There are just a few things that you have to keep in your mind, because Plumbum is a remedy that we are missing. It is not such a small remedy. I think that probably a lot of those people are getting Lycopodium and Medorrhinum because it is easy to confuse those two remedies for Plumbum. They are high livers. People who indulge a lot. They are selfish people. So, their face takes on the same look as the Lycopodium face, the well-indulged face with deep furrows. The deep furrows here in the forehead. Deep furrows in general means people that are indulging. Heavy into indulgence usually. Material indulgence. Sexual, food, whatever the indulgence, it is a self-satisfied look in the face of Plumbum. You also see it in other remedies. The Plumbum, it’s not that they are jowly, they are not fat. There are all different wrinkles, but like Calcarea wrinkles are finer than this. And they look more wrinkles of the skin. The skin tone isn’t so strong. Here the skin tone is good but there are these deep furrows. In Calcarea, the furrows give you the feeling that the skin itself is kind of crinkly, but here it is like the face itself has these lines sort of etched in, but the skin tone itself looks healthy. After they indulge for a long time, they can get sort of bored and apathetic and so they need to stimulate themselves a little bit further. Sometimes, you will see a state where they will go into sort of unacceptable forbidden types of pleasures. E.g., in Greece they may want to have an affair with a priest. They need the illicitness to sort of stir up an excitement. You won’t see that very often, and that is not enough to prescribe Plumbum. You want to have some of the other characteristics of it. Mostly the physical pathology goes one of two ways. One, to atherosclerosis. It is one of the biggest remedies for atherosclerotic people. That can be in heart disease, angina and so forth. Peripheral vascular disease. And especially in old people with cerebral vascular disease with mental deterioration. There is a lot of mental deterioration in Plumbum. It is not always from cerebral vascular disease, but frequently from hardening of the arteries of the head. You will see poor memory, especially poor memory for names or for expressing themselves. They know what they want to say but they can’t say it. They can’t think of the words. They can’t think of how you put that. You now, key phrases that we use to communicate. They can be very slow like Alumina in the mental state. Slowed reactions where you poke them with a pin and they don’t notice it at first like Alumina or Cocculus also has that. Helleborus has slow reactions, but for physical reaction when you stick them with a pin and they don’t say oh for a few minutes, Cocculus, Alumina or Plumbum. They don’t want to lie on the left side because of the heart. They have cramps in the lower extremities, better from massaging. The other is neurological degenerations that are of non- vascular origin. It can be Parkinson’s. It is probably the major remedy for Parkinson’s disease. It can be an MS. Probably even more than Mercury. Mercury and Plumbum are the two main remedies for tremors of the hand. It is interesting that the tremor is more though in both of these remedies, is a tremor that gets better during intention. Well, both of these two are worse during intention. That doesn’t quite fit, but when they go to pick a spoon up and bring it to their mouth, it gets very bad and when they are writing they have trouble writing because of the tremor. It is useful in MS cases, in ALS cases, in strokes, especially when you see paralysis of the extensor muscles, wrist drops, atrophy of muscles with paralysis and atrophy of musculature, you will think of Plumbum very strongly. Especially in the arms. There is atrophy there. Also, you remember there is another remedy that has that of the extensor muscles specifically Kent mentions. Curare also can get very frustrated and into a sort of wild mental state where they are biting themselves and striking themselves. Shut themselves away.

Q. Sort of like Huntington’s chorea?

A. I can’t say specifically Huntington’s chorea, I don’t know that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Now, so one of those two ways you will see Plumbum and you can give that if you just see. Let me give you some examples. You see somebody that is sort of a high liver type. You’re thinking Lycopodium, Medorrhinum, and then you get that there is an expressive aphasia where they have trouble expressing themselves. They are memory poor for words. That’s enough. You can give Plumbum then. So, it is a remedy that is being missed a lot I think. Now, there are a couple of other characteristic keynotes. One that you hardly ever see, but if you see it, it is real characteristic, that they have a sensation that there is string in their naval being drawn backwards. It doesn’t have to be in the naval, but if it is in the eyeball you will think of? The other keynote that you will see frequently for Plumbum is sclerosis of the tendons in the hand. It can be just thickening of these tendons without a contracture on the flexor surface of the palm. Check the palms on these people. It can be very striking. Knotty. Sort of thickening of all these tendons in the palms of the hands. It is very specific and characteristic for Plumbum. I have seen twice the remedy was prescribed on that indication alone and both times it worked. Once in an arthritis and once in a guy with predominantly nasal symptoms.