2 8 The Soverane Herbe 



It was in the guise of a medicine that tobacco 

 came into England and the rest of the Old World. 

 Drake and his men are reported to have first used it 

 as a remedy for indigestion, as the Indians themselves 

 did. Chewing tobacco was also practised by sailors 

 as a cure for and preventive against scurvy. Return- 

 ing to England, these sailors and pioneers in the use 

 of tobacco did not fail to tell the story of the new 

 herb's virtue, and the cures wrought by the strange 

 and curious manner of inhaling its fumes. Hariot, 

 in the account quoted in the last chapter, states 

 that many physicians supported these reports of the 

 power of tobacco, and testified to its merits as a 

 medicine. 



Many books and treatises were written setting forth 

 the properties and virtues of the plant. ' It cureth,' 

 says one, ' any griefe, dolour, imposture or obstruction 

 proceeding of cold or winde, especially in the head 

 or breast. The fume taken in a pipe is good against 

 Rumes, Catarrhs, hoarseness, ache in the heade, 

 stomake, lungs, breast : also in want of meat, drinke, 

 sleepe or rest.' Sir William Vaughan held that a 

 pipe taken fasting on a raw or rainy morning in the 

 months spelt without the letter ' r ' (May, June, July, 

 and August) was ' a singular and sodaine remedie 

 against the Megrim, the toothache, the falling sick- 

 nesse, the dropsie, the gout, and against all such 

 diseases as are caused of windy, cold, or waterish 

 humours.' 



In the 'Trial of Tobacco' (1610) Dr. Edmund 

 Gardiner gives many prescriptions for the cure of 

 various diseases by the American herb. Difficulty 



