THE USE AND ABUSE OF TOBACCO 8i 



Wrights and pamphleteers found in the new indulgence a 

 source of endless amusement, and belaboured 'Tobacconists' 

 with rare sallies of wit and humour. 



Authors learned in the materia medica of those days tell 

 of wonderful cures wrought by this Sana Sancta Indorum. 

 In a booklet bearing the rather droll title of Dygfs Dry 

 Dinner (1599) Henry Buttes informs the reader that 

 ' Tobacco cureth any grief, dolour, imposture, or obstruc- 

 tion proceeding of cold or wind, especially in the head or 

 breast. The fume taken in a pipe is good against rumes, 

 hoarseness, ache in the head, stomach, lungs, breast, etc., 

 also in want of meat, drink, sleep, or rest.' The dyspeptic 

 and the sleepless are invited to banquet upon a dry 

 dinner, and they will assuredly find in the pipe a never- 

 failing remedy for their several ailments. The uplifted 

 author feels himself impelled to give expression to his high 

 appreciation of the new regimen in verse, and exclaims, 



Fruit, herbs, flesh, fish, whitemeats, spice, sauce, all, 

 Concoct are by Tobacco's Cordiall ! 



Proceeding with his description of a dry dinner and 

 elaborating many mysterious complications of the human 

 system and their complete removal by the use of tobacco, 

 he says that he 'names his book, Dyet's Dry Dinner, not 

 only Caminnm Prandium, without wine, hnt Accipritinum, 

 without all drink, except tobacco, which also is but dry 

 drink.' And as to the first introduction of tobacco into this 

 kingdom, he informs us that it was ' translated out of the 

 Indies in the seed or root, native or sative in our own 

 fruit-fullest soil. The Indian name for the plant is Peicelt, 

 surnamed tobacco, by the Spaniards of the He Tabago. 

 Yet we are not beholden to their tradition. Our English 

 Ulisses, renowned Syr Walter Rawleigh, a man admirably 



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