Metals and Homeopathy

Metals account for about 2/3rd of all the elements and about 24% of the mass of the planet. Metals have useful properties including strength, ductility, high melting point, thermal and electrical conductivity and toughness. From the periodical table, it can be seen that a large number of elements are classified as being metals and a few of common metals used in homeopathy are iron, arsenic, aluminium, copper, gold, silver, zinc and stannum.

I will be discussing groups 12–14 which have metals like Zincum, Cadmium, Mercurius, Germanium, Stannum and Plumbum. Instead of describing the cases in detail, I will be giving a gist of the mental characteristics which has helped me in working out different types of cases.

Metals categorize themselves as one of the important groups in homeopathy. Although prescribed infrequently, but when indicated, give remarkable results. In this article, I will be discussing characteristic indications of metals from group 12–14 of the periodic table.

I will begin talking of a case of Zincum metallicum. A young boy consulted me for severe eczema all over his body. He was diagnosed as allergic to many food substances. He took a lot of treatment from skin specialists, but his eczema did not respond. He also took homeopathic treatment from Delhi but there was no appreciable improvement.

   The main problem that the boy faced was a lack of self-confidence. He always felt that there was something wrong with him; he had done wrong things in his life, had committed some crime in his previous birth or had hurt many people. That is why God has given him this particular disease. Sometimes he literally visualized figures of people whom he thought he had hurt and constantly developed fear because of that. He was quite suspicious; he would never eat at anybody’s house and would avoid eating in restaurants as he felt that something in the food can poison him.

With these particular symptoms, I prescribed Zincum met 30C and his eczema was much better within a few months.

   The common feeling of the group 12, 13 and 14 is that everyone is an enemy and a competitor. They are under suspicion that everybody is there to attack them. Therefore, remedies like Zincum, Caladium, Mercury, Germanium, Stannum and Plumbum will have this kind of feeling whenever you see the case from a deeper level.

This case is of a person with a non-healing diabetic ulcer. He had high cholesterol and hypertension for which he was taking allopathic treatment. Soon he developed a non-healing ulcer and the doctor advised him to get shifted from oral hypoglycaemic medication to injectable insulin as his diabetes was not under control. This made him to consult me for the homeopathic treatment.

He had a long history to tell but the crux of the situation was that he was in a joint business with his family members and had a strong fear that his brothers and uncle will grab away that business and will destroy him. He was very intelligent and had worked hard in expanding the business. He was not appreciated because in the joint family, profits were equally distributed. Many times, he was not involved in making important decisions for the business and family. As a result, he always had a fear that his relatives were conspiring things behind his back and were trying to harm him. Therefore, he had to take a lot of precautions. Sometimes, the condition would become so worse that he developed a fear of going to crowded places or getting insane.

Taking above rubrics into consideration, I prescribed him Mercurius in different potencies for a period of 3 months and I could totally cure his diabetic ulcer and bring back his sugar levels to his original position. The patient never had to use insulin.

This case is of a 69 year old Parsi gentleman whom I was treating for depression with chronic hypertension and early dementia.

The most important part of the history was that he was all alone; his children were living abroad and his wife was not in a good health. She was constantly remaining sick, and there was a nurse who used to take care of the patient as well as his wife. He had two servants, who were quite faithful. However, in his depression, he started having delusions. The most important delusion was that somebody is going to come and rob the house and there is a big danger to his life. Therefore, he used to tell his servants to lock every room and put every costly thing in the locker. However, on detail questioning, he could not expand on this subject. When he was not doing anything, he would sit quiet and did not talk to anyone. Many times, he told his friends and other people near him that he had done a lot of crime in the past and God was going to punish him. The most important thing was that he never allowed anybody to play the television or radio in the house because this aggravated his thoughts and fears.

Many times, he would go into deep sleep while sitting. He also complained of vertigo. Sometimes he made funny gestures when nobody observed him. He was under the allopathic treatment—mood elevators, anti-hypertensive drugs, vitamins and anti-depressive medicines.

The most important symptoms that I could take in the case were:

With this symptomatology, I prescribed him Plumbum metallicum which helped in taking him out from his depression. In the next 6 months, I could reduce his depression, most of his delusional symptoms disappeared and his fears totally came under control.

   Here, we see that the three remedies—Zincum metallicum, Mercurius and Plumbum metallicum have the same type of delusional state of mind i.e. somebody is going to attack them or destroy them or people are going to rob them or murder them and as a result, they become suspicious.