338 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



Monsieur Jean Nicot, or Nicotius, who was 

 then residing at the court of Lisbon, as am- 

 bassador from Francis II. obtained some of 

 these plants, which he took to France, and 

 presented them to Catharine de Medicis, as 

 a production of the New World. It was this 

 ambassador who first sent the seeds of the 

 tobacco-plant to the Island of Tobago; and 

 it is from him that this vegetable received 

 the generic name of Nicotiana. It was called 

 Petun and Picielt by the Americans ; and at 

 the first discovery it was named Sacra Herba, 

 Sancta Herba, and Sana Sancta Indorum; by 

 others it w r as -called Hyoscyamus Peruvianus^ 

 or Henbane of Peru. 



Nicolaus Monardis seems to have been 

 the earliest author who called it tobacco. 

 We learn that its stupifying quality was 

 known to the native Americans previous to 

 our knowledge of the plant, although neither 

 so generally cultivated, nor so well manu- 

 factured as since in the hands of the Euro- 

 peans ; as an old author of that day relates, 

 " that the priests and inchaunters of that 

 hot countrie do take the fume therof vntill 

 they be drunken ; that after they haue lien 

 for dead three or fower bowers, they may tell 



