Although the Queensland experience seems incontrovertible, attempts to confirm that childhood
plumbism leads to adult renal insufficiency in other parts of the world have been unsuccessful; the difference may lie in the degree of childhood lead exposure or factors influencing the subsequent mobilization of lead from bone.
(45) Lead intoxication, or
plumbism, is a rare consequence of retained intra-articular bullets.
Blackfan reversed his judgment and asserted that reports of child
plumbism were uncommon only because pediatricians were not looking for it.
Lead, combined with antimony, copper, arsenic, and tin in type, can produce
plumbism or "printers' colic," an antecedent to tuberculosis.
Peripheral nervous system findings in
plumbism may include wrist and foot drop especially in adults.
Indeed, a new disease paradigm did draw attention to
plumbism.
The largely unskilled laborers whose only contact with lead was in its metallic state were likely to contract the milder or chronic forms of
plumbism; smelter workers faced considerably higher risk.
One of these is white lead (basic lead carbonate), a paint pigment desired for its color stability.(1) People have been suffering lead poisoning--sometimes called saturnism,
plumbism, or colic--for thousands of years.
Children born to mothers with lead poisoning may develop
plumbism (high lead levels) prenatally (Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, 1990).
"Neurologic Sequelae of
Plumbism in Children." Clinical Pediatrics 5(5):292-98.