The Trial of Tobacco 29 



of breathing was cured by smoking tobacco. ' A 

 sirup made of the decoction of this herb with suffi- 

 cient sugar, and so taken in a very small quantitie, 

 dischargeth the breast from phlegmatic matter.' A 

 tobacco ointment ' taketh away all paines ' of gout. 

 ' What,' asks this enthusiastic lover of the herb, ' is a 

 more noble medicine or more readie at hand than 

 Tobacco ?' 



In 1587 Everard had published a similar eulogistic 

 work, and in 1622 John Neander, of Bremen, 

 issued a massive quarto ' Tabacologia,' prescrib- 

 ing preparations of tobacco for every disease and 

 ill. Dr. Butler, styled by Fuller the '^sculapius 

 of the age,' frequently prescribed tobacco. For a 

 man suffering from ' a violent defluxion of the teeth ' 

 Butler ordered the immediate smoking of an ounce 

 of tobacco ; twenty-five pipes effected a cure. Up to 

 the present century, indeed, smoking was, and to some 

 extent still is, regarded as a sanitary or hygienic 

 measure, with remedial powers. For indigestion, 

 nervousness, and as a palliative for toothache, 

 smoking is everywhere known. It has always been 

 more or less remedial in character, though the British 

 Pharmacopseia now contains only one preparation of 

 tobacco, and that is rarely used. No one would 

 now think of adopting Robinson Crusoe's remedy for 

 ague — smoking tobacco and drinking an infusion of 

 the leaves — or of trying Ashmole's cure for toothache. 

 In his diary for 1681 he notes, after suffering from 

 toothache for a week : ' I held pills in my mouth made 

 of burned alum, pepper, and tobacco, which drew 

 from me much rheum, and so I was eased.' 



