural distaste for milk, but in pregnancy is unable to digest it. All the symptoms pertaining to the stomach dysfunctions result from the inability to digest milk. If the indigestion is due to not being able to digest milk or due to fatty food, the commonly used remedy is Pulsatilla. The nature of Pulsatilla is very hot, while that of Lac Defloratum is very cold and this is the main distinguishing factor between the two.
A patient of Lac Defloratum has extreme photophobia. He feels a gritty sensation in the eyes. The vision is blurred.
A patient of Lac Defloratum grinds his teeth at night. The grinding of the teeth may also be due to an infestation with worms or due to the swelling of the gums. Similarly, stomach upset and the indigestibility of the milk can also result in grinding of the teeth even in the absence of worm infestation. These three possibilities must be kept in mind. In the presence of worms, the child develops a severe itch over the nose, and the margins of the nose as well as the margins of the lips become yellowish. The second symptom is that the patient feels very hungry. Both these symptoms can be best treated with Cina, while Sabadilla is also very useful.
The third symptom of Lac Defloratum is nausea, however there is no vomiting, except very rarely. In this respect, it is somewhat similar to Ipecac but in Ipecac the vomiting is relatively more frequent.
The constipation in a patient of Lac Defloratum is very severe; even more severe than in Silicea. Sometimes straining may lead to rupture of the veins but the stools are not passed. Such patients can develop piles or hernia.
In Lac Defloratum, the patient passes urine freely, and has a headache, like Gelsemium. Gelsemium also is of a cold nature, but the difference between Gelsemium and Lac Defloratum is that in Gelsemium there is no thirst at all while in Lac Defloratum there is severe thirst. In Lac Defloratum, the urine is abundant and light yellow in colour, but it may also be thick and darkish in colour indicating that albumin is being passed. Lac Defloratum will be found very useful in treating this condition if other symptoms of Lac Defloratum are also present.
A strange sign of Lac Defloratum is that when exposed to extreme cold, there is loss of control over passing urine. This is more common in women than in men. There is incontinence. The small muscles (sphincters) become insensitive due to exposure to the cold and become temporarily non-functional. A similar situation occurs in Causticum but there, it is due to permanent paralysis. Gradually worsening incontinence of the urine can also be found in Kali Carb. In Lac Defloratum, the condition is temporary. As soon as the exposure to cold is over, urination comes under voluntary control.
Lac Defloratum is also useful in the treatment of backache associated with menstruation. While menstruating, the patient happens to dip her hands in extremely cold water, the periods will cease immediately, and some other ailment may ensue. Therefore, such ladies had better take the precaution of refraining from using very cold water during their periods.
Lac Defloratum is also useful in the treatment of heart disease especially the cardiac asthma in which the heart is weak and there is a shortness of breath. On breathing, the lungs press on the heart. Similarly, this symptom is found in Spongia in its own form.
In a patient of Lac Defloratum, only the fingers may be cold rather than the whole hand and will not warm up at all. The one exceptional situation is that its headache gets better only in the cold, even though the patient is already feeling extremely cold, like in Phosphorus. But the Phosphorus patient would want to protect himself with warm clothing except for his head, which he would like to keep cold. Nothing but only the cold can offer him relief. Other symptoms of Phosphorus are quite different from Lac Defloratum.
Potency: 30 to CM
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
LAC VACCINUM DEFLORATUM
The untrained mind naturally rebels at the idea of giving skimmed milk to sick people as a remedy, but when potentized like any other substance it becomes one of the most useful remedies.
Every physician has seen a few cases in his practice; men, women and children who cannot drink milk. They say they are made sick by drinking or using milk, and that milk is poison to them.
It is the work of the true physician to study cases and ascertain in each case what symptoms are observed after taking milk. These symptoms constitute a proving of it and it is the best kind of a proving as it is produced upon sensitive persons.
The writer has made it his duty to study each and every one of these cases until the image of the sickness produced by, milk has dawned upon him both from the individual symptoms and from a collective view.
Much can be learned by meditating upon the milk constitution some may think there is a difference of importance between milk skimmed and new milk, but for all practical purposes the skimmed milk is sufficient and cures the oversensitiveness to milk, if used in a high potency. It is useless in low potency.
It is a useful remedy as it may demonstrate to the unbeliever the wonderful power of the high potency. It has aggravation during the whole twenty-four hours; some cases manifest symptoms only during, the daytime, and amelioration comes with the going down of the sun - but this is uncommon.
The chronic milk subject is very cold and bloodless and cannot get warm even in a warm room and by warm clothing; she is so chilly and so sensitive to cold that she feels the air blowing on her in the room, as if she were fanned, even where there is no possible draft and others feel the room to be very warm.
She is very sensitive to wet weather. She is subject to neuralgic and rheumatic pains all over the body but more especially in the head. The pain in the head is better from cold, applications, but the pains elsewhere are better from heat. The sufferings are all worse by motion and better by rest; pains are better by pressure.
The bones are sore to touch. Great lassitude and even weakness, can endure no exertion. There is marked restlessness and she is unable to hold up after loss of sleep; extreme weariness from a short walk.
She looks and acts as though she had been suffering long or as if she were going into a decline. The skin all over the body is violently sensitive to cold objects and touch of cold sponge. There is marked periodicity in the nature of the remedy, most noticed in the recurrent headaches. This remedy has had a reputation for curing diabetes and this is not to be wondered at when it is known to have cured the weakness, anaemia and copious, watery urine and great thirst; also copious, dense urine.
Many invalids cured by this remedy have appeared to the writer much like the typical diabetic patient; but it can cure only where the peculiar symptoms agree. It will not cure simply when the common symptoms are present.
Let all observers faithfully and minutely study all patients who have an aversion to milk; all who have diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, sick headaches, eructations, foul stomach after drinking milk and in time the general idea of the milk sickness will be known.
It is a most useful and frequently needed remedy for infants and children who cannot take milk, not always as their specific remedy, but as one of the remedies that will help many infants to grow up some grow morbidly fat and others become lean when fed on milk.
It has been useful in dropsy from weak heart; from liver complaints and from suppressed malaria. People who drink milk habitually become anemic and catarrhal; fatty degeneration of muscles, of heart and liver. Malassimilation, is the most marked feature of milk poison.
The pains become violent in many parts; in the spinal cord; in eyeballs; in supra-orbital nerves; in forehead and through the head; in the stomach; in lower part of the abdomen. Many people are made sick by milk who use cream with safety and delight.
Lac defloratum is often the remedy for such patients and after a careful examination, their symptoms appear like the proving of skimmed milk.
Mind: Loss of memory, listlessness and aversion to mental work; sadness, desires death and meditates upon the easiest method of self-destruction; sadness with weeping and palpitation; aversion to seeing and talking to people; weakness and vacillating mind. He is sure he is going to die. She imagines that all her friends will die and, that she must go to a convent; a horror when in a small closet lest the door will be closed and she will suffocate.
She becomes faint and dizzy when raising her hands high to thread her needle; vertigo on turning in bed; on moving the head from the pillow; on opening the eyes when lying; in the act of lying down. Faintness and nausea when stepping upon the floor in the morning. Vertigo when reaching up with the hands; tendency to fall to the right when standing or walking.
Head: In sickly, pale, careworn women, when the headache is over the eyes and through the frontal region and the pain is violent; is better from, pressure and tight binding up, is better lying down in a dark room; is better from cold applications; is better from perfect rest; is worse from least motion, worse from light, noise, and conversation; when the headache comes on from drinking milk and is attended with copious, pale urine; with nausea and vomiting of food, mucus and bile.
Violent pain in occiput, vertex and sides of the head; marked pulsation in the head with all headaches; during the headaches the face is pale and cold. There is also marked congestion with heat of the head and flushed face; the headache often comes with marked periodicity though sometimes not with regularity. Weekly headaches are the most common.
Great soreness all over the head on jarring or coughing; sensation as if top of head was lifted off; pain first in the forehead extending to occiput, making her nearly frantic. Intense headache in forehead and through head, worse in vertex, afterwards head felt bruised.
With all the frontal headaches there is strong pulsation in temples. It has cured many violent, periodical, sick-headaches, that have been present since childhood and said to be inherited. During these violent headaches there is sometimes a sensation as though the head were expanding; it has cured headaches that come before and after menses. Morning sickness during pregnancy.
Eyes: Dim vision before the headaches; can only see light, not objects sensation as if eyes were full of stones; extreme photophobia; dull pain in eyes, worse in left, even while lids are closed; better by cold applications, better by closing eyes, in a dark room; drawing pain in eyes when reading, could only read a few minutes at a time; great pain in eyes on first going into the light; pain in and above eyes, worse by heat and motion. Lids feel heavy, sleepy and dry. Pain most marked over left eye with lachrymation.
Painful pressure or tightness at the root of the nose.
Face: Deathly paleness of the face; wasted, thin and excessively sallow, with dark stains beneath the eyes. Sallow complexion with eczema. Flushes of heat in left side of face; sensation as if flesh was off the bones of the face, and edges were separated and sticking out.
Grinding teeth during sleep, with pain in stomach and head, with vomiting.
Taste insipid, sour; month dry; breath offensive; mouth clammy and frothy, especially during conversation.
Globus hystericus; sore throat, worse when swallowing. The mucous membrane of the throat is very pale.
Stomach: Entire loss of appetite; great thirst for large quantities of water eructations empty or sour; distension from gas; nausea after drinking cold water in the evening, worse after lying down; nausea from a recumbent position or from motion or on rising in the morning; deathly nausea, but cannot vomit, with groans and cries of great distress; great restlessness and sensation of coldness although the skin was hot and pulse normal.
Vomiting, first of undigested food intensely acid, then of bitter water and, lastly, of a brownish clot which in water separated and looked like coffee grounds. Incessant vomiting which has no relation to her meals; vomiting of bile, with headaches; violent pain in stomach. It is a very useful remedy for vomiting in pregnancy in women who loath milk. Cramping in the stomach.
Chronic gastro-enteritis with chronic diarrhoea and vomiting; tenderness of abdomen; flatulence and distension. Heaviness and feeling of stone in abdomen. Severe pain across the umbilicus, with headache.
Chronic constipation where rectum seems paralyzed and injections and cathartics have failed; the stool is large, hard and difficult; after prolonged straining the stool recedes. It has cured after Silica failed. Constipation in very chilly patients; constipation with periodical headaches and vomiting, frequent but ineffectual urging to stool; diarrhoea from drinking milk.
Urines: Frequent scanty urination; profuse, pale, watery urine with headache; urine very dark, and thick; albuminous urine. It cured involuntary urinations when walking in cold air, or when riding on horseback. It cured a lack of sensation when the bladder was full.
Genitals: It cured a yellow-brown leucorrhoea, worse before and after menses it cured a profuse yellow leucorrhoea. Bearing down in ovarian region menses too. late and scanty; menses too late, pale and watery. Pain in back and ovarian region during menses; sudden suppression of menses after putting hands in cold water; pains all over, especially in head; when the milk is diminished or fails it is of great service. The breasts are dwindling.
Chest: Asthma with bloating of stomach; cardiac dyspnoea.
Short, dry cough; worse in a cold room or in cold air.
Soreness of chest with oppression; rheumatic pains in chest in cold, damp weather; tubercular deposits in apices of both lungs.
Pressure in the region of the heart with dyspnoea and a feeling that he must die; cutting as with a knife apex of the heart. Pulsation of the heart and flashes of heat in the left side of face and neck; palpitation from least exertion or excitement.
Heat up and down the back and across from shoulder to shoulder; extreme sensitiveness of back to cold sponge. Herpes on side and neck; itching and burning after scratching; hard pressive pain at fourth cervical vertebra; chills creeping along back between scapulae; intense burning pain in small of back and sacrum; constant pain in small of back.
Ends of fingers icy cold - rest of hand warm; numbness and loss of sensation over outer and anterior surface of thighs; pain pressing down sciatic nerve and heel; morning on rising, with nausea and faintness; weakness and aching in the swollen ankles. Skin thickened on edges of foot; feet cold as ice. Aching pains in wrists and ankles cold hands and feet during headache.
Great restlessness; extreme and protracted suffering from loss of sleep at night; sleepy all day; extreme insomnia.
Fever at 9 A.M., until morning; wakes in profuse sweat, which stains linen yellow. Hectic fever. Sensation as if sheets were damp.
The skin is so very sensitive to the touch of a cold hand or sponge that the prover could bathe only in very warm water. The skin is cold and pale and veins look blue and very prominent. Herpetic eruptions; itching of the skin; burning, after scratching.
by James Tyler Kent