Tobacco : its history, nature, and effects on the body and mind ... / By Joel Shew.

  • Joel Shew
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tobacco : its history, nature, and effects on the body and mind ... / By Joel Shew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/136 (page 11)
    Petun, and by those in the adjoining islands, Yoli. So singular a production of the country could but draw the attention of the Spanish commander to it. The conse- quence was, that a specimen of it was shipped with other curiosities of the country, with a long detail of its sup- posed astonishing virtues in pharmacy. In the latter end of the year, the plants arrived at their place of des- tination, and this may fairly be deemed to have been their first entrance into the civilized portions of the world. “A dreadful disease,” continues this author (an advo- cate of the weed), “first brought from America by the last return of Columbus, raged about this period with a fearful and unchecked virulency in Spain, committing dreadful devastations on the human frame, and finally ending in the most horrible death the imagination could picture. This circumstance served to procure it a most sanguine welcome; for the sailors composing the fleet, having learned it from the natives, had disseminated the belief that it was the only known antidote against its ravages; that it in fact answered the purpose of mer- cury in the present day, a belief welcomed with enthu- siasm, and ending in despair.” From Spain tobacco soon found its way to different parts of the civilized world, first to Portugal and then to the other European kingdoms. From Spain and Por- tugal, it was brought by one of the French ambassadors to Paris. Here it is supposed the practice of snuff-tak- ing first commenced. The same woman, Catharine de Medicis, who was notorious for .her. instigation of the massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s day. may be considered the first snuff-taker. She, it is said, used tobacco in the form of powder; and the practice