CHAPTER Y. 



SNUFF AND SNUFF-BOXES. 



When tobacco was originally recommended to the 

 attention of the Old World, its claims as a curative 

 agent were strongly asserted ; one mode of using the 

 leaves was to pulverise them, and inhale the powder by 

 the nose : this custom, as well as all others connected 

 with the European form of using the plant, was adopted 

 from the Indians. We have quoted, in p. 16, the 

 description given by the Friar who accompanied 

 Columbus in 1494, of their mode of inhaling it for 

 medicinal purposes. It was consequently recom- 

 mended for all diseases of the head brought on by 

 colds ; and particularly that one popularly termed the 

 pose, a dry stoppage which much troubled our ances- 

 tors. Physicians had, on the faith of old Indian 

 usages, on which they seem to have implicitly relied, 

 recommended it. Catherine de' Medicis was the first 

 so to use it, within a short period after the introduction 

 of the tobacco-plant by Jean Nicot; and the new 

 sternutatory was first handed about in the Court of 

 France about 1562. This Queen's patronage decided 

 the success of the plant, which was called Herbe a la 



