$0 MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. 
man. While the physiological effects of nicotine may be 
interesting to the medical practitioner, they will hardly inter- 
est the general reader unless it can be shown that the effects 
ef nicotine and tobacco should be proved to be indentical. 
We are loth to leave this subject, however, as it is so- 
. intimately connected with the history of the plant, without 
treating somewhat of its medicinal properties which to many 
are of more interest than its social qualities. The Indians 
not only used the plant socially, religiously, but. medicinally, 
Their Medicine men prescribed its use in various ways for 
‘most diseases common among them. The use thus made of 
‘the plant attracted the attention of the Spanish and English, 
far more than its use either as a means of enjoyment or as a 
religious act. When introduced to the Old World, its claims 
as a remedy for most diseases gave it its popularity and. 
served to increase its use. It was styled “Sana sancta 
Indorum—” “ Herbe propre & tous maux,” and physicians 
claimed that it was “the most sovereign and precious weed. 
that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.” As early 
as 1610, three years after the London and Plymouth Compa- 
nies settled in Virginia, and some years before it began to be. 
cultivated by them as an article of export, it had attracted 
the attention of English physicians, who seemed to take as 
much delight in writing of the sanitary uses of the herb as 
they did in smoking the balmy leaves of the plant. 
Dr. Edmund Gardiner, “ Practitioner of Physicke,” issued 
in 1610 a volume entitled, “The Triall of Tobacco,” setting 
forth its curative powers. Speaking of its use he says: 
“Tobacco is not violent, and therefore may in my judge- 
ment bee safely put in practise. Thus then yon plainly see 
that all medicines, and especially tobacco, being rightly and 
rationally used, is a noble medicine and contrariwise not in- 
his due time with other circumstances considered, it doth no 
more than a nobleman’s shooe doth in healing the gout in 
the foot.” 
Dr. Verner of Bath, in his Treatise concerning the taking 
the fume of tobacco (1637) says that when “ taken moderately 
and at fixed times with its proper adjunct, which (as they doe 
