_Datura Stramonium_ (Pentandria Monogynia. _Nat. Ord._ Solanaceæ, _Linn._ Solaneæ, _Juss._) The thorn apple is an annual plant, a native of America, which gradually diffused itself, from the south to the north, and is now naturalized to this country, and is to be found very commonly about London growing on dunghills, and by road sides. It flowers in July and August. Every part of this plant is a strong narcotic poison, producing vertigo, and most of those symptoms which we have described as the effects of belladonna, although the former plant appears to excite the brain more violently. _Dr. Barton_ mentions the case of two British soldiers, who ate it by mistake, for the _chenopodium album_; one became furious, and ran about like a madman; and the other died, with the symptoms of genuine tetanus. In the fifth volume of the _Edinburgh Medical and Philosophical Commentaries_, two cases are related by _Dr. Fowler_; and others are to be found in the writings of _Haller_, _Krause_, _Sproegel_, _Gmelin_, and _Orfila_, illustrative of the effects of this plant upon the human species. There is reason to believe that this plant has been long known, and that it has been very generally used by uncivilized nations, on account of the narcotic effects which it occasions. TOBACCO. _Nicotiana Tabacum._ (Pentandria Monogynia. _Nat. Ord._ Luridæ, _Lin._ Solaneæ, _Juss._) Tobacco is an annual plant, a native of America, from whence it was imported into Europe. We learn from _Humboldt_ that it has been cultivated from time immemorial by the native people of the Oroonoko; and was smoked all over America at the time of the Spanish conquest. _Hermandez de Toledo_ sent it into Spain and Portugal in 1559, when _Jean Nicot_[445] was Ambassador at the court of Lisbon, from Francis II, and he transmitted, or carried either the seed, or the plant to _Catherine de Medicis_, as one of the wonders of the new world, and which, it was supposed, possessed virtues of a very extraordinary nature. This seems to be the first authentic record of the introduction of this plant into Europe. In 1589 the Cardinal _Santa Croce_, returning from his nunciature in Spain and Portugal to Italy, carried thither with him tobacco; and we may form some notion of the enthusiasm with which its introduction was hailed, from a perusal of the poetry which the subject inspired. It is said that the smoking tobacco was first introduced by _Sir Walter Raleigh_ on his return from America; and the avidity with which the custom was immediately adopted is shewn by the philippic written against it by King James, entitled the “_Counterblaste to Tobacco_.”