TOBACCO. 



{Nicotiana tabacuin L.) 



Pernicious weed ! whose scent the fair annoys, 

 Unfriendly to society's chief joys. 

 The worst effect is banishing for hours 

 The sex whose presence c vilizes ours. 

 Thou art indeed the drug a gardener wants 

 To poison vermin that infest his plants. 



— Cowper: Conversation, line 251. 



The tobacco plant is a tall herbaceous 

 annual with large simple leaves and ter- 

 minal inflorescence, belonging to the 

 nightshade family (Solanace^e), the 

 members of which resemble each other 

 in that they are more or less poisonous 

 and in that they have a disagreeable, 

 nauseous, heavy odor. 



There are several species of tobacco, 

 of which the above is the most highly 

 valued, and they are all natives of warm 

 countries, as southern Asia, India, South 

 America and the West Indies. Tobacco 

 is very extensively cultivated in nearly 

 all warm countries, especially in the 

 southern United States and the West In- 

 dies. 



The history of the cultivation and use 

 of tobacco is shrouded in uncertainty. 

 Some authorities affirm that it was ex- 

 tensively used for smoking and as snuff 

 and cultivated on a large scale in China, 

 many centuries before the discovery of 

 America. Meyen, the botanist, in study- 

 ing ancient Chinese sculptures noticed 

 the same form of pipe in use at the pres- 

 ent time. Even if this be true, and the 

 statement is questioned by other author- 

 ities, the fact nevertheless remains that 

 tobacco was unknown to. Europeans un- 

 til after the discovery of America. Co- 

 lumbus found that the natives of the 

 West Indies smoked cylindrical rolls of 

 tobacco leaves wrapped in maize leaf, to 

 which the name 'Tobako" was applied. 

 This name was also given to the tobac- 

 co tubes used by the ancient Mexicans. 

 That tobacco was employed since the re- 

 motest antiquity by the natives of the 

 western continent, from South America 

 to Canada, has been satisfactorily prov- 

 en from the examination of burial 

 mounds. In 1492 the natives of Cuba 

 used tobacco for smoking, both as a nar- 



cotic stimulant and to drive away mos- 

 quitos, as snuff and as a medicine. 



The monk Romano Pane, a companion 

 of Columbus, gave the first description 

 of the plant. Gonzalo Hernandez de 

 Oviedo was the first to bring seeds to 

 Spain, where tobacco was cultivated as 

 an ornamental plant until Nicolo Menar- 

 des began to extol its medicinal virtues. 

 Soon thereafter it began to be used for 

 smoking and as snuff. Shakespeare 

 makes no reference to the use of tobacco, 

 though it was well known in England 

 during his time. The price was very high 

 and it was used in small quantities by the 

 rich only. The pipes used for smoking 

 tobacco were very small and are known 

 to antiquaries as "elfin pipes." The 

 smoke was expelled through the nostrils 

 and not the mouth, as this produced the 

 most pronounced narcotic effect. 



It seems that from the very first strong 

 efforts were made to prevent the use of 

 tobacco, excepting as a medicine. Popes 

 Urban VIII and Innocent XI issued bans 

 without effect. Priests and the sultans 

 of Turkey declared smoking a crime; 

 Sultan Amuret IV decreeing its punish- 

 ment by the most horrible death. In 

 Russia during the earlier part of the 

 seventeenth century the noses of smok- 

 ers were cut ofT. King James I of Eng- 

 land issued a "Counterblaste to Tobacco"^ 

 in which he described its use as "a cus- 

 tom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the 

 nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to 

 the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume 

 thereof nearly resembling the horrible 

 Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottom- 

 less," to which all users of the weed are 

 condemned. All opposition was of no 

 avail and the use of tobacco has in- 

 creased steadily up to the present time, 

 and is still on the increase in spite of all 



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