Lead.
Introduction
ONE very important indication for the use of Plumbum (we have verified it) is Hyperaesthesia with loss of power. We got this tip from Nash (Leaders). It may be well to quote. Nash writes” “I cured one case of post-diphtheritic paralysis with it. It was a very severe case in a middle-aged man. His lower limbs were entirely paralysed, and there was at the same time a symptom which I never met before, nor have I since, in such a case, viz. excessive hyperaesthesia of the skin. He could not bear to be touched anywhere, it hurt him so. After much hunting I found this hyperaesthesia perfectly pictured in Allen’s Encyclopedia, and that, taken together with the paralysis, seemed to me good reason for prescribing Plumbum, which I did in one dose of Fincke’s 40m, with the result of bringing about rapid and continuous improvement until a perfect cure was reached. A repetition was unnecessary.”
We have already, somewhere, quoted a notable case, inspired by Nash: but it will bear repeating. A strong, stoutish woman of middle age, after a chill, developed a semi-paralytic condition (one is writing from memory). She was admitted into our hospital where, with the loss of power, hyperaesthesia was so intense, that it was not only agony when her pulse was taken, but that ceremony had to be omitted, because it gave her not only the “ditherums”, as she expressed it, but her arm actually swelled up. Plumbum restored her to active life, with normal sensation and powers; so much so that, during the Great War then waging, she was able to get employment–writing–at the War Office. For a long time afterwards, she used to come back for treatment, at the least suggestion of recurrence–which never materialized. But one never forget that great indication for Plumbum, which Nash discovered and emphasized, Hyperaesthesia with loss of power.
Another of its great indications is, Emaciation of suffering parts. This would, of course, be at a later stage of the poisoning.
And yet another Plumbum feature: Retraction of parts. It has not only the “boat-shaped abdomen”, where the sensation is, the umbilicus drawn to, or attached to the spine (Platina), but, with Plumb., the abdomen is actually retracted; hard, painful; and the patient may roll about on the ground, pressing the abdomen with violence. The provings express it thus: “Navel seems to adhere to the spine, and the pain also involves pectoral region.” Sensation as if abdominal walls were pulled inwards; s if abdomen and back were too close together.” “Excruciating, tearing pains, especially around navel, as if bowels were twisted.” “Intense retraction of the integuments of abdomen towards spine, and a hard, knotty feeling in the muscles in various places over its surface.” “Violent colic; abdomen drawn in, as if by a string, to spine; –better from rubbing or hard pressure; abdomen hard as a stone: anxiety, with cold sweat and deathly faintness” and so on. Such are some of the features of “Painter’s colic” and of lead poisoning.
Lead is a mighty and deep-acting poison, which causes degeneration of all the tissues of the body. It interferes with the blood corpuscles, with resulting anaemia. It affects nerves and muscles, inducing cramps, indurations, softenings, wastings, contractions:–“its phenomena being those of colic, paralysis, arthralgia, and encephalopathy”. And Plumbum is therefore a powerful remedy, symptoms agreeing; palliative even where destruction has gone too far. Among other things, it has a reputation for colic with paralysis of the lower extremities: incarcerated hernia; intussusception with colic and fecal vomiting; strangulated hernia (only here one dare not wait too long on any remedy, or on any attempt at replacement, lest nipped vessels of the gut should have failed with their blood supply long enough to have led to gangrene).
But other parts may also be retracted by Plumbum. As we read of “intolerable pain, from spasms of rectum–a horrible sense of constriction and spasmodic contraction;–if the evacuation were not liquid, the torture was extreme. Anus violently constricted and drawn up”.
Many of the symptoms of Plumbum are very similar to those of Platina, which is the one other drug, so far as we know, that has the Plumbum sensation of “drawing pains in the navel as if by a string, which causes the sensation of retraction of the abdomen”. Platinum has been given as a remedy for painter’s colic, because of the similarity of its sensations and pains.
But in disposition the two drugs differ widely. Indifference, depression, somnolence, melancholy are the characteristics of Plumbum, with none of the arrogance, pride, and over-estimation of self that call for Platina.
Of Plumbum, KENT points out, the general paralytic state of this remedy. All activities of the body and the functions of the organs are slowed down in pace. The nerves do not convey their messages with the usual lightning-like rapidity. The muscles are slow and sluggish. There is first paresis, then paralysis; of parts first, and finally of the whole. You will wonder what the patient is thinking about, when making up his mind to answer. Prick him, and you have to wait a second before he responds. There is hyperaesthesia in the acute affections, but in the chronic, loss of sensation and ability to feel–anaesthesia of the skin.
The skin withers: the painful part withers to the bone.
Slow, insidious, chronic conditions; with no tendency to recover: progressive paralysis; progressive muscular atrophy.
He gives a case of uraemic coma: in a doctor’s wife. Catheter showed that there was no urine in the bladder: she had the pulling sensation at the navel. In the middle of the night her husband came in great distress : she was pale as death, and breathing slowly: deeply comatose. “A single powder of Plumbum high was given, and she passed urine in a couple of hours, roused up, and never had such an attack again.”
Such remedies are surely worth study and realization. Homoeopathy is indeed a marvellous power. Get the right remedy and you can work seeming miracles–with seemingly, nothing : — but miss the remedy, and you have nothing!
Kent also points out, in the mentality of Plumbum, a confirmed hysterical state; with an inclination to deceive, to feign sickness: to exaggerate one’s ills.
One is reminded to Tarentula when he says, “She would be in a hysterical condition for hours when anyone was looking at her. When she thought no one was near she would get up, walk about, look in the glass to see how handsome she was; but when she heard a foot on the steps she would lie on the bed and appear to be unconscious. She would bear much pricking; and you could scarcely tell she was breathing.”
In colic the patient bends backwards. (Diosc.: reverse of Colocynth.) He points out the inclination of Plumbum to take strange attitudes and positions in bed.
Plumbum, he says, is intensely emotional while the intellect is slowed down.
HUGHES Pharmacodynamics says: The first symptoms of lead poisoning are wrist-drop, from paralysis of the extensor muscles of the forearm. More profound poisoning induces a kind of degeneration of all the tissues. The nerve centres are found indurated, or softened: headache, amaurosis, neuralgia, palsy, anaesthesia, epilepsy occur during life. The muscular tissue is wasted or contracted. The kidney are small and glandular. There is complete decay of the bodily and mental powers, with profound melancholia: and the impairment of nutrition shows itself in the anaemic and cachetic appearance, with a yellowish hue of the skin (Icterus saturninus).
He says, the abdominal phenomena of lead poisoning at once suggest the metals as a remedy for colic and constipation, occurring separately or together. “Indeed I know of no better instance of the truth of the law of similars than the beautiful action of Plumbum in such conditions. We rely upon the medicine in any form of obstruction of the bowels that has not a mechanical cause, and in incarcerated and even strangulated hernia.” He gives a striking case of Dr. Holland’s. “The patient had been suffering from most agonizing abdominal spasms for two days, with vomiting and suppression of stool and urine. A grain of Plumb. ac. third decimal, was given, and in less than ten minutes the patient fell asleep, waking after many hours free from pain, and able to relieve his bowels of a mass of scybala. The next day he was well.”
He says, “The association of colic with constipation, and of constipation with colic, always forms the special indication for Plumbum as a remedy for either. But the constipation may be quite painless: and a neuralgic enteralgia may be cured by it, where the bowels were regular enough. In such cases the senses of retraction in the abdomen, or the hard, tense condition observed by Bahr, may guide to its choice.
“The patient may resemble a walking skeleton: the muscles post mortem are wasted and very pale, with sometimes the appearance of white fibrous tissue.” Here he mentions progressive muscular atrophy, and instances a patient, who presented the appearance of a living skeleton, where the presence of fibrillary contractions in the paralysed muscles led to the use of Plumbum with results most gratifying.
