Synonym. Nicotiana Tabacum. Natural order. Solanaceae. Common name. Tobacco. Habitat. Probably native of Central America, but widely cultivated. Preparation. Tincture from the dried leaves of the genuine Havana tobacco.
GENERAL ANALYSIS.
Acts especially upon the pneumogastric nerve and the medulla oblongata, producing complete relaxation and paralysis of the involuntary muscular system, causing nausea, vomiting, feeble heart and pulse, low temperature, vertigo, delirium and collapse. Its long-continued use may result in degeneration of nerve tissue, causing atrophy and general muscular paralysis. Through the vagi also the digestive system is powerfully affected, even to causing violent gastro-enteritis. According to Bartholow, “the emetic effect of tobacco is doubtless the product of three factors; its cerebral action, its local irritation of the gastric mucous membrane, and its specific emetic property. The secretions of the intestinal mucous membrane are increased, and the muscular layer is thrown into tetanic contraction, whence the catharsis which follows its administration.” Its chief characteristic is a deathly nausea, accompanied by pallor, vertigo, cold sweat and intermittent pulse.
CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS.
Mind. Anxiety; better after weeping. Difficult concentration of the mind.
Head. Vertigo, with qualmishness of the stomach; worse indoors; better in the open air. Neuralgic headache, sensation as of sudden blows struck by a hammer. Headache from one temple to the other, involving the orbits, or with shooting in left eye, better from cold. Heaviness of the head.
Face. Death-like paleness of the face, with sick stomach (Ant. tart., Arsenicum, Ipecac.). Face pale, collapsed; covered with cold sweat (Acid oxalicum). Violent tearing in facial bones and teeth, in evening.
Mouth. Frothing from the mouth (Cicuta, Coccul., Laur.). Profuse salivation (Hepar s., Mercurius, Nitr. ac.). Accumulation of white, tenacious mucus in mouth and throat, which must be frequently expectoration.
Stomach. Great thirst; worse at night. Qualmishness, nausea and vomiting; worse on motion. Deathly nausea, with vertigo in paroxysms; body covered with cold sweat (Veratrum); seasickness (Coccul.). Violent vomiting; easy, of sour liquid; watery, insipid, sometimes better, in morning. Feeling of coldness in stomach (Camph., Colchicum), with nausea. Sinking at the pit of stomach; sensation of relaxation (Ipecac.).
Abdomen. Painful retraction of the navel; contraction of the abdominal muscles (Chelidonium, Plumb., Podophyllum). Incarcerated hernia.
Stool. Violent pain in small of back during soft stool, with tenesmus and burning. Diarrhoea, yellowish-green, or greenish, slimy stools. Cholera-like stools; watery, urgent, painless (Arsenicum, Camph., Veratrum alb.).
Respiratory Organs. Difficult respiration. Violent constriction of the chest. Hiccough after every paroxysm of whooping cough.
Heart and Pulse. Violent palpitation (Aconite, Arsenicum, Aurum, Spigelia). Action weak. Paroxysms of praecordial oppression, at night, with palpitation, and between the shoulders. Pulse very feeble, soft and slow; imperceptible, small, intermittent.
Neck. Neuralgia, with tightness of the throat.
Generalities. Great weakness and debility (Arsenicum, Cinchona). Restlessness, wants to change place continually. Gait slow and shuffling, difficulty in ascending stairs. Stupefying sleep at night. Itching over the whole body.
Fever. Icy-coldness from knees to toes. Body warm; hands and legs icy- cold (Menyanth.). Cold sweat on hands, forehead and face (Veratrum alb.). Cold, clammy sweat (Arsenicum, Camph., Mercurius, Phosphorus, Terebintha).
Aggravation. On left side; from great heat or great cold, and especially in stormy weather; from walking, riding in a carriage, and jar of a railway train.
Amelioration. In open air; from vomiting.
Compare. Ant. tart., Arsen., Belladonna, Coccul., Digit., Ipecac., Lobelia, Nux v., Opium, Phosphorus, Stramonium, Veratrum alb.
Tabacum Antidotes. Cicuta, Stramonium
THERAPEUTICS.
Tobacco has been found useful in diseases originating in cerebral irritation, followed by marked gastric symptoms, characteristic of the drug. Effects of sunstroke. Nervous disease and heart affections, accompanied by deathly nausea, feeble, irregular pulse, clammy sweat, etc. Angina pectoris, pains radiate from center of sternum, especially towards left side, extending down left arm with nausea, faintness, etc. Gastralgia, with same symptoms. Asthma. Asphyxia. Renal colic. Strangulated hernia. Cholera infantum, with nausea, faintness, etc. Seasickness. Characteristic nausea and vomiting wherever found. Vomiting of pregnancy.
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).