TOBACCO LORE

Few, perchance, of the millions who gather comfort from the "herb of fragrance" are aware that it is to Don Hernandez de Toledo we are indebted for the introduction of tobacco into Western Europe, which he first brought to Spain and Portugal in 1559. Jean Nicot was at this time Ambassador at the Court of Lisbon from Frances II, and it was he who transmitted or carried, either the seed or the plant to Catherine de Medicis, and who gave it the name Nicotiana. Like other great personages of the time, Catherine encouraged the homage of travellers and artists. It was considered to be one of the wonders of the New World, and reported to possess most extraordinary medicinal properties and virtues. Thirty years later the Cardinal Santa Croce, returning from his nunciature in Spain and Portugal to Italy, took with him some tobacco leaves, and we may form some idea of the enthusiasm with which its production was hailed, from a perusal of the poetry which the subject inspired, such as the following:

The poet compares the exploit of the cardinal with that of his progenitor, who brought home the wood of the true cross.

The first exact description of the plant is that given by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo-y-ValdÉs, Governor of St. Domingo, in his Historia General de las Indias, printed at Seville in 1535. In this work, the leaf is said to be smoked through a branched tube of the shape of the letter Y, which the natives called tobaco.

After the introduction of tobacco into England by Sir Walter Raleigh on his return from America, the custom of smoking the leaf became very general, and it truly seems to have supplied a common want. It was mostly sold by the apothecaries in their dark little shops, and here the gallants would congregate to smoke their pipes and gossip, while the real Timidado, nicotine cane and pudding, was cut off with a silver knife on a maple block and retailed to the customers. The pipes used in the time of Queen Elizabeth were chiefly made of silver. The commoner kinds consisted of a walnut shell, in which a straw was inserted, and the tobacco was sold in the shops for its weight in silver.

The celebrated Counterblaste to Tobacco, by King James I, describes smoking as "a custom loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmfull to the brain, dangerous to the lungs; and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse." In 1604 this monarch endeavoured, by means of heavy imposts, to abolish its use in this country, and in 1619 he commanded that no planter in Virginia should cultivate more than one hundred pounds.

It is said, some spent as much as £500 a year in the purchase of tobacco in those days. In 1624 Pope Urban VIII published a decree of excommunication against all who took snuff in the church. Ten years after this, smoking was forbidden in Russia under pain of having the nose cut off; and in 1653 the Council of the Canton of Appenzell cited smokers before them, whom they punished, ordering all innkeepers to inform against such as were found smoking in their houses. The police regulations made in Berne in 1661 were divided according to the Ten Commandments, in which the prohibition of smoking stands after the command against adultery. This prohibition was renewed in 1675, and the tribunal instituted to put it into execution—viz., Chambreau Tabac—continued to the middle of the eighteenth century. Pope Innocent XII, in 1690, excommunicated all those who were found taking snuff or tobacco in the Church of St. Peter at Rome; and even so late as 1719 the Senate of Strasburg prohibited the cultivation of tobacco, from an apprehension that it would diminish the growth of corn. Amurath IV published an edict which made smoking tobacco a capital offence; but, notwithstanding all opposition, its fascinating power has held its own.

It is believed that the tobacco plant Nicotiana Tabacum is a native of tropical America, and it was found by the Spaniards when they landed in Cuba in 1492. There seems little doubt that the practice of smoking the leaf has been common among the natives of South America from time immemorial. It is now cultivated all over the world, but nowhere more abundantly or with better results than in the United States. Virginia is perhaps most celebrated for its culture. The young shoots produced from seeds thickly sown in beds, are transplanted into the fields during the month of May, and set in rows, with an interval of three or four feet between the plants. Through the whole period of its growth, the crop requires constant attention till the harvest time, in the month of August. The ripe plants having been cut off above their roots, are dried under cover, and then stripped of their leaves, which are tied in bundles and packed in hogsheads. While hung up in the drying-houses, they undergo a curing process, consisting of exposure to a considerable degree of heat, through which they become moist, after which they are dried for packing. In Persia and Turkey a form of tobacco is sold under the name of Tumbeki for use in the water-pipes or narghileh, which is said to be the product of the Nicotiana Persica.

The active principle Nicotine was first isolated in 1828, by Posselt and Reimann, and is an almost colourless, oily liquid of a highly poisonous nature. It soon becomes brown on exposure to air or light. The amount present in tobacco leaves varies considerably, but it is usually about six per cent. It has not been met with in tobacco smoke, according to Vohl, but the tobacco oils contain minute proportion of nicotine. One drop of pure nicotine is sufficient to kill a dog, while a very little more will destroy life in a human being. It is said to possess the property of resisting decomposition amid the decaying tissues of the body, and was detected by Orfila two or three months after death. Vohl and Eulenberg have made an interesting investigation of tobacco smoke. The smoke analysed was from a tobacco containing four per cent. of nicotine, but none of the alkaloid was found in the smoke. In the smoke of cigars certain gases were given off, and an oily body collected, which, on distillation, yielded aromatic acids. Distilled at a temperature above boiling water, tobacco gives an empyreumatic oil of a poisonous nature. It exactly resembles that which collects in the stems of tobacco pipes, and contains a small percentage of nicotine. The actual amount of nicotine absorbed into the blood while smoking a pipe is very minute, at least fifty per cent. of the entire alkaloid being destroyed by decomposition, and escaping from the bowl of the pipe. The habitual inhalation of tobacco smoke is undoubtedly harmful, but unless the smoke be intentionally inhaled, very little makes its way into the lungs. A great deal of misconception exists in the mind of the average individual as to the power of the alkaloid of tobacco. The amount of nicotine actually absorbed from a fair-sized pipe is about one-fortieth of a grain, in a cigar rather less. Death has resulted after smoking eighteen pipes, and from twenty cigars smoked continuously.

Tobacco is a powerful sedative poison; used in large quantities it causes vertigo, stupor, faintness, and general depression of the nervous system. It will sometimes cause excessive nausea and retching, with feebleness of pulse, coolness of the skin, and occasionally convulsions. But there seems very little known as to how these symptoms are produced. Employed to excess, it enfeebles digestion, produces emaciation and general debility, and is often the beginning of serious nervous disorders. Be this as it may, the moderate smoking of tobacco has, in most cases, even beneficial results, and there appears little doubt that it acts as a solace and comfort to the poor as well as the rich. It soothes the restless, calms mental and corporeal inquietude, and produces a condition of repose without a corresponding reaction or after-effect. In adults, especially those liable to mental worry, and all brain workers, its action is often a boon, the only danger being in overstepping the boundary of moderation to excess. It is not suitable to every constitution, and those who can trace to it evil effects should not continue its use.