Origin & nature of tobacco / by George Trask.

  • Trask, George, 1798-1875.
Date:
[Between 1860 and 1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Origin & nature of tobacco / by George Trask. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SMOKE NOT, NO. XXVI. ORIGIN & NATURE OF TOBACCO. BV THE BEY. GEORGE TRASK. A Tobacco, as far as Europeans are concerned, is comparatively of recent discovery and use Confined for nearly five thousand six hundred years to Central America and some parts of the West Indies, it is wonderful that in less than three centuries it has spread all over the world. Centuries ago, according to tradition, Indians on this continent worshipped devils; Indian priests got drunk on tobacco-smoke, and in this state they held communions with their deities, and when the fit of intoxication had passed they would make known to the savages about them the responses of their deities—the responses of devils. In 1492, as Columbus lay with his ships side by side at the Island of Cuba, he sent two men, a Caleb and Joshua, to search the land, and report what they might see. On their return, among other things, they said they saw “ the naked savages twist large leaves together, light one end at the fire, and smoke like devils !” Smokers should bear in mind their pedigree ! One author, Mellen, says that the plant was found in the province of Yuc atan, in the Mexican Gulf, in a very flourishing state. “ Among the natives, who held it in the greatest possible esteem and reverence, from the almost magical virtues they attached to it, it was called Petum, 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 consequence was that a specimen of it was shipped with other curiosities of the country, with a long detail of its supposed astonishing virtues in pharmacy. In the latter end of the year the plants arrived at their destination ; and this may fairly be deemed to have been their first entrance into the civilized portions of the world.” Erom Spain, tobacco soon found its .way to different parts of the civilized world,—first to Portugal, and then to the other European kingdoms. Erom Spain and Portugal, it was brought by one of the Erench ambassadors to Paris. Here it is supposed the practice of snuff-taking first commenced. The same woman, Catherine 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 has certainly been well kept up in that city ever since. From the fact of this queen having used tobacco, it got the beautiful names of Ilerba Catharince Medicce and Ilerba Begince, or the Queen’s flerb. About this time tobacco came under the patronage of Cardinal Sancta Croce, the Pope’s nuncio, who in returning from his embassy to