632 SOLANACEZ. 
natives, and it is. stated to be smoked like Ganja, and some- 
times used in the same way as Datura to facilitate robbery. 
NICOTIANA TABACUM, Linn. 
Fig, —Lam. Ill. ¢. 113; Wight Ill. t. 166, Bentl. and Trim. 
t. 191. Tobacco (Eng.), Tabac (F'r.). ; 
Hab.—America. . Cultivated throughout India. The herb. 
Vernacular.—Tambaki (Hind., Mar.), Taéméku (Beng.), 
Pugai-ilai (T’am.), Pogéku, Dhimra-patramu (Tel.), Puka- 
yila, Pokala (Mal.), Hogesappu (Can.), Tamaki (Guz.). 
History, Uses, &c.—In the Encyclopedia of Sanskrit 
learning by Raja Ridh4ékanta Deva, entitled Sabdakalpadruma, 
tobacco is mentioned under the name of Témrakitita. This 
name occurs in the Kulérnava-tantra as that of one of eight 
intoxicating agents. No Sanskrit medical writers mention. 
Tobacco. Tamrakita isa word compounded of Témra, “a red 
or copper colour,’ and kita, “deceitful or vile,” and the Hindi 
name T'ambaku may possibly be derived from it and not from 
the Portuguese, in which case Tobacco has usurped the place of 
some older but now forgotten drug. From the Madsir-i-rahimi 
and the Dédra-shikohi we learn that tobacco was introduced 
into the Deccan by the Portuguese about A. H. 914(A. D. 1508), 
and that it began to be smoked about 1605, towards the end of © 
the reign of Sultan Jalaleddeen Akbar. Rumphius speaks of 
it as having been known from a remote period in the Hast, and 
it appears to have been introduced into China in the 16th 
century probably by way of Japan or Manila. In Europe the 
Spaniards first became acquainted with Tobacco on the discovery 
of Caba in 1492, and introduced it into Spain as a valuable 
medicinal herb. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, gover- 
nor of Domingo, in his Historia general de las Indias, printed 
at Seville in 1535, states that the plant is smoked by the Indians 
through a branched tube of the shape of the letter Y, which 
they call Tubaco, | nee Bo ec ats 
