by Bruce Barwell

This letter appeared in the Homoeopathic Recorder magazine in 1906.

Editor,
For a period of 41 years I have made and dispensed a concentrated fresh plant tincture of Nasturtium officinale as an antidote in tobacco narcosis and as a sedative in neurotic and kindred affections. Messrs Boericke & Tafel now make the tincture for me better than I could prepare it.

To me it is the only known antidote for the various forms and degrees of tobacco poisoning. Nux, Arsenicum, Ignatia, Plantago, Lycopodium, etc, have either afforded but partial relief for the effects of this complex poison or have miserably failed me in crucial tests. Nasturtium off. not once, in the absence of complications. The drug is also of marked efficacy in the many forms of neurasthenia, without lesion, and in hysteria, chorea minor, etc. If a ‘general sedative’ were not an illusion – there is no general sedative but death – I might be tempted to apply that term to this drug.

Of the strong tincture five to ten minim doses should be ordered every one to four hours, until its effects are obtained, then suspend dosage. It may be found very unwise to push the drug, or any drug, beyond the point of relief. Let the profession use the remedy, compare results and approximate exact values.

PMC
New York, 1 March 1906

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This Nasturtium is not the near-weed garden climbing plant called nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus), but is really watercress!

The Macdonald Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants, edited by Roberto Chiej, says this interesting thing about watercress: “Watercress juice is a nicotine solvent and used as such on strong tobaccos.”

I have used potentised tobacco smoke and potentised watercress to help people stop smoking. This is the method I use, and after about 10 years experience with it I believe it to be better than other stop-smoking programmes.

The smoker takes one drop or one pill of Tobacco smoke 30c (it should have a Latin name by now but hasn’t) three times a day for 10 days while still smoking. Do not use Tabacum or Nicotinum; I have tried these and they do not work anywhere near as well.

On day 11 stop smoking but continue with the Tobacco smoke at least three times a day, maybe more often if the desire to smoke is strong. Continue this way for at least 10 days, but not more than 20 days.

If there are strong withdrawal-type symptoms, headache, nausea, dizzy-empty feeling, etc, much more prominent than craving to smoke, change to Nasturtium 12c, one drop or pill taken 1- to 4-hourly as needed for up to six days. If the craving again becomes the worst feature change back to Tobacco smoke for as long as needed.

I got the idea to use Nasturtium from the old letter reproduced here; I do not know who PMC is and I have not heard of anyone using Nasturtium for drug withdrawal in general, but it may be a very good medicine in this field too. I could not induce anyone to eat lots of watercress; it seems to become especially nauseating to ex-smokers.