Generalities. Twitching and jerking in various muscles (Agaricus, Cicuta). Pain seems to be between the skin and the flesh. Great heaviness, weakness and lassitude; mornings in bed. Jerking through the whole body (Gloninum, Pulsatilla). Formication on the skin.
Sleep. Unrefreshing sleep; disturbed by frightful dreams; with screaming and startings; limbs and body jerk.
Fever. Febrile shivering down the back. Shaking chill in the evening. Heat all night, with sweat. Night sweats.
Aggravation Most symptoms appear after dinner and towards evening. From wine (Nux vomica); during rest; while sitting; in open air.
Amelioration From camphor; on walking; while eating; from sweat.
Compare Argentum, Belladonna, Carb. v., Cuprum, Ignatia, Nux v., Plumb., Pulsatilla, Stramonium Zincum met. is followed well by Ignatia, but not by Nux v., which disagrees.
Antidote. Camph., Hepar s., Ignatia
Zinc Antidotes. Baryta c., Chamomilla, Nux v.
THERAPEUTICS.
Zinc is a valuable remedy in the neuroses, and for various diseased states, resulting from profound disturbance of the nerve-centers of the brain and spinal cord, especially exhaustion. A valuable remedy in chronic headaches and hemicrania, with symptoms above mentioned. Neuralgic headache form brain-fag, with blurred vision; school children who have been over-taxed, threatening meningitis. Hydrocephalus. Hydrocephaloid, following cholera infantum. Meningitis, from suppressed exanthemata, or during teething. Cerebral exhaustion. Softening of the brain; paralysis; chorea, caused by fright or suppressed eruptions, great depression of spirits and irritability. Beginning of locomotor ataxia, when lightning, like pains are marked and intense. Epilepsy, especially in young children. Convulsions from suppressed eruptions, suppressed menses or from fright. General paralysis. Neuralgia. Spinal irritation. Spine sensitive to touch; especially in lower dorsal region. Neuralgia after zoster, better from pressure. Zinc is often useful in melancholia, and other forms of insanity, resulting from softening of the brain or other cerebral disease. The patient is usually lethargic, stupid, paralytic feelings in the limbs, sometimes convulsions. Sometimes there is a suicidal tendency and great apprehension and fear, especially of being arrested for crime. Anaemia of teething children, with hydrocephaloid symptoms. Brain exhaustion, and nerve weakness so that in children they are not able to develop exanthemata. It is therefore indicated in exanthematous diseases, especially scarlet fever, when the eruption develops slowly and imperfectly, and cerebral symptoms are manifest, or profound exhaustion, with rapid, almost imperceptible pulse. In all such cases the patient at once improves if the eruption appears. It is characteristic of Zinc that relief comes from the appearance of discharges or eruptions. The patient always suffers less during menstruation, the chest symptoms are relieved by expectoration, the abdominal and head symptoms by diarrhoea, all symptoms, but more especially head symptoms, by the appearance of eruptions. zinc is a valuable remedy for varicose veins. On this point Allen says (Opium cit., p. 1152) the remedy is “extremely valuable, especially in the sub-acute or chronic condition which underlies and determines the development of the disease. It works well when associated with Pulsatilla; the two drugs should never be given together, but consecutively; Zinc follows Pulsatilla, acting better after Pulsatilla has relieved some of the acute symptoms; neither of these drugs, however, is often indicated in acute phlebitis.”
Eczema, Erysipelas, especially of the head and face, with brain symptoms. Catarrhal conjunctivitis, worse at inner canthus (outer canthus, Graphites) Granular lids after ophthalmia neonatorum. Corneal opacities. Pterygium. Blurred vision with cerebral exhaustion, especially brain-fag. Earache, chronic especially in children (Pulsatilla). Gastric derangement from drinking wine or from eating too many sweets. Atonic dyspepsia, with flatulence and “gone” feeling in stomach before noon (Sulphur). Lead colic. Enteralgia. Flatulent colic, especially evenings. Liver enlarged and sore. Enlarged spleen. Cholera infantum with hydrocephaloid. Chronic dysentery. Vermicular affections. Reflex symptoms from floating kidney. Paralysis of the bladder. Occasionally useful in Bright’s disease. Sexual weakness, with erethism; seminal emissions; hypochondriasis. Spermatorrhoea; emissions without dreams, face pale, sunken, blue rings around the eyes. Orchitis, from a bruise. Neuralgia of the testicles, worse when walking. Useful in various disorders of menstruation; menorrhagia, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea. Vicarious menstruation. Leucorrhea. Pruritus vulvae, causing onanism. Unnatural sexual excitement. Asthma. Bronchitis with asthmatic symptoms and constriction of the chest. Intercostal neuralgia. Sometimes useful in rheumatism, especially affecting the lumbar region, hips and thighs. Sciatica, with nervous restlessness of the feet. Has proved curative in somnambulism, with general Zinc symptoms.
ALLEN CORSON COWPERTHWAITE was born at Cape May, New Jersey, May 3, 1848, son of Joseph C. and Deborah (Godfrey) Cowperthwaite. He attended medical lectures at the University of Iowa in 1867-1868, and was graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1869. He practiced his profession first in Illinois, and then in Nebraska. In 1877 he became Dean and Professor of Materia Medica in the recently organized Homeopathic Department of the State University of Iowa, holding the position till 1892. In 1884 he accepted the chair of Materia Medica, Pharmacology, and Clinical Medicine in the Homeopathic Medical College of the University of Michigan. He removed to Chicago in 1892, and became Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College. From 1901 he also served as president of that College. He is the author of various works, notably "Insanity in its Medico-Legal Relations" (1876), "A Textbook of Materia Medica and Therapeutics" (1880), of "Gynecology" (1888), and of "The Practice of Medicine " (1901).