An irritable brain; pain in the base of the brain, back of the neck, in the nerve centers. Cold extremities from exertion; yet can do considerable mental exertion without becoming cold. It is from physical exertion like walking in the open air. Paroxysmal pain in the limbs, evening and night; better by pressure and worse from motion. Lightning-like pains. Jerking and trembling of all the limbs.
The Plumbum patient is cold and emaciated, needs much clothing even in warm weather, not about the head, but over the body. Extremities cold, blue, numb and emaciated. Sweat on the extremities, and on the feet it is stinking. Feet and toes withered like a washerwoman’s hands. Toes blistered; blisters between the toes, smarting. Ulcerations. Molecular death and even gangrene of the skin of the fingers and toes. Calluses about the feet, corns and bunions.
With the chronic affection of the head there is contraction of the muscles of the back and neck; drawing and twitching indicating meningeal troubles; spasmodic jerking.
“Swelling of the submaxillary and sublingual glands.”
Convulsions often like tetanus, with lockjaw.
“Distinct blue line along the margins of the gums.”
“Gums pale, swollen, show a lead-colored line; blue, purple, or brown; painful with hard tubercles.”
“Tongue dry, brown, cracked; coated yellow or green; dry, red, glazed in chronic gastritis.”
Breath foetid, dryness of mouth, ulceration, aphthae.
“Sensation of a plug in the throat; globus hystericus.”
“Paralysis of throat and inability to swallow,” a paralysis of the oesophagus.
The stomach has no ability to digest food. Assimilation is also destroyed. Pains in the abdomen, tearing, like colic, doubling the patient up. Constant sensation of pulling at the navel as by a string; as if the abdomen were drawn in. At times the abdomen does become concave, as if the abdomen and back were too close together.
Constipation is a common and well known feature. The constipation, colic, and abdominal symptoms are commonly associated.
“Constipated stools, hard, lumpy like sheep’s dung; with urging and terrible pain from constriction or spasms of anus; knotty faeces in form of balls.”
No matter how much straining he cannot expel the stool.
“Constriction of intestines; navel and anus violently retracted.”
“Excessive pain in abdomen radiating from thence to all parts of the body.”
“Severe colic; contracted abdomen; bends backward, motor nerves most affected.”
Rumbling and flatulence. Impaction of faeces. Vaginismus in keeping with the spasmodic action.
“Inclination to take strange attitudes and positions in bed.”
“Anemia, chlorosis, emaciation, muscular atrophy, wandering pains, dropsical swellings, yellow skin, jaundice.”
Burning in ulcers is in keeping with the remedy everywhere.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.