Tabacum
as William Boericke recorded it in Homoeopathic Materia Medica, 1927
Tobacco
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Mind
Sensation of excessive wretchedness. Very despondent. Forgetful. Discontented.
General
The symptomatology of Tabacum is exceedingly well marked. The nausea, giddiness, death-like pallor, vomiting, icy coldness, and sweat, with the intermittent pulse, are all most characteristic. Has marked antiseptic qualities, antidotal to cholera germs. Complete prostration of the entire muscular system. Collapse. Gastralgia, enteralgia, seasickness, cholera infantum; cold, but wants abdomen uncovered. Vigorous peristaltic activity diarrhœa. Produces high tension and arteriosclerosis of the coronary arteries. Should prove the most homeopathic drug for angina pectoris, with coronaritis and high tension (Cartier). Constriction of throat, chest, bladder, rectum. Pallor, breathlessness, hard-cordlike pulse.
Modalities
Worse, opening eyes; evening; extremes of heat and cold. Better, uncovering, open fresh air.
Head
Vertigo on opening eyes; sick headache, with deathly nausea; periodical. Tight feeling as from a band. Sudden pain, as if struck by a hammer. Nervous deafness. Secretion from eyes, nose and mouth increased.
Face
Pale, blue, pinched, sunken, collapsed, covered with cold sweat (Ars; Verat). Freckles.
Eyes
Dim sight; sees as through a veil; strabismus. Amaurosis; muscæ volitantes. Central scotoma. Rapid blindness without lesion, followed by venous hyperæmia and atrophy of optic nerve.
Throat
Nasopharyngitis and tracheitis, hemming, morning cough, sometimes with vomiting. Hoarseness of public speakers.
Stomach
Incessant nausea; worse, smell of tobacco smoke (Phos); vomiting on least motion, sometimes of fecal matter, during pregnancy with much spitting. Seasickness; terrible faint, sinking feeling at pit of stomach. Sense of relaxation of stomach, with nausea (Ipec). Gastralgia; pain from cardiac end extending to left arm.
Abdomen
Cold. Wants abdomen uncovered. It lessens the nausea and vomiting. Painful distension. Incarcerated hernia.
Rectum
Constipation; rectum paralyzed, prolapsed. Diarrhœa, sudden, watery, with nausea and vomiting, prostration, and cold sweat; discharges look like sour milk, thick, curdled, watery. Rectal tenesmus.
Urinary
Renal colic; violent pain along ureter, left side.
Respiratory
Difficult, violent constriction of chest. Præcordial oppression, with palpitation and pain between shoulders. Cough followed by hiccough. Cough dry, teasing, must take a swallow of cold water (Caust; Phos). Dyspnœa, with tingling down left arm when lying on left side.
Heart
Palpitation when lying on left side. Pulse intermits, feeble, imperceptible. Angina pectoris, pain in præcordial region. Pain radiates from center of sternum. Tachycardia. Bradycardia. Acute dilatation caused by shock or violent physical exertion (Royal).
Extremities
Legs and hands icy cold; limbs tremble. Paralysis following apoplexy (Plumb). Gait shuffling, unsteady. Feebleness of arms.
Sleep
Insomnia with dilated heart, with cold, clammy skin and anxiety.
Fever
Chills, with cold sweat.
Relationships
Compare: Hydrobromic acid; Camph; Verat; Ars. Compare: Nicotinum (Alternate tonic and clonic spasms, followed by general relaxation and trembling; nausea, cold sweat, and speedy collapse; head drawn back, contraction of eyelids and masseter muscles; muscles of neck and back rigid; hissing respiration from spasm of laryngeal and bronchial muscles). Antidotes.––Vinegar; sour apples. Camphor in the physiological antagonist. Ars (chewing tobacco); Ign; (smoking); Sep (neuralgia and dyspepsia); Lycop (impotency); Nux (bad taste due to tobacco); Calad and Plantag (cause aversion to tobacco); Phosph (tobacco heart, sexual weakness).
Dose
Third to thirtieth and higher potencies.
What the other books say about Tabacum
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Tabacum in Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- Tabacum in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Tabacum in Boger — A compressed key — the generals and the characteristic modalities, with very little narrative.
Search every book at once, take rubrics from Kent and Bönninghausen, and practise on a patient who answers back — free account.
Create a free accountCite this page. William Boericke. Homoeopathic Materia Medica. 9th edition (preface dated San Francisco, June 1927). Tabacum — Mind. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/boericke/tabacum. Published 1927: public domain in the US (since 2023) and in India (author died 1929). Reproduced as the author wrote it; a historical reference for students and practitioners, not medical advice.