TOBACCO. 



commerce; and that it- culture should have spread 

 more rapidly than that of the most useful plants. 

 At the time of the discovery of America, tobacco 

 was in frequent use among the Indians, and the 

 practice of smoking was common to almost all the 

 tribes ; and they pretended to cure a great variety 

 of diseases by this plant. 



Humboldt, in his work on New Spain, says that 

 tobacco was the term used in the Haytian language 

 to designate the pipe or instrument employed by 

 the natives in smoking the herb; which term, hav- 

 ing been transferred by the Spaniards from the pipe 

 to the herb itself, has been adopted by other na- 

 tions. Other accounts say, that tobacco received 

 its name from the province of Tabacain St Domingo, 

 whence it was first introduced into Europe, in 1559, 

 by a Spanish gentleman, named Hernandez de To- 

 ledo, who brought a small quantity into Spain and 

 Portugal. From thence, by means of the French 

 ambassador at Lisbon, Jean Nicot, from whom it 

 derived its botanical name of Nicotia, it found its 

 way to Paris, where it was used in the form of a 

 powder by Catherine de' Medici. Tobacco then 

 came under the patronage of the Cardinal Santa 

 Croce, the pope's nuncio, who, returning from his 

 embassy at the Spanish and Portuguese courts, 

 carried the plant to his own country. Both in 

 France and in the Papal States it was at once re- 

 ceived with general enthusiasm, in the shape of 

 snuff ; but it was some time after the use of tobacco 

 as snuff that the practice of smoking it commenced. 

 This practice is generally supposed to have been 

 introduced into England by Sir Walter Raleigh ; 

 but Camden says, in his ' Elizabeth,' that Sir 

 Francis Drake and his companions, on their return 

 from Virginia in 1585, were " the first, as far as he 

 knew", who introduced the Indian plant, called 

 Tabacca or Nicotia, into England, having been 

 taught by the Indians to use it as a remedy against 

 indigestion. And from the time of their return," 

 says he, " it immediately began to grow into very 

 general use, and to bear a high price ; a great many 

 persons, some from luxury, and others for their 

 health, being wont to draw in the strong-smelling 

 smoke with insatiable greediness through an earth- 

 enware tube, and then to puff it forth again through 

 their nostrils: so that tabacca-taverns (tabernae 

 tabaccanae) are now as generally kept in all our 

 towns, as wine-houses or beer-houses." It appears 

 from a note in the ' Criminal Trials,' vol. i. p. 361, 

 that in 1600 the French ambassador, in his des- 

 patches, represented the Peers, on the trial of the 

 Earls of Essex and Southampton, as smoking tobacco 

 copiously while they deliberated on their verdict. 

 Sir Walter Raleigh, too, was accused of having sat 

 with his pipe at the window of the armoury, while 

 he looked on at the execution of Essex in the 

 Tower. Both these stories are probably untrue, 

 but the mere relation of them by contemporaneous 

 writers, shows that they were not then monstrously 

 incredible, and they therefore prove the generality 

 of the practice of smoking at that time amongst the 

 higher class of society. After a time, however, the 

 practice of smoking tobacco appears to have met 

 with strenuous opposition in high places, both in 

 this country and other parts of Europe. Its prin- 

 cipal opponents were the priests, the physicians, 

 and the sovereign princes; by the former its use 

 was declared sinful ; and, in 1684, Pope Urban 

 VIII. published a bull, excommunicating all persons 

 found guilty of taking snuff when in church. This 

 bull was renewed in 1690, by Pope Lmocent ; and, 



about twenty-nine years afterwards, the Sultan 

 Amurath IV. made smoking a capital offence. For 

 a long time smoking was forbidden in Russia, under 

 pain of having the nose cut off; and in some parts 

 of Switzerland, it was likewise made a subject of 

 public prosecution the police regulations of the 

 canton of Berne, in 1661, placing the prohibition 

 of smoking in the list of the Ten Commandments 

 immediately under that against adultery. Nay, 

 James I. of England did not think it beneath the 

 royal dignity to take up his pen upon the subject. 

 He accordingly, in 1603, published his famous 

 ' Counterblaste to Tobacco,' in which the following 

 remarkable passage occurs : " It is a custom 

 loathesome to the eye, hateful to <he nose, hann- 

 full to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in 

 the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling 

 the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bot- 

 tomless." But notwithstanding this regal and 

 priestly wrath, the use of the plant extended itself 

 far and wide ; and tobacco is, at this moment, per- 

 haps the most general luxury in existence. 



The plant is glutinous, and covered with a very 

 short down ; the stem upright, four or five feet 

 high, and branching; the leaves are alternate, ses- 

 sile, oval-oblong, and entire on the margin ; the 

 superior ones lanceolate ; the flowers are disposed 

 in a terminal panicle ; the tube of the corolla long, 

 inflated towards the summit, and dividing into five 

 acute, angular, spreading lobes, of a rose colour. 

 It was originally a native of South America . 

 Another species (TV. rustica) is very common, but 

 is less esteemed, and is distinguished by the short, 

 yellowish-green corolla N. quadrivalvis is culti- 

 vated by the Indians of Missouri, and furnishes 

 tobacco of excellent quality The best Havanna 

 cigars are made from the leaves of N. repanda 

 Other species of tobacco are found in Mexico and 

 South America. One has been discovered in China, 

 and another in New Holland. This genus belongs 

 to the natural family solaneee. 



Tobacco is a powerful narcotic, and also a strong 

 stimulant, and, taken internally, even in small 

 doses, it proves powerfully emetic and purgative. 

 The oil is celebrated for its extreme virulence, and, 

 when applied to a wound, is said, by Redi, to be as 

 fatal as the poison of a viper. The decoction, 

 powder and smoke, are used in agriculture to de- 

 stroy insects. Mr Barrow, in his Travels, speaks 

 of the use made by the Hottentots of this plant, 

 for the purpose of destroying snakes : " A Hotten- 

 tot," says he, " applied some of it from the short 

 end of his wooden tobacco-pipe to the mouth of a 

 snake while darting out his tongue. The effect 

 was as instantaneous as an electric shock : with a 

 convulsive motion that was momentary, the snake 

 half untwisted itself, and never stirred more, and 

 the muscles were so contracted that the whole ani- 

 mal felt hard and rigid, as if dried in the sun." As 

 tobacco is cultivated for the leaves, it is an object 

 to render these as large and as numerous as possi- 

 ble, and new, fresh and fertile soil is preferred. It 

 is very sensible to frost. The plants are raised on 

 beds, early in spring, and when they have acquired 

 four leaves, they are planted in the fields, in well 

 prepared earth, about three feet distant every way. 

 Every morning and evening, the plants require to 

 be looked over, in order to destroy a worm which 

 sometimes invades the bud. When four or five 

 inches high, they are moulded up. As soon as they 

 have eight or nine leaves, and are ready to put forth 

 a stalk, the top is nipped off, in order to make the 



