82 ST NICOTINE 



excellent in navigation and Nature's privy counsell, and 

 infinitely read in the wide boke of the worlde, hath both 

 farre fetcht it and deare bought it, the estimate of which I 

 leave to other ; yet this all know, since it came into request, 

 there hath been Magnus Fttmi Qestus ; and Fi(mi-Vendulus 

 is the best Epithite for an Apothecary.' 



How enraptured medical men were with the new herb, 

 believing that at last they had discovered the panacea of 

 their happiest dreams, may be learned from Dr. Gardiner's 

 Trial of Tobacco. On the title page of this rare quarto 

 volume, published in London in 1610, the author describes 

 in prolix detail the contents of his book, thus : — ' Wherein 

 his (tobacco's) worth is most worthily expressed : as in the 

 name, nature, and qualitie of the same hearb — his speciall use 

 in physick, with the right and true use of taking it, as well for 

 the seasons and times, as also the complexions, dispositions, 

 and constitutions of such bodies and persons as are fittest, 

 and to whom it is most profitable to take it.' He asks : 

 ' What is a more noble medicine, or readier at hand, than 

 tobacco ? ' And he informs the reader that although he is 

 an old man he undertakes the task of compiling the book 

 in order to supply a proper knowledge of the plant so much 

 in use among Englishmen. For the cure of the asthmatical, 

 and such persons as are of a consumptive tendency, he 

 prescribed liberally of Folioruni Sana Sancta Indorum 

 combined with other medicaments unknown to modern 

 therapeutics, and which may be readily accredited with 

 very effectual properties — effectual, one would think, in 

 dispelling the extravagant belief of the learned leeches of 

 those days in tobacco as a ' soverane remedy.' How 

 people managed to take such concoctions as Dr. Gardiner 

 prescribed and live is beyond conception : their Spartan- 

 like endurance shines out conspicuously under a treatment 



