Lac caninum

The idea of this paper on LAC CANINUM occured to me after observing in

some of my personal cases, the excellent results obtained when prescribed
for child sexual abuse. It is therefore my intention to present one of my
cases, followed by a short review of the remedy itself. I will then give my
own point of view of the way in which LAC CANINUM acts in situations
occuring after child rape. This will enable me to then give a brief survey of
all the remedies we can use in those difficult situations and which seem to
occur relatively frequently.
Key words: LAC CANINUM, child sexual abuse, alimentary symptoms,
Loutan and Murphy Repertories.
Personal clinical case
This case concerns a young girl A. , brought to me by her mother at the age of 6 , two years ago
now, for misbehaviour, strong introversion, school problems and everyday frequent onanism. She
also complained about anorexic behaviour. She then weighed 16 Kg for 1.10 m. She was not
abnormally thin, but her mother complained of difficult tastes and very small appetite for the
past two years, and a natural tendancy to over pepper all her food. ( MURPHY " Food desire,
pepper"; LAC CANINUM 2).
The mother has just separeted from the father, and as a result has had to move houses with the
child several times during the year . In addition she is very worried by this onanism and also the
anorexic tendancy of her daughter. The young girl during this first consultation does not say a
word. She gives the impression of being neglected, her hair is not tied back and hangs in the
front of her face. She seems prostrated. She looks fragile and thin and very scared.
I give her BUFO RANA 15CH and 30 CH and I send her with her mother to the psychatric
doctor with whom I work for psychotherapy.
This remedy has a very good effect on her onanism which disappears completely, and I see her
again a month later, more relaxed, I manage to speak a little to her and go further with my
questions.
In the meantime the school has phoned me because they were very worried about the girl's
attitude. Social research is started after an anonymous call complaining about her security
(french "green number"). The mother is unable to tell who she thinks may have used this SOS
children's line: neighbours, the father of the child.....
After a few meetings with the psychiatrist, the mother suggests the possibility that her child has
been abused by the father, and that it is one of the main reasons of their breaking up.
The little girl dreams often of snakes, she doesn't like tight clothes round her body, and spends
her time washing her hands because she has the sensation she is dirty ( "Dillusion dirty KENT
p LACC. 2 ,RU ")
I give her LAC CANINUM 9,12,15,30CH. I see her a month later, and she is quite transformed.
Her behaviour at school is totally different. She has put on weight, talks to me during the

consultation, and talks to me about her little friends at school.

Lately I have seen her a few times for prescriptions for speech therapy that she needs.
As I am writing this paper I have now 2 years of back- up on her case. But knowing her social
context I am certain I will have to see her in other difficulties. However I feel that even if I am
not sure that LAC CANINUM is her similimum, it has given her relief with regard to this
physical aggression she had to assume, and given her some balance for a while.
This case has given me the opportunity to link LAC CANINUM to ailments of child abuse.
We pediatricians are more and more frequently confronted with those situations. Being a duty
doctor in the children's emergency hospital in Marseille confirmed to me the frequence of those
disastrous situations.
So LAC CANINUM, as an ailment of child abuse , could be an extra remedy to add to the list
of the other medecines we know in our repertories. This is what I am going to try and
demonstrate in the following lines.
Principle keynotes of lac caninum
LAC CANINUM is bitch's milk . I will quote J. Lamothe, French pediatrician, who says that
one can consider the dog as a miserable and low type of creature . This of course can be
discussed if we think of the guide dogs for the blind , and also dogs used for life saving. It is
however, in general a subjected animal.
*LAC CANINUM presents an internal contradiction, they are patients whose body does the
contrary of their heart. This is typical of the abused situation. The patient LAC CANINUM lives
between two desires just as the dog lives a conflict between civilisation and instinct.
*LAC CANINUM also shows autodepreciation; the dog will never be equal to man : it is the
key note " contemptuous with himself".
We find with children who have been abused ,a humiliating situation as if they were kept on a
lead...
They tend not to react, they have no confidence in themselves , and they underestimate
themselves.
Let us now see the principal symptoms of LAC CANINUM.
Mental symptoms
According to F. VERMEULEN , LAC CANINUM is easly distracted, makes spelling mistakes,
starts things but does not take them to an end. The patient feels he has an uncurable disease. He
has no friends and for him life is not worth living, he cries all the time. He has visions of snakes ,
and has the dillusion of being surrounded by snakes. His imagination is turned often towards
horrid things like creepie-crawlies , or snakes. All symptoms for him are considered as real
uncurable diseases. He is frightened to be sick and to fall down the stairs. Children are irritable,
and hysterical. He is disgusted by his own body which he finds ugly. He is frightened to be on
his own, to die or to become mentally insane. CRAVES FOR COMPAGNY, AND HE IS
PETREFIED TO FAINT.
In fact LAC CANINUM has 4 basic mental symptoms and we find the four of them in child
rape situations.
1)Autodepreciation:

We have just mentionned it. Dr Didier GRANDGEORGE can be quoted here " I am useless, I
am a crap" sensation that he is dirty and ugly, washes his hands all the time.
Thinks his person is not important.
Does not tolerate the sight of his own body ( this symptom can easilly lead to mental anorexia )
2)Loss of self confidence:
Mistake his own identity.
Dillusion he is immaterial.
Dillusion he is someone else.
Dillusion he becomes smaller.
3)discouragement:
Depression, wants to die.
Problems with his memory and concentration.
School problems.
4)Frights and phobic attitudes:
* Phobic attitudes: essentially with snakes, has the impression they are all around him, in his
dreams. Imagines he sees insects and creepy-crawlies.
* Frights:
They may concern failure, the fact of being incapable of doing what is asked of them/
Fear of disease , washes his hands all the time. Frightened to faint.
5)Possibility of agressive attitudes:
LAC CANINUM can be like the dog ie, capable of agressive reactions. Children who scream at
night, rudeness, writes horrible things to his friends.
Hypersensitive to noise and light. Hysterical reactions very often.
Physical symptoms
* General sympoms:
Alternative laterality, infections with no temperature/.Craves for salt and especially pepper,
aversion for sweets. Good remedy for infections with no temparature, erratic pains and variable
laterality.
Sensation he is walking in the the air and can not touch the bed when he is in it. Very tired. Does
not tolerate parts of his body being in contact. He must separate his fingers.
* Nervous system:
Headaches with schoolchildren, talks and shouts during his sleep. Dreams of snakes and sleeps
with one leg stretched and the the other one folded; dreams he is urinating and wakes up at night
with the impression that his bed is moving. Sexual excitment and nymphomania.
( Cf our clinical case)
*ORL:
Tonsilitis , very frequent ,sore throat symptoms with alternating laterality.
Sore ear on the the right.
Frequent croup

Sensation of cracking in the mandibular articulations whilse eating ( NITRIC A and RHUS T)
Hypersalivation at night.
* Rhumatism:
Very frequent stiff neck.
Right sciatic.
Pain alternating side.
Synthesis
Having reviewed LAC CANINUM symptoms it would seem important to give more
information about its indications in child sexual abuse.
There is a duality in the very name LAC CANINUM. First the notion of milk and secondly
that of dog or canidy .
1)Let us study the LAC composant. It sends us back to food. What we can say is that bitch's
milk as opposed to human milk, has its origins on the abdominal part of the body and not the
thoracic part of it.
Dr Didier GRANDGEORGE says that the LAC CANINUM patient feels castrated.
We notice in our clinical case and others I have in my practice that there can be feeding
problems with our patients involved in child abuse.
The association of alimentary trouble and sexual abuse , can orientate the prescription of LAC
CANINUM.
A child that has been raped or abused, and then has feeding problems, needs bitch's milk to
correct those feeding problems and balance them with their sexual fonction that has been
violently overpowered . It is in fact absolutely necessary for human beings to separate
nutritional and sexual functions.
We all know the indications of LAC CANINUM for stimulating milk for nursing mothers. It
seems to me in this last situation , that lack of milk may be explained by a breakdown in the
balance between the reproduction function and the digestive fonction of the body .
In both situations here quoted LAC CANINUM brings the nutritional fonction to its sus
diaphragmatic level, hereby permitting the sensation of castration to disappear.
I have checked very good results of its prescription in mental anorexia linked to child abuse
(personal case ).
2) The CANIDE composant of LAC CANINUM, reveals to us the archac and instinctive
nature of mankind.
Bitch's milk takes us back to the etymological roots of the latin word: CANIDE is linked to the
tooth.
Dr Jacques LAMOTHE says " the tooth goes into the flesh deeply and rips it badly into pieces"
How can we not compare this to rape?
One more thing already mentionned is that the dog is a subjected animal very often
contemptible to whom mankind has managed to give his rules by training him ( contrary to the
cat)
The consequences of child abuse , in our case reveals the internal contradiction of the person ,

the body doing the contrary of the heart and of course the consequent auto devaluation of the
person.
There are in LAC CANINUM two composants that seem to indicate it as a really good remedy
after child rape.
I have infact observed very good results after its prescription in those situations.
On looking at the problem the other way round , I have already been able to discover
situations where LAC CANINUM had be prescribed ( self-devaluation, dreams of snakes,
school problems....) and after having seen the remarkable result of its prescription, to assume the
possibility of incest or child abuse.
We know that children who are badly treated and these who surround them , generally do not
talk about their ill treatment and try even to hide it .
I have a case to quote here of a small girl M. (4 years old) , showing obstruction at school ,
with heavy oncopresia , and for whom LAC CANINUM had been prescribed. This led to
discussion on the possibility of incest by the father , who shortly after was able to speak of it to
the psychiatric doctor and appropriate treatment was undertaken.
So it would seem that LAC CANINUM is an important remedy , and one that is worth while
using for children who are abused and who are more and more numerous.
Even if those patients try to hide so that they can not be looked after , because as they say they
are not "worth it" , bitch's milk can give them a new lease of life and make them retract from
their miserable dog's life...
Review of other child rape remedies
There is a paragraph in the MURPHY repertory " Children, Ailments from sexual abuse"
P232.
For us homeopaths and pediatricians it seems important to make a point in studying all the
therapies we can use in those situations.
We all know that child sexual abuse is a public health problem of great importance, in our own
countries as well as in the developing countries , where child sexual tourism is a source of
money (especially in some countries of Asia)
We have as homeopaths possibilities to cure our patients from violent traumatisms where as
conventional medecine is usually more limited ( psychotherapy and tranquilliser are the only
used in those situations)
I have noticed that the treatment given to those children in the acute situation, in hospitals for
instance is really bad.
As a duty doctor I have terrible memories of those children who are brought in amongst all the
other various emergencies ,usually on a Saturday or Sunday evening, having to wait for the duty
specialist, the legal authorities, and myself being very little available because exhausted by the
overwork...
So we ,as homeopathic doctors , must be in the forefront with our capacities to listen and use our
therapeutic possibilities to repair those tragic situations when we see these children after in our
surgeries.
I will therefore study this paragraph in the MURPHY repertory and I am open to any

suggestions to add remedies if necessary to this paragraph.

The main remedies are : ACONIT , ARNICA, CARCINOSINUM, IGNATIA, NATRUM MUR,
OPIUM, SEPIA, STAPHYSAGRIA.
I propose to study these remedies with the help of Dr LOUTAN ,French speeking Masi
reference repertory. It seems to me important to be able to use all sources that can help us to get
to the spirit of the remedy especially in important psychological clinical problems.
I will just quote a few sentences picked up in the Loutan repertory and which seem to me
helpful in our situations of child rape.
ACONIT " important appointment he has forgotten. He has forgotten the person he had the
appointment with. He had to to reply to an enigmatic problem... Everything is lived as pain" .
Loutan insists in both elements of fear and enigma for ACONIT . Typical situation after child
abuse....
ARNICA "feels incapable and prevented from doing something important"
" feels he is constantly criticized, frightened to be hit by people who approach him" . This has its
sense in child abuse...
CARCINOSINUM " has difficulty in differentiating himself, has suffered during his childhood,
has kept secret what he wanted to say to his relatives about what has happened to him, they are
things that can not be said" " he is a target that has to support the implacable malediction of the
family"
We notice CARCINOSINUM is a very important remedy in our cases...
IGNATIA " dreams of failure, humiliation and frustration" , "incapable of deciding what is the
cause of his failure, very difficult situation of choice"
Having to choose in our situation between a happy life or a dog's life...
NATRUM MUR
" very high conscience of his sad situation which is obvious to all", tries to live the means of his
autonomy like slavery " " on his own he is nothing"
SEPIA
" contradiction between what he wants and what he does, which leads him to despair and to
guilt, thinks of things he does not want to think of. He wants to control love by intelligence
because love is not otherwise controllable" does not feel loved neither does he love others."
STAPHYSAGRIA
"Considers the flesh as unworthy and contemptible, has lost the dignity of his person, lost his
voice and speech. Must realise that the sexual fonction is as worthy a fonction as the others"
I will now simply quote the other remedies of this MURPHY paragraph and which can also be
very useful.
At the 2nd degree: MEDORRHINUM and PLATINA
At the lowest degree : Anacardium, Lycopodium, Nux Vomica and Thuya.
I will quote a last remedy , studied by our group in Frejus as a good remedy for sexually abused
children. KREOZOTUM is "gnawed from inside " Didier GRANDGEORGE, and for LOUTAN
"refuses the necessity of contact as if it was a diminution of his perfection".
Conclusion

After having completed this important paragraph of the MURPHY repertory, I would like to
conclude by underlining the practical aspects which enabled me to write this paper.
I realise that more and more often we are faced with the need to cure important problems
through homeopathic therapy.
Without abandoning our artistic approach to the patient which I have developped at the French
international Jerusalem congress in June 1998, our effort in research must be based on practical
and clinical situations.
This effort of research must be consistently followed by the evaluation of our results with clear
scientific criterias.
To do so, we must force ourselves every so often , to update our computer programs, or reading
and completing our patient papers ,to evaluate the success or not of our different treatments, for
example in certain situations like ours : child rape.
Our Dutch, German, and Scottish amongst lots of other friends all try to do it even on a small
range of patients.
They demonstrated it to us during the last Liga congress in Amsterdam. I have personally used
the Dutch model . We really must be able to give correctly evaluated clinical cases to the
conventional medical corporation, and show therefore that we have real results in the problem of
sexual child abuse. I would like to thank our friends in Holland for drawing our attention to
these aspects of our profession of whitch we are often unaware in our every day practice.
Finally, I insist on the necessity of maintaining an artistic attitude in our practice .
This will enable us to approach our patients in their integrity enabling us to cure them and give
them relief . Our task is great , but it is really worth the effort...
Bibliography
GRANDGEORGE D " L'esprit du remde " Edicom 1995
"Homopathie, chemin de vie " Edicom 1998
LAMOTHE J " Homeopathie pdiatrique"/ Similia 1997
LOUTAN G : Repertoire
MURPHY R : Repertoire
VERMEULEN F " Concordant Materia Medica"