40 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 



narcotic qualities. Tobacco was used in Persia long 

 before the discovery of America ; it is supposed to have 

 been introduced into England by Sir Walter Raleigh and 

 the settlers who returned from Virginia, about the year 

 1586.-^ They also imported a plant of the same order, 

 which has been of immense importance to Europe — the 

 potato — of which the leaves, stem, and fruit contain the 

 narcotic principle ; though the tubers of the roots, when 

 cooked, are so useful as food. What a contrast between 

 a steaming dish of potatoes and a cloud of tobacco- 

 smoke ! 



Whether or not smoking is a poisonous habit, tobacco 

 is unquestionably a poison. I^t is not every poison that 

 kills rapidly. There are noted poisons to which persons 

 gradually accustom themselves, and live on, sometimes to 

 old age. Mr. Solly, F. R. S., remarks : " The opium- 

 eater can take an ounce of laudanum for his morning's 

 dram, and feel it not ; when the eighth part of it would be 

 fatal to the uninitiated." In Upper Styria, it is a custom 

 to take arsenic, which in small doses has certain pleasant 

 effects ; and some Styrians may say that they should 

 die if deprived of their arsenic. While many have been 

 killed by raw spirits, others get to drink them habitually, as 

 though eau de vie was really the "water of life." But this 

 does not prove that these poisons are not poisons, nor 

 even that the system which is gradually used to them, and 



1 The earliest detailed account of tobacco in England is said to 

 be in " Joyfull newes oute of the newe founde worlde. Englished 

 by John Frampton, London, 1577," which contains a translation 

 of a Spanish work, and also of a French treatise, relating the in- 

 troduction of it into France by Nicot (whence nicotine, «S:c.), who 

 met with it in Portugal about 1 560. Marvellous cures, especially 

 of wounds, ulcers, and sores, were attributed to it. 



