FOLIA TABAGI. 467 



virtues. Of the latter he gives a long account, noticino: also the 



methods of smoking and chewing the herb prevalent among the 

 Indians. He also supplies a small woodcut representing the plant, 

 which he states to have white flowers, red in the centre. 



Jacques Gohory/ who cultivated the plant in Paris at least as early 

 as 1572, describes its flowers as shaded with red, and enumerates 

 various medicinal preparations made from it. 



In the Maison Rustiqiie of Charles Estienne, edition of lo83, the 

 author gives a ''Discours sur la Nicotiane on Petum mascle,'' in wliich 

 he claims for the plant the first place among medicinal herbs, on 

 account of its singular and almost divine virtues. 



The cultivation of tobacco in England, except on a very small scale 

 in a physic garden, has been prohibited by law-^ since IGGO. 



Description — Amongst the various species oi Nicotiana cultivated 

 for the manufacturing of smoking tobacco and snuff*, N. Tabcu^um is by 

 far the moat frequent, and is almost the only one named in the j)harma- 

 cop(^ias as medicinal. Its simple stem, bearing at the summit a 

 panicle of tubular pink flowers, and growing to the height of a man, 

 has oblong, lanceolate simple leaves, with the margin entire. The 

 lower leaves, more broadly lanceolate, and about 2 feet long by 6 

 mches wide, are shortly stalked. The stem-leaves are semi-amplexi- 

 <^aul, and decurrent at the base. Cultivation sometimes produces 

 cordate-ovate forms of leaf, or a margin more or less uneven, or nearly 

 revolute. 



All the herbaceous parts of the plant are clothed with long soft 

 hairs, made up of broad, ribbon-like, striated cells, the points of which 

 exude a glutinous liquid. Small sessile glands are situated here and 

 there on the surface of the leaf^ The lateral veins proceed from the 

 thick midrib in straight lines, at angles of 40^ to 75°, gently curving 



upwards only near the edge. In drying, the leaves become brittle and 

 as thin as paper, and always acquire a brown colour. Even by the 

 inost careful treatment of a single leaf, it is not possible to preserve 

 the green hue. 



The smell of the fresh plant is narcotic; its taste bitter and nauseous, 

 fhe characteristic odour of dried tobacco is developed during the 



process of curino*. 



. Chemical Composition-^ The active principle of tobacco, first 

 isolated in 1828 by Posselt and Reiinann, is a volatile, highly poisonous 

 alkaloid termed Xicotine C''WN\ It is easily extracted from tobacco 

 by means of alcohol or water, as a raalate, from which the alkaloid can 

 be separated by shakin^j it with caustic lye and ether. The ether is 

 tlien expelled by warming the liquid, which finally has to be mixed 

 ^.ith slaked lime and diSilled in a stream of hydrogen, when the 

 nicotine begins to come over at about 200° C. n-r * i -° n 



jNicotine is a colourless oily liquid, of sp. gr. \y-7 s.t io ^., 

 tieviating the plane of polarization to the left ; it boils at 247 and 



'rmriictlon mr Vherhe Petuw ditte en Tahahs, Frankfurt, 18M.-We l^ave not 



feri572"^' ''' ^" i?o;«e of jS;c-2 . . consult^ ^Fairh.It, Tobacco, .t. If.to. y, 



p-I2 Car.' 11. c. 34; 15 Car II c 7 - ^"anlclScopic structure oftobacco leav^^^^^ 



^or further iuformatlon on the history of See PockUngton, Pharm. Journal, v. (18-4) 



ro&acco, see Tiedemann, Geschkhte dtf< 301. 



