Zincum Metallicum

Mind

Feeble children, feeble girls, mind feeble, memory poor.

Tendency to be docile, but when aroused irascible. If the child comes down with scarlatina or measles, it goes into a stupor. The eruption does not come out. There is a tendency to convulsions, drawing in the extremities, suppression of urine, rolling of the head from one side to the other, and from stupor it goes into complete unconsciousness; inability to throw eruptions to the surface.

Slowness again: The stomach is slow in digesting; sour vomiting.

The intestines are sluggish. The rectum becomes impacted. Difficult expulsion of urine; paralysis of the bladder and tedious constipation associated with spinal symptoms; urine slow in starting; can pass it only when sitting and in some cases only when sitting leaning back against the seat with hard pressure.

Back and limbs: Aching in the dorsal, lumbar, and sacral regions; better when walking and worse from rising from a seat. (In Rhus, the aching is in the sacral region, and better when walking and coming on while sitting. Calc., Rhus, Phos., Sulph. and Sepia have this in the highest degree. Zinc. occupies a lower grade in the aggravation when rising from a seat, as do Petr. and Ledum.)

Numbness of the soles of the feet, with cutting pain and soreness in the heel when stepping; fulgurating pains, stitching, stabbing, and tearing; tabes dorsalis.

Limbs paralyzed; paresis and finally paralysis of one or both sides jerking, trembling and prostration. Shocks and jerking during Sleep.

Trophic centers in a state of anaemia; emaciation throughout the body; the skin looks withered; the face pallid, wrinkled, unhealthy, sickly. Always chilly; sensitive to the cold. Full of neuralgic pains; tearing pains in all parts of the body when exposed to a draft; tension and drawing in various places.

Strange drawing about the eyes as if strabismus would come on; drawing in the muscles; neck drawn back; tension and drawing everywhere. When he comes to rest, the limbs want to draw up, hence, hysterical contractures; drawing the fingers all out of shape.

The mind is slow and the patient is weak and tired; weak memory; forgetful.

"Repeats all questions before answering them."

When an individual does this it is to make the mind comprehend. He must first realize what it means and then answers. Such a symptom is found in typhoid, when the patient does not convalesce; in a child after brain affections.

Nervous prostration; waits a moment, looking blank, then, the face lights up and he answers. if you look at the Zincum patient and do not address him, you would not realize that he was so weak, but put a question to him and he stares at you in perfect amazement, then says, "Oh," and answers.

Zinc. is not suitable in those who are naturally feeble-minded, when the child is in a state bordering upon idiocy. Baryta carb. feeds such a mind. He rouses out of a semi-slumber and stares a moment without answering.

Stupor; aroused by every little noise, startles, twitches all over; but soon he goes beyond this, becoming less and less excitable, and finally passes into unconsciousness and cannot be aroused. You will find some deep-seated brain troubles that will try your patience.

Some cases go slowly and gradually into unconsciousness; rolling of the head for day s; eyes lusterless; body emaciated, involuntary discharges of faeces and urine in the bed; tongue dry and parched, so shriveled that it looks like leather, lips also; lice withered and each day looks older; paralysis of one hand or one foot, or it seems that the whole muscular system is paralyzed.

Screaming out in pain although not so shrilly as in Apis. A dose of Zinc. will sometimes bring this patient back to life. In a few days after the remedy there will be a jerking and quivering in the parts that were motionless, or its action will be shown in a copious sweat, much vomiting; sudden arousing that is alarming, for it looks like a threatened sinking, but this is the beginning of reaction.

Now, for days and nights while this little one is coming back to consciousness, the restoration of sensation in the parts is accompanied with the most tormenting formication, tingling, prickling, creeping, and crawling. The mother and the father and the neighbors will want something done for it, but if you antidote, the case will return to where it was before. This suffering is but the awakening to life.

It will go on in this way for a week or two and then will begin to show signs of falling back; it needs another dose of Zinc., which will again be followed by a sweat, vomiting, etc. You will see this in spinal meningitis. The early stage will be that of congestion, and Bell. may palliate, but with the onset of the symptoms enumerated above, Zinc. is the only remedy that will cure. The Bell. case will have flushed face, hot head, rolling of the head, flashing eyes, throbbing carotids. The Bry. case will be docile, stupid, purple, sleepy; ameliorated by quiet.

The Helleborus case will exhibit but little fever; cold extremities, tossing of the head, dilated pupils, unconsciousness, can hardly be aroused; rolling head from. side to side, but when the reflexes are abolished, Zinc. comes in.

After the relief from Gels., Bell., or Bry. give Zinc. Rugged little fellows who hang on for weeks in this state, emaciating and unconscious.

You must take the mother aside and inform her what will happen if the child returns to consciousness. If you do not, you may be turned out of the house. A person advanced in years cannot stand such an ordeal, but it is astonishing how the little ones can endure the prolonged congestion and inflammation.

After scarlet fever and badly treated meningitis; tubercular meningitis. I have carried these severe forms of brain disease through on Phosphorus, which has a picture somewhat like that of Zincum. There is no record of any recovery from tubercular meningitis, but a homoeopath can cure some of these cases, though it may take two or three months to go down and come up out of it, with two or three relapses.

Eyes

Among the eye symptoms we have a peculiar thickening and opacity of the conjunctiva, which is infiltrated, leathery, has yellow spots on it and the corners are thickened like pterygium. Dunham made a remarkable cure of pterygium. The report of the case in the Guiding Symptoms is as follows:

"Pterygium in right eye just encroaching on cornea; in left eye extending to the pupil from the inner canthus."

"Itching and stinging plain in inner angles of eyes with cloudiness of sight.

Much burning of the eyes and lids in the morning and in the evening with feeling of dryness and pressure in them."

Zinc. has cured distressing thickening of the lids, ectropion and entropion; granular thickening of the lids. In a severe case of entropion where the lashes were playing up and down the ball with lachrymation, great inflammation and redness, Zinc. removed the whole trouble. Violent photophobia; it seems as if the light would blind him. Zinc. and Euphr. are closely related in eye troubles.

Strabismus after brain troubles. Ever since scarlet fever, he had strabismus. She has much trouble with the menses; dysmenorrhoea.

Menses

But here is a striking symptom; no matter what the violent symptoms are pains in the ovaries, in the uterus, hysterical excitement; as soon as the menstrual flow appears there is relief.

Violent pains in the ovaries relieved by the flow. This is a great contrast to Cimicifuga, which has nervous excitement and hysteria during the flow, and the, more copious it is, the more violent are the pains.

The Lach. and Zinc. symptoms are worse before, and better with the flow, but in the former the pains all return when the flow slacks up again. Cimicifuga has at times an intermittent flow, then pain ceasing with each intermission, returning when the flow again appears.

The great nervousness of Zinc. is manifested in the feet. You will notice a child or a woman keeping one foot going all the time, cannot keep it still. Many medicines have nervous feet and many have relief of symptoms by motion of the feet. But this is marked in Zinc. A girl about twelve years of age had no congruity of symptoms and I could not find the remedy.

The mother said the child mortified her by keeping one foot constantly going in church. On asking why she did this, she replied that if she stopped she would lose her urine. Zinc. cured the whole patient. In the text we find double-lined the two words,

"Fidgety feet."

Zinc. has some striking heart symptoms. Constriction of the whole chest in weakly subjects.