Tobacco Materia Medica

Tobacco oil may be an essential oil, CO2 extract or absolute. I have had extensive experience with the latter two and find them to be very potent. The oil is thick, brownish-black and has an aroma reminiscent of a fine pipe tobacco. The oil’s major biochemical components include phenols, aldehydes and ketones.

Tobacco has a long history of effective clinical use in small doses administered in highly specific forms such as rectal infusions, poultices and homeopathic medications.

Significantly, although Native Americans began cultivating tobacco around 6000 B.C.E., they didn’t use it for smoking purposes for another 5000 years. In other words, the first 5000 years of tobacco’s use was devoted exclusively to medicinal and ceremonial applications.

In Native American medicine tobacco is considered to be analgesic, antiseptic, emetic, purgative and sedative. The Apaches used tobacco to treat bee stings, mosquito bites and toothache.

In Brazil and Guyana tobacco is used to treat dysfunction of the biliary tract, intestinal worms and parasitic skin diseases. In the traditional medicine of India, tobacco is considered useful for painful swellings, dental caries and associated toothache, earache, purulent rhinitis (inflammation of the nasal mucosa with pus formation) and hernia.

Download this chapter to learn more about TOBACCO LEAF—Nicotiana tabacum.