THE USE AND ABUSE OF TOBACCO 85 



sight to me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance 

 I ever saw. It put me in an ill-conception of myself and my 

 smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll-tobacco to 

 smell and chaw, which took away my apprehension. 



Clearly Pepys was not a ' tobacconist,' but surely he 

 should have known better than to have ' chawed ' the 

 black twist. 



Dr. Willis, physician in ordinary to Charles the Second, 

 speaks highly of the valuable antiseptic properties of to- 

 bacco. In his work entitled, A Plain and Easy Method of 

 Preserving (by God's Blessing] Those That are Well From 

 the Infection of the Plague (1666) he remarks upon the 

 exemption from the pestilence of houses where tobacco was 

 stored for manufacture or sale. 



Nor indeed were those persons affected who smoked 

 tobacco, especially if they smoked in the morning, a time 

 when the body is more susceptible to outer influences than 

 it is later in the day. For the smoke of the plant secures 

 those parts which lie most open, namely, the mouth, nostrils, 

 etc., and at once intercepts and keeps the contagion that 

 floats in the air from the brain, lungs, and stomach. It 

 also stirs the blood and spirits all over, and makes them 

 throw off any contagion that may adhere to them. 



In another treatise on the subject Dr. Willis makes equally 

 shrewd remarks on the use of tobacco among soldiers and 

 sailors. He says, ' Tobacco taken in the vulgar way at the 

 mouth through a pipe has effects not only manifold but 

 diverse,' and he explains that its use, ' when it may be had, 

 seems not only necessary but profitable for soldiers and 

 mariners, for that it renders them both fearless of any 

 danger, and patient of hunger, cold, and labour.' Army 

 experiences of recent years bear testimony to the beneficial 

 use of tobacco in almost the same words. 



