Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and CommerceBillings, E. R.
History
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce
Billings, E. R.
Tobacco -- History; Tobacco industry -- History; Tobacco use
Lilly also a little later, in his play of The Woman in the Moone
(1597), speaks of it (through one of the characters) as being a
medicinal herb--
"Gather me balme and cooling violets
And of our holy herbe nicotian,
And bring withall pure honey from the hive
To heale the wound of my unhappy hand."
Barclay, in his tract on "The Vertues of Tobacco," recommends its use
as a medicine. The following is one of the modes of use:
"Take of leafe Tobacco as much as, being folded together,
may make a round ball of such bignesse that it may fill the
patient's mouth, and inclyne his face downwards toward the
ground, keeping the mouth open, not mouthing any whit with
his tongue, except now and then to waken the medicament,
there shall flow such a flood of water from his brain and
his stomacke, and from all the parts of his body that it
shall be a wonder. This must he do fasting in the morning,
and if it be for preservation, and the body be very
cacochyme, or full of evil humors, he must take it once a
week, otherwise once a month. He gives the plant the name of
'Nepenthes,' and says of it, that 'it is worthy of a more
loftie name.'" He writes the following verse addressed to:
"THE ABUSERS OF TOBACCO."
"Why do you thus abuse this heavenly plant,
The hope of health, the fuel of our life?
Why do you waste it without fear of want,
Since fine and true tobacco is not ryfe?
Old Enclio won't foul water for to spair,
And stop the bellows not to waste the air."
He also alludes to the quality of tobacco and says: "The finest
Tobacco is that which pearceth quickly the odorat with a sharp
aromaticke smell, and tickleth the tongue with acrimonie, not
unpleasant to the taste, from whence that which draweth most water is
most veituous, whether the substance of it be chewed in the mouth, or
the smoke of it received."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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