Naja is one of the snake poison remedies which to me is one of the most important. It is best potentized from the pure cobra venom coming from India. It might be easily confused with Lachesis unless one were to read it up in Roberts Study of Remedies by Comparison. About all I will do here is to endeavor to give you highlights of their differences in my comments as I go along.
Any of our grand Materia Medicas have a write-up that is worth reading and it would save me putting you to sleep with boreful repetition. Naja is distinctly left-sided while Lachesis is left to right. Naja has unbearable heat sensations but not always do you get the “hot iron” sensation so often mentioned in the books.
I was amazed to discover that Naja is suicidal as well as Aurum and a few others. Naja is very forgetful and absent minded; makes himself wretched brooding over imaginary wrongs and misfortunes; irresolute. There is anxiety about his sexual inabilities even though the desires is there. He is moved to tears by slight emotions, as if everything were done wrong and could not be rectified, with in increased perception of what ought to do and an uncontrollable inclination not to do it, causing restlessness. Stupid, confused feeling. Aggravated by brandy or stimulants and mental exertion.
Eyes are fixed and staring with loss of sense of vision. This could be back of cataracts. Eyes require constant cleaning with the lids; frequent prickling; vision confused on looking at small print, has to rub eyes and look at it closely. Tired feeling on looking at a book. Nose and Throat. This is a great hay ever remedy, especially worse in July and August, when accompanied with asthma. The secretions are acrid, thin and watery with stuffing of nose. Intense sneezing which improves the breathing. Left-sided sore throats worse from constriction about the external throat. Face pale, the and haggard similar to the Hippocratic faces of Arsenicum album.
Mouth wide open. Great dryness of the mouth especially on waking (Lachesis does not have this).Dryness of mouth and throat have disappeared under the exhibition of Lachesis in patients requiring this remedy.-ED. Insipid, metallic taste.
Stomach. Eructations, uneasy disagreeable feeling in stomach as from indigestion; pressure as from stones after a meal (Naja could be overlooked here as if only ranks one in Kent, but is very important when one considers it could be a reflex from a heart disorder). Some cases of angina pectoris can be manifested from the so-called acute indigestion angle. “The stomach is the alarm clock of the abdomen, often crying out so loudly that a heart condition would be overlooked.” The abdomen is as full of gas as Lycopodium.
Male Sexual Organs. Increased sexual desire. The peculiar distress lies in great desire but no physical power with depression of mind. Desire on going to bed with little physical power. Female Sexual Organs. Feels as if left ovary and heart are drawn together.
Heart, Respiration and Chest. Naja has many concomitant throat symptoms, as choking. Swallowing is difficult or impossible on account of the spasms of the esophagus. Patients choke easily on their own saliva and when drinking which throws them into a convulsive form of asthma. Respirations are full and labored difficult breathing with a characteristic gasping for breath. Cough with tightness and fullness in larynx. Cough with heart affections like Lachesis. Asthmatic constriction of chest which Lachesis does not have.
Cannot expand the lungs, followed by mucous expectoration. Most acute pain and oppression of the chest worse when lying on left side. I was amazed to find it contending with Phosphorus for first place. It is our remedy par excellence for asthma and cough associated with heart weakness. The pulse can be both rapid (120) or slow (32) and irregular in rhythm and force, weak and thready, scarcely perceptible. Feeling of depression and uneasiness about the heart.
Fluttering and palpitation of the heat (what a fine remedy as an intercurrent in old dropsical cases due to a broken down heart where the usual remedies fail to bring results). A weak heart stands in the way of the action of many of our remedies and therefore recovery is slow and incomplete E.K.G. shows low blood pressure and low voltage in functional cases early. It has anginal pains extending to the nape of the neck and upwards to the root of the neck.
Extremities. Sudden prostration of strength especially k in lower limbs; shifting rheumatism. Sudden weakness when walking. Staggering when walking.
Generals. Great languor and fatigue. The need for this remedy might be the obscure basis of that tired feeling one hears so many patients complain of. Depression of both mental and physical powers. Swelling of body (dropsy); gangrene. Better from walking in open air, like Pulsatilla, yet very sensitive to the cold, as well as that feeling of awful heat in the system. Patient moans and groans.
Sensation of wasting away. Inclination to lie in bed mornings; evidently a single nights rest is not enough for a tired heart, but several days and nights together would do. You will find these people need lots of sleep. They are forever yawning. They are worse in the morning after walking or after sleep, and apt to be confused with Lachesis, unless the fine points are compared. Great sleepiness; restless, disturbed sleep. On the other hand, there can be little inclination to sleep from an irritable brain.
Fever. Feels very uncomfortable with the heat. Body may be cold and collapsed. Heat with prostration. Head not and full of blood. Flushes of heat in the face. The remedy may be confused with Sulphur, Lachesis, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla and Arsenicum if a careful history, repertory and materia medica study is not done.
The late Dr.E. Wallace MacAdam once said that if a cough lasts a month even under homoeopathic treatment look out for whooping cough, foreign substance (dust, tobacco, tooth in bronchus) weak heart, kidney trouble, bronchiectasis and emphysema. If these are ruled out, Bacillinum 200., one dose, is usually effective. Here the weak heart could be covered by Naja if other symptoms correlated. I have seen it take old, tired, worn out chronics (men who have worked hard all their lives, men with broken down hearts) and literally transform them into new individuals.
One drives ones car into the garage for a motor tune-up; why not tune up your more precious motor, your heart, with Naja. I am convinced that hard work within reason never hurt anybody,. If hurts only the persons who have hearts that are weak and susceptible, that succumb to an early, wearing pathological process. So for that next difficult case that does not respond to the usual well-indicated remedies, do not overlook Naja tripudians.
Greensfork, Indiana.
DISCUSSION
DR. DONALD. G. GLADISH (Glenview, Ill.): I was very much interested in this composition about Naja. Dr. Bond has covered the subject very completely. I have never used Naja, I think my favorite remedy is Lachesis. If I have any doubt, I give them Lachesis.
I am glad to know about Naja, and that it may work when Lachesis does not. I think it is a very interesting materia medica presentation.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON (Glenview, Ill): Naja is one remedy not often indicated. I think probably some of you will not agree with me. I use it only now and then; but, nevertheless, I think many homoeopaths, and some of those that are pretty well versed in materia medica, mistake it for Lachesis, Certainly the doctor has shown there are many symptoms in common, but he has given some which help to differentiate it. For instance, the Naja case suddenly rises up and gasps for breath, like a fish out of water, where the Lachesis case may have terrible dyspnoea, but not the wide open, gaping aspect, and staring eyes, that Naja has.
The difference is pretty well distinguished, too, as the doctor has stated. There is question of the chest, and when the dyspnoea has more of a sense of suppression in the chest after sleep, Naja ought to be studied; whereas, if it is around the neck or above, it is Lachesis.
He also illustrated one point which is rather important to our students of materia medica, and that is to realize that some of those symptoms given in Kent, or maybe in the Materia Medica, call for the lowest degree, an are often very useful, and sometimes are overlooked. We go through a rubric in a hurry and pick out the heavy type, and maybe the italics, and in the center of the whole thing there is one little symptom which my be marked only in common type.
As an illustration, I will tell you of one case, which has no relation whatsoever to the paper, except in this respect: where I park my car on the late front in Chicago, there is a six- foot policeman-a big, tall, slender fellow. I used to talk to him occasionally and one day, a cold March day, with the wind blowing, he come over flapping his arms, and said, “Doc, you know this wind is just killing me. I have a pain in this arm here, and I have had it for several months, and it starts in the chest, and goes down that arm, like that, and the funny thing is, I take half a glass of orange juice, and it passes away.”
