NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 95 



accompanied it with a small box of snuff, in the use of which Queen Catharine 

 de Medici took such pleasure, that it soon became popular and fashionable. 

 Thus much for its early history. 



Tobacco, at all times, has had its detractors and its defenders ; theologians 

 and physicians have striven to eradicate its use, or to defend it as a perfectly 

 harmless ingredient, in the pleasant employment of time. The number of pub- 

 lications for and against it has been truly enormous, but those who take the 

 contrary part have been more distinguished by their extraordinary exaggera- 

 tions and barefaced falsehoods, than by any just reasoning on the subject. It 

 would be out of place here, to more than allude to the literary compositions 

 of this nature, particularly those of an early date, at the head of which stands 

 the Misocapnus of James the First, of England. Modern writers, even of our 

 own times, are not wanting, who have not hesitated to invent the most flagrant 

 falsehoods about the use of a substance, which, at the worst, involved only a 

 small loss of time and of money. One has said that the decline of certain na- 

 tions, the Chinese and Turks, must be attributed to the U3e of this plant. Others 

 (calling themselves Doctors in Medicine,) have attributed almost every disease 

 that afflicts humanity to this propensity. The great mortality attending Asiatic 

 cholera has been ascribed to it. The enemies of alcohol, of tea and of coffee, 

 all combine in a warfare against tobacco. They invent the most ridiculous 

 stories to bring these articles into disrepute. Some have had the folly to say 

 that leeches have been instantly killed when applied to those who used tobacco, 

 and that bugs and fleas would not bite such persons. One Dr. Long, of New 

 Hampshire, states that he was consulted by a Mrs. F., "on account of her 

 daughter, who had a small ring-worm at the tip of her nose ; she wished to 

 apply tobacco to it." The Doctor objected, and related to her a story, probably 

 of his own extemporary fabrication, of a father "who had destroyed his little son 

 by the application of tobacco spittle to an eruption on his head." The good 

 woman did not believe the doctor, and when he was gone besmeared the tip of 

 her finger with some of the juice from the grandmother's pipe, and applied it to 

 the ring-worm ; the instant the mother's finger touched the part affected, " the 

 eyes of the little girl rolled up in their sockets, she sallied back, and was pre- 

 vented from falling by the alarmed mother." The child was then attacked by 

 trismus and deep insensibility ; she was, however, restored by the application 

 of ammonia and lavender. " Till this time," says the Doctor, " the child had been 

 robust and healthy, never having had but one illness that required medical ad- 

 vice, but since the tobacco experiment, has been continually feeble and sickly. 

 The first four or five years after this terrible operation, she was subject to faint- 

 ing fits every three or four weeks, lasting from twelve to twenty-four hours. 

 Within the last three or four years these turns have been less severe." 



In the first years of the introduction of tobacco into general use, laws were 

 passed against it, chiefly, I presume, because it was looked upon as possessing 

 intoxicating properties. Amurath, the IV., Sultan of Turkey, finding it impos- 

 sible, himself, to learn to smoke, issued a violent decree against its use. Those 

 convicted of being snuff-takers or smokers, were condemned to receive fifty 

 blows of a cane on the soles of their feet, and on a repetition of the offence, to 

 lose their noses. The same punishments for using tobacco were inflicted by 

 Michael Federowich, in Russia, which law was in force until the accession of 

 Peter the Great. Tavernier relates that, Sefi, king of Persia, punished those 

 who were caught smoking by pouring melted lead into their mouths until they 

 were dead. Chardin tells us the following anecdote of King Abbas, the grand- 

 father of Sefi : Having tried without success to prevent the use of tobacco, 

 the smoke of which was offensive to him, and in order to punish his courtiers 

 who used it, at the end of a sumptuous banquet which he had given them, 

 he offered them pipes filled with dry horse dung instead of tobacco. From time 

 to time his majesty asked them how they liked the tobacco ; they all declared 

 that nothing could be more delicious ; it possessed the perfume of a thousand 



1859.] 



