Tabacum 200c

– VERMEULEN Frans,
Tab.
There is nothing better for contemplation than tobacco smoking,
for here straying thoughts are recollected, this being most beneficial for students,
in that while smoking they can grow accustomed to pondering everything well.
Often enough one’s faculties are divided, so that it is impossible to reason correctly over some difficult matter; among tobacco smokers, on the other hand, thoughts are collected and afterwards too, although they rarely occur, weaknesses caused by overmuch zeal are dispelled.
One remains calm within oneself and can make appropriate decisions about the most important matters.
[18th century text, cited by Schivelbusch]
Signs

Nicotiana tabacum. Tobacco. N.O. Solanaceae.
CLASSIFICATION See BELLADONNA..
GENUS Named after the French ambassador to the Portuguese court, Jean Nicot de Vilmain [1530-1600], who brought back the tobacco plant to France in 1560, the genus Nicotiana comprises some 65 species of annual and perennial herbs and shrubs. The two commercially important species are Nicotiana tabacum, cultivated in warm areas for smoking tobacco, and N. rustica, cultivated mainly for insecticidal use. Some species are grown as ornamentals for their jasmine-like fragrance. Nicotiana are native in North and South America, esp. in the Andes [45 species] and in Polynesia and Australia [21 species]. Nicotiana tabacum is an annual thick-stemmed plant from 1 to 1.5 m high bearing large leaves with short leaf stems. The leaves rise in a spiral along the stem. The plant has an epidermal covering of hairs, some of which are glandular and secrete a viscid liquid. The flowers are red, pink or white, and funnel-shaped.
HISTORY The word tobacco is first mentioned [as tabaco] by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes [1478-1557] who uses it as a term for the act of smoking and also, in his later writing, for the leaves of the plant itself. The Indians of South America were the first to domesticate tobacco, growing some twelve species different species, of which N. tabacum and N. rustica were the most important. South Americans shamans believe that, whilst the human hunger is for food, the hunger of the spirit is for tobacco. Before the arrival of the Europeans in the New World tobacco use seems to have been restricted to the shamanic use of making direct and intimate contact with the spirits. The earliest description of a ‘cigarette’ comes from Bartholomé de las Casas, who accompanied Columbus in 1498 and 1502: “They are dried weeds that are enveloped in certain leaves, also dried, in the form of those paper firecrackers that boys make at Pentecost. Lit at one end, it is sucked at the other end or they chew it or receive it with their breath into their interior, this smoke with which they put flesh to sleep and almost get drunk. So that they say they feel no fatigue.” A similar description is provided by Oviedo y Valdes, the leader of the Spanish expedition to Mexico in 1518, who described it thus: ‘a little hollow tube, burning at one end, made in such a manner that after being lighted they burn themselves without causing a flame.’ The generally accepted view is that it was Oviedo who brought tobacco leaves back to Spain in 1519. In 1556 the Franciscan friar André Thevet brought seeds from Brazil to France and initiated its cultivation in France. In his curiously discursive book, Les Singularitez de la France antarctique, autrement nommée Amérique, published in 1557, Thevet wrote “I can boast of having been the first in France who brought the seed of this plant, who sowed it, and named the plant in question herbe Angoulmoisine [after his birthplace Angouleme]. Since then a certain individual, who never made any voyage, has given it his name, some ten years after my return.” Thevet did not call his plant tobacco, because the Brazilians knew it only as petun or petum, from which has come our modern word Petunia, a plant in the same family as tobacco. This “certain individual” referred to so contemptuously by Thevet was none other than Jean Nicot. Having heard that the herb was good for headaches, if the powdered leaves were snuffed up the nose, Nicot sent some powdered leaves and some seeds [of Nicotiana rustica] from his Lisbon gardens to Catherine de Medici, Queen Mother of France. That lady used the snuff for headache and soon proclaimed it as a marvellous discovery, from which circumstance it was called Herbe à la Reine [Queen’s Herb]. This resulted in the first cultivation of N. rustica in France, three years after Thevet had brought home the seeds of the better variety N. tabacum from Rio de Janeiro. Since N. tabacum is the ‘real’ tobacco, it is actually Thevet who deserves the honour of having the plant named after him. To the English this is not a matter of great importance, for they have their own tobacco heroes. To Sir John Hawkins, who landed in England on September 20, 1565, after his second expedition, goes chief credit and the adventurer and writer Sir Walter Raleigh [c. 1554-1618] is considered one of the first smokers in England. The latter is also claimed to have introduced the first potato to Europe. Sir Walter Raleigh acquired the practice of smoking in Virginia and took a tobacco plant as the crest of his coat of arms. The story goes that a servant of Raleigh’s, on seeing, for the first time in his life, the mouth of his master emitting a cloud of smoke, concluded that where there’s smoke there’s fire and dashed a tankard of ale over Sir Walter’s head. This apocryphal story shows how bizarre smoking must have appeared to 16th-century Europeans. Pipe smoking nevertheless became immensely popular in England in very short order. Considering the difficulties of travel, tobacco spread with amazing speed all over the world. European soldiers and seamen took tobacco with them on their travels to the East and instigated its rapid spread across Asia. The Spanish took cigars to the Philippines in the 16th century and the Portuguese introduced tobacco through the maritime routes to many parts of Asia. In 1601 tobacco had arrived in Java and around 1605 it was known in India. In the early phase of European tobacco use it was perceived in numerous conflicting ways as a manna from heaven or the smoke of hell itself, from panacea to poison. King James I of England, observing how eagerly his subjects took up the smoking habit, sharply attacked tobacco smoking in a pamphlet entitled A Counterblast to Smoking and issued in 1604: “Smoking is a custom loathsome to the Eye, hateful to the Nose, harmful to the Braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the black stinking fumes thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian Smoke of the Pit that is bottomless.”His Majesty added to this the dire prophecy that Englishmen would become dwarfed from smoking. Another opponent of tobacco was Barnabie Rich, who wrote in 1606: “I thinke Flatterie at this day be in as good requeste as Tabacco, two smokie vapours, yet the one purgeth wise-men of their witte, and the other fooles of their money.” Despite such diatribes, and the high taxes on tobacco, tobacco smoking quickly became an integral part of West European social life. Initially the pipe was the most popular way to use tobacco, to be eclipsed later by the habit of snuffing which culminated in the 18th century. There is a deeper sense to the use of snuff in the 18th century. Not only was the style with which the snuffbox was handled a means of self-presentation and self-display, but the fact that the nose was regarded as the organ of reason – as the direct pathway to the brain – put snuffing to the specific use of clearing the brain of ‘superfluous vapours’. At the beginning of the 19th century the cigar appeared and in the second half of the 19th century the cigarette. No enemies of tobacco – King, Pope, Grand Duke, or Grand Vizier – have been able to put any check upon the constantly increasing popularity of smoking. Smoking fills a human need, irrespective of its health hazards. All smokers know it, and know it so well that few today read Oscar Wilde’s reason for smoking a cigarette, Lord Byron’s eulogy to a cigar, J.M. Barrie’s My Lady Nicotine, or Alexander Pope’s praise of a snuff box. 1-3
CONTEMPLATION The effect of tobacco has been described from the very first, in the 17th century, by reference to calm, placidity, contemplation, and concentration. Smoking and mental activity are closely related, tobacco aiding the mind to grasp difficult matters “clearly and distinctly, well able to ponder and judge.” “Although since the 17th century tobacco and coffee had been considered particularly suitable for the intellectually active, their effects stand in remarkable contrast to one another. Tobacco calms, coffee stimulates. Normally one would assume that these contradictory qualities cancel each other. Yet the opposite is true: they complement each other. The common goal both were used to achieve was the reorientation of the human organism to the primacy of mental labour. The brain is the part of the human body of greatest concern to bourgeois civilization. It alone was developed, cultivated, and cared for in the 17th and 18th centuries. The rest of the body, necessary evil that it was, merely served as a support for the head. Coffee and tobacco, each in its particular way, assisted this reorientation. Coffee functioned positively, arousing and nourishing the brain. Tobacco functioned negatively, calming the rest of the body – that is, reducing its mobility to a minimum – as was necessary and desirable for mental, i.e. , sedentary, activity. In smoking, the mentally active person works off those functionless, indeed dysfunctional bodily energies that had formerly been released in the physical work of prebourgeois man, in hunting, or in jousting. In this sense, smoking is an ersatz action. The fact that it is pleasurable changes nothing. The old instincts, pleasure and enjoyment, have apparently been pushed into retirement.” Both the cigar and the pipe stand for quiet contemplation. They reflect a sort of firm steadiness, more or less in contrast to the “casual distraction for idle hands” of the cigarette which “stimulates but is extinguished as soon as the thought it has stimulated has caught fire.” Yet it fulfils the same purpose of “absorbing the increasing nervousness of civilized man,” as Schivelbusch formulates it, and as such “this penetration of our culture by smoking demonstrates to what depth the culture is permeated by nervousness.”4 It illuminates why smoking has such calming effect on hypernervous remedies as the spider remedies.
REPRESSION The cigar serves as a status symbol for capitalist entrepreneurs as well as an emblem of revolutionism. Karl Marx smoked them and Fidel Castro still does. In the 1830s and 1840s smoking acquired symbolic significance for the emancipation movement as a protest against the patriarchal society that exclusively reserved the right to smoke to men. For the author of a newspaper article from the 1840s, quoted by Schivelbusch, female liberation was no cause for jubilation: “At this point many of these miniature George Sands don’t even disdain the cigar; recently an elegant lady stopped a gentleman on the street who was smoking to ask him to light hers. Charming prospects, these! How long before they put on trousers, force men into the kitchen with riding whips, and nurse their babies on horseback! Easy for the emancipated woman! A public coffeehouse is already being opened for women, where debates on their status are to take place, together with cigar smoking, reading of the latest journals – all in all, the life of a gentleman. How happy Berlin husbands will be when they hold their cigar-smoking wives in their arms!”5 Another factor contributing to the political significance of smoking is that the cigar rollers formed the militant avant-garde of the workers’ movement in 19th-century Germany and organized the first and most radical union. “Whereas smoking cigarettes was once an act of defiance, it is now largely an occasion for guilt, although defiance and guilt have always belonged to the psychology of cigarette smoking – forms of the violence of transgressing the interdiction of a taboo,” writes Richard Klein. In our current society we are in the midst of one of those periodic moments of repression, observes Klein, when the culture enforces its guilty constraints on society, enlarging its power of surveillance to achieve a general restriction of freedom. “Like other tyrants such as Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Hitler, James I despised smoking and demonized tobacco. The relation between tyranny and the repression of the right to grow, sell, use, or smoke tobacco can be seen most clearly in the way movements of liberation, revolutions both political and cultural, have always placed those rights at the centre of their political demands. The history of the struggle against tyrants has been frequently inseparable from that of the struggle on behalf of the freedom to smoke, and at no time was this more the case than during the French and American revolutions. The earliest political history of this country, from the time of the first English settlers in Virginia, who survived on the commerce of tobacco, to the revolutionary struggle against English taxes, was forged in the name of the right and freedom to grow and use tobacco – free from the impositions of the state. Governments have always sought to control the use of tobacco, for reasons that have to do with what Napoleon, the first to create a state monopoly of tobacco, called its eminent taxability: it is a habituating luxury that even the poorest will pay for. But the reasons may also have to do with these tyrants’ moralizing tendency and their allergic reaction to individual acts of expressive freedom. … The most recent evidence of the link between smoking and liberation is visible in the struggle women have waged in this century for their freedom. It is probably no accident that in April 1945 women received the right to vote in France, two weeks after they had received cigarette rations for the first time since the war. The results of a European Community health investigation show that European women are much more likely to smoke in those countries where they are the most liberated from traditional places and roles. This fact lends credence to the suspicion that some of the current impetus for the wave of antitabagism derives from its concealed misogyny, or antifeminism.”6
REASONS There are numerous reasons why people would want to use such a hazardous substance as tobacco. Ernest Dichter asked several hundred people why they liked to smoke and published his findings in The Psychology of Everyday Living [1947]. The following reasons were given: [1] Fun; “can be traced to the universal desire for self-expression; hunting for the carefree enjoyment we knew as children; legitimate excuse for interrupting work and snatching a moment of pleasure.” [2] Reward; “a cigarette is a reward that we can give ourselves as often as we wish; smoking accompanies other pleasures.” [3] Oral pleasure; connection between thumbsucking and smoking. [4] Time indicator; waiting periods stimulate the desire to smoke; smoking seems to make time pass more rapidly. “This helps to explain why soldiers, waiting for the signal to attack, sometimes value a cigarette more than food.” [5] Friends; smoking cigarettes is like being with a friend; helps making friends, to break down social barriers. [6] Watching the smoke; the clouds the smoker puffs out seem to represent a part of himself; smoking provides satisfaction because it is a playful, creative activity. [7] Mannerism; assuming a pose. [8] Better concentration; smoking provides a ‘smoke screen’ that helps to shut out distractions; gives a focal point for our attention. [9] Relaxation; “smoking helps us to relax because, like music, it is rhythmic”; the restful effect of moderate smoking explains why people working under great stress use more tobacco. [10] Relief and consolation; “I blow my troubles away.” “Smoking may relieve mental depression by forcing a rhythmic expansion of the breast and thus restoring the normal pace of breathing.”
TRADITIONAL USES “Tobacco is one of the most important plants in the lives of all tribes of the Northwest Amazon. It plays a part in curative rituals, in important tribal ceremonies and it is occasionally used as a recreational drug. In its various forms it is also employed in the ordinary medical practices of some tribes. The Tukanoan peoples of the Vaupés often rub a decoction of the leaves briskly over sprains and bruises. Amongst the Witotos and Boras, fresh leaves are crushed and poulticed over boils and infected wounds. Tikuna men mix the crushed leaves with the oil from palms to rub into the hair to prevent balding. The Jivaros take tobacco juice therapeutically for indisposition, chills and snake bites. In many tribes tobacco snuff may be employed medically for a variety of ills, particularly to treat pulmonary ailments. Tobacco is smoked on rare occasions, except in ceremonial and curative rituals of the medicine men who blow smoke or spit tobacco juice over the patient or inhale the smoke, all with appropriate incantations and ritual. Recreational smoking amongst the Indians of the Northwest Amazon is not common, and cigarettes are rarely smoked except in areas where tribal customs are breaking down due to acculturation and the availability of commercial cigarettes. … The Jivaros and Aguaruna of Ecuador smoke large cigars in a tobacco-smoking festival to celebrate the initiation of a youth into manhood. … The Jivaros of Ecuador drink the juice [of tobacco] in initiations, visionary quests, war preparations, victory feasts and witchcraft; even women partake of the juice in wedding feasts and initiations.”7
AGREEMENT The North American viewed the pipe, no less than the tobacco itself, as an instrument of sacred power, symbolizing the universe and more specifically humanity’s place in the universe. As a symbol of the fundamental unity of humanity, the tobacco pipe was present in virtually every native American ritual. A ritual use of tobacco was to solemnize an oath. “The significancf these rituals was to summon the potent spiritual power of tobacco and to infuse this power into the bonds established by the oath. Breaking the oath would therefore unleash disastrous consequences upon the guilty party. Among the Woodlands and Plains Indians, chiefs met to smoke the sacred calumet or peace pipe, the rite invoking the power of tobacco upon their sacred oath. … Performance of these rituals was understood to be forging intimate social relationships. Custom dictated that if the calumet was offered and accepted, the act of smoking would make any engagement sacred and inviolable.”8 Indians use tobacco ties for many bonding ceremonies. “The tying up, the thongs, the string of tobacco ties have a deep meaning for us. This is tying us together, ending the isolation between one human being and another; it is making a line from man to the Great Spirit. It means a harnessing of power. The man is tied there so that the spirit can come and use him. It pulls people together and teaches them.”9
TOXICOLOGY The whole plant is poisonous; the leaves are most dangerous. Ingestion can produce anxiety, irritability, confusion, halting speech, dizziness, drowsiness, nausea and vomiting, appetite loss, tinnitus, cough, tremor, palpitations and irregular pulse. Small doses of nicotine cause arousal, large doses do the reverse. An acute overdose of nicotine leads to nausea, rapid heart rate, and perspiration, followed shortly by marked slowing of heart rate with a fall in blood pressure. Somnolence and confusion may occur, followed by coma. Gastrointestinal motility, urine flow, and sweating are decreased. “In humans it has been impossible so far to separate the effects of nicotine from those of other components of cigarette smoke. The complications of smoking include cardiovascular disease, cancers [esp. malignancies of the lung], chronic pulmonary disease, and attention deficit disorders in children of women who smoke during pregnancy. Nicotine may be a factor in some of these problems. For example, an increased propensity for platelets to aggregate is seen in smokers and this platelet abnormality correlates with the level of nicotine. Nicotine also places an increased burden on the heart through its acceleration of heart rate and blood pressure, suggesting that nicotine may play a role in the onset of myocardial ischemia.”10 The mortality among men aged 55-64 from coronary thrombosis is about 60% greater in men who smoke 20 cigarettes per day than in non-smokers. Other kinds of peripheral vascular disease, e.g. stroke, claudicatio intermittens and diabetic gangrene, are also strongly smoking-related. Nicotine seems to be mainly responsible for the adverse cardiovascular effects, with carbon monoxide as another candidate. The much higher incidence of chronic bronchitis in smokers than non-smokers is due to tar and other irritants rather than nicotine. Beneficial effects of smoking include a significant reduction [20-50%] in the incidence of Parkinson’s disease, and a smaller [doubtfully significant] reduction in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. These effects are thought to result from activation of nicotinic receptors, which benefits Parkinson’s disease by causing dopamine release, and counters the cholinergic deficit in Alzheimer’s disease. A reduction of symptoms in ulcerative colitis has also been reported. 11 Nicotine reduces anxiety in humans, more so in females than males. There may be some sex differences in the pattern of smoking: women report smoking more in emotional and social situations, whereas men smoke more in situations requiring close attention to a task. In both sexes, the trait of sensation seeking is related to being or current smoker. Nicotine reduces anxiety and right hemisphere EEG activation in subjects watching a stress-inducing movie. Conversely, smoking cessation is commonly associated with increases in anxiety and dysphoria. 12 Because nicotine suppresses insulin output from the pancreas, smokers usually have slightly increased blood sugar levels. There is evidence that smoking has a generally anti-oestrogenic effect. It is, for example, associated with increased risks of osteoporosis postmenopausally and with decreased risks of fibroids, vomiting in pregnancy, and endometriosis. A 1966 study by the American Institutes of Research showed that abstinence from smoking produces withdrawal symptoms, such as: nervousness [in 65% of males and 77% of females]; drowsiness [59% m, 61% f]; anxiety [53% m, 58% f]; lightheadedness [44% m, 32% f]; headaches [41% m, 47% f]; energy loss [39% m, 52% f]; fatigue [38% m, 42% f]; constipation or diarrhoea [27% m; 38% f]; insomnia [29% m; 32% f]; dizziness [26% m; 25% f]; sweating [18% m; 10% f]; cramps [16% m; 23% f]; tremor [15% m; 15% f]; palpitations [12% m; 21% f]. 13 Emotional factors play a significant role in quitting tobacco use. Depression is overrepresented among smokers. Depressed smokers experience more intense withdrawal symptoms, have less success at quitting, and a greater chance of relapse. They report higher levels of dependence than nondepressed smokers and are more likely to use nicotine as self-medication to reduce depression and gain stimulation. 14 hildren of smoking parents inhale the equivalent of between 60 and 150 cigarettes each year. “The smoke inhaled passively is largely sidestream, and this contains much greater quantities of nicotine, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and certain carcinogens than mainstream smoke. Maternal smoking is associated with a fivefold increase in atopic [allergic] symptoms in the child, a greater chance of admission to hospital with a chest infection in the first year of life, and an increased incidence of sudden infant death syndrome [‘cot death’]. If one parent smokes the annual incidence of pneumonia or bronchitis in the child increases from 7.8% to 11.4%, and if both parents smoke this rises to 17.6%. The risk of the child developing asthma increases by at least a third. Glue ear is much more common, and the child’s growth is likely to be stunted if the parents smoke more than 10 a day each. Half of all non-smokers living in cities are found to have significant levels of nicotine in their blood and urine.”15
PROVINGS •• [1] Riemschneider – 7 provers; method: repeated, increasing doses of tincture.
•• [2] Lembke – self-experimentation; method: repeated, increasing doses of tincture.
•• [3] Seidel – self-experimentation; method: tincture in doses ranging from 10 to 60 drops.
•• [4] Schreter – number of provers not stated; method: unknown. [Tobacco of Havana cigars.]
•• [5] Nenning – number of provers not stated; method: unknown. [Hungarian tobacco.]
Numerous toxicological reports, e.g. effects of excessive smoking.
[1] Taylor, Flight from Reality. [2] Rudgley, The Encyclopaedia of Psychoactive Substances. [3] Klein, Cigarettes Are Sublime. [4-5] Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise. [6] Klein, ibid. [7] Evans Schultes and Raffauf, The Healing Forest. [8] Fuller, Stairways to Heaven. [9] John [Fire] Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions. [10] Klaassen, Casarett and Doull’s Toxicology. [11] Rang et al., Pharmacology. [12] Spinella, The Psychopharmacology of Herbal Medicine. [13] cited in Brecher, Licit and Illicit Drugs. [14] Spinella, ibid. [15] Robson, Forbidden Drugs.
Affinity
Nerves [cerebro-spinal; vagus; sympathetic ganglia; HEART]. GLANDS. SECRETIONS. * Left side.
Modalities
Worse: MOTION; of riding. Lying on left side. Least motion. Heat. Opening the eyes. Evening. Warm room. Walking.
Better: Cold; fresh air. Twilight. Uncovering abdomen. Vomiting. Vinegar. Cold applications; cold water poured on head.
Main symptoms
M Sudden [periodical] anxiety.
Feeling that something terrible is going to happen.
> Weeping. [1 prover]
• “Cannot get rid of the idea that a misfortune is about to befall her.”
• “Apprehension, anxiety and melancholy, as though she anticipated a death.” [Hughes]
• “Dr. Chapman states that he was consulted by a member of Congress, in the meridian of life, and of a stout frame. ‘He told me that from having been one of the most healthy and fearless of men, he had become ‘sick all over, and as timid as a girl.’ He could not even present a petition to Congress, much less say a word concerning it, though he had long been a practising lawyer and had served much on legislative bodies. By any ordinary noise he was startled or thrown into tremor, and was afraid to be alone at night. His appetite and digestion were gone; he had painful sensation at the pit of his stomach, and unrelenting constipated bowels. During the narrative of his sufferings his aspect approached the haggard wildness of mental distemperance. On inquiry, I found that his consumption of tobacco was almost incredible by chewing, snuffing, and smoking. Being satisfied that all his misery arose from this pernicious weed, its use was discontinued, and in a few weeks he entirely recovered.” [Hughes]
M Great excitement.
• “Very cheerful and gay, dances about on one leg, and laughs without cause almost all day. … Sings all day. … High spirits like intoxication. … Great gaiety and loquacity as if intoxicated.” [Hughes]
Nightshade-type of delirium.
• “A young man of 20, not being an habitual user of the weed, one Saturday smoked 12 cigars, and on the Sunday 3 or 4 more. That afternoon he began to act strangely. I was called at 9 p.m. , and found him with all the appearances of delirium tremens [I was assured, however, that he had not been drinking]. He was very wild, tossing about on the bed with hallucinations, seeing snakes, lions, bears, etc.; thought he saw his father’s head cut off and the blood running from the body. During these wild paroxysms he would try to get out of bed, requiring several men to hold him; he would loll his tongue, and snap his teeth like a dog, so that some of his relatives thought he had hydrophobia. There was no spasm, however, when water was brought to him, and he drank it eagerly. Then he saw a beautiful lake, and wished to drown himself in it, tried to choke himself, and actually became black in the face before his hands could be loosened from his throat; then begged some one to take him out of doors and shoot him. After 3-4 doses of Belladonna 3x he quieted down, and from midnight till daybreak on Monday seemed to sleep. He was really, however, in a state of catalepsy; limbs could be placed in any position, and would remain there however uncomfortable it might be until they were moved.” [Hughes]
M Great disinclination for work.
One prover had: • “Feeling of increase of strength in muscles without the slightest wish to move.” [Hughes]
Cannot read or study.
• “I have frequently prescribed it most successfully to those medical students, who had worked hard in their studies and smoked hard, but finally could not hear with comprehension nor study any longer.” [Guernsey]
Loss of confidence in one’s abilities.
G Sudden cold SWEAT.
With chill; in renal colic, angina pectoris, etc.
G PROFUSE, free secretions.
[vomiting; perspiration; lachrymation; salivation, etc.]
G < HEAT. > COLD AIR; uncovering abdomen.
G MOTION SICKNESS [car, boat].
Constant nausea, vomiting on least motion.
> FRESH air.
Or nausea during pregnancy with these modalities.
G Symptoms occur in PAROXYSMS.
[nausea, sick headache, vertigo, sneezing] [Allen]
G Pains APPEAR SUDDENLY.
G Faintness in close room.
G Paralytic condition.
• “Mr. Howison embarked on board of a sloop in one of the ports of Cuba. He went to sleep in the cabin, which was full of large packages of tobacco, but was harassed by wild and frightful dreams, and suddenly awaked about midnight, bathed in a cold dew, and totally unable to speak or move. He knew perfectly where he was, and recollected everything that had occurred the previous day; he could not make any bodily effort whatever, and tried in vain to get up or change his position. The watch on deck struck four bells, and he counted them, though it seemed to him as if he did not hear the beat, but received the vibration through his body. About this time a seaman came into the cabin with a light, and carried away an hour-glass without observing the sufferer. Shortly after a pane of glass was broken in the skylight, and he saw the fragments of glass drop on the floor. These circumstances which really occurred, are mentioned to show that Mr. H. experienced real sensations, and was not still under the influence of perturbed dreams. His inability to move was not accompanied by any pain or uneasiness, but he felt as if the principle of life had entirely departed from his frame. At length be became totally insensible, and continued so till an increase of wind made the sea a little rough, which caused the vessel to roll. The motion, he supposes, had the effect of awakening him from his trance, and he contrived somehow or other to get up and go on deck. His memory was totally lost for about a quarter of an hour; he knew he was in a ship, but nothing more. While in this state he observed a man drawing water from the sea in buckets, and requested him to pour one on his head. On the seaman doing so, all his faculties were immediately restored, and he acquired a most vivid recollection of a vast variety of ideas and events which appeared to have passed through his mind, and to have occupied him during the time of his supposed insensibility.” [Allen]
• “Dreams that she wants to talk but cannot, on account of tongue being too big, which hangs out of mouth and reaches to nose; she wanted to cry out but cannot, weeps about it, and is quite inconsolable until she wakes up in great anxiety.” [Hughes]
• “Mr. T, when smoking tobacco in a pipe, after about three whiffs of it has feeling as if fingers were longer. If he continues smoking, he feels as if he had lost use of legs from knees downwards. Can smoke a cigar in open air; but if he smokes half of one indoors, his calves feel as if they did not belong to him, and is if they were dropping away, and he has a general feeling as if he were losing strength all over his body; also his upper lip feels elongated and tongue swollen, so that in speaking his words run into each other.” [Hughes]
G Excessive VERTIGO.
And Nausea and copious [cold] sweat.
< Opening eyes. [Compare Lobelia] P Ménière's disease with feeling of seasickness. [Phatak] P Oversensitive to smell of wine. • "Very weak sense of smell; only wine is smelt from a great distance, so that she is almost intoxicated by a glass from which wine had been drunk that is standing in the room." [Hughes] P NAUSEA. Nausea and much spitting. • "Slightest movement causes horrible nausea. Vomiting of water only, during which it was green and yellow before eyes. As long as he sits still he can keep off vomiting, but when he moves vomiting comes on." [Hughes] P Angina pectoris. And Nausea, cold sweat and collapse. Angina pectoris. And Coronary sclerosis and high blood pressure. [Phatak] Rubrics Mind Anxiety, when alone [1], in a crowd [1], with cold perspiration [2], from pressure on chest [2], sudden [2], from thinking about it [1], > weeping [2]. Cheerful, with singing, dancing, laughing [1]. Confusion, from motion [1], > vomiting [1/1]. Delusions, being double, there were a second self outside of patient [1/1], someone is coming to murder him [1], body is smaller [1], the world rested upon him [1/1]. Fear, of exertion [1], of being murdered [1], in narrow place [1]. Feels unfortunate [2].
Eye
Lachrymation when looking steadily [1]. Photophobia, blue light [1/1].
Vision
Accommodation diminished [1]. Colours, yellow and green before eyes while vomiting [1H]. Flickering when looking intently [1]. Images too long retained [1]. Lost, when looking at white objects [1].
Ear
Noises, humming, < open air [1/1], < loud noises [1]. Nose Acute smell, sensitive to odour of wine [1/1]. Stomach Nausea, > uncovering [2]. Vomiting, > closing eyes [1/1], on motion [3], while riding in a carriage [3].
Abdomen
Retraction, umbilicus, during colic [1G].
Back
Coldness, dorsal region, between scapulae, from motion [1H].
Sleep
Disturbed by coldness [1].
Chill
Chilliness during menses [2].
Skin
Coldness, during diarrhoea [1], during menses [2]. Itching > cold air [1G].
* Repertory additions: [G] = Guernsey; [H] = Hughes.
Food
Aversion: [1]: Cold water; smell of tobacco.
Desire: [3]: Tobacco. [1]: Alcohol.
Worse: [1]: Alcohol; tobacco; wine, odour of.
Better: [1]: Apples, sour [*; > nausea]; coffee; cold drinks; vinegar; wine.
* Repertory addition [Clarke].