toxicating spirit exists, each narcotic in use contains its own peculiar principle. From whatever source obtained, the fermented liquor produces nearly the same effect upon the human system. But each narcotic indulgence produces its own peculiar and special effect. Tobacco and opium, and hemp and coca, and the hop and the toad-stool, while they all exercise a narcotic influence upon the human frame, do so in a form and with modifications which in each case are peculiar, in many respects full of interest, and always worthy of deep study and consideration. These narcotic substances, therefore, occupy an important place in the chemistry and chemico-physiology of common life.

I. TOBACCO. Of all the narcotics I have mentioned, tobacco (fig. 56) is in use over the largest area, and among the greatest number of people. Opium is probably next to it in these respects, and the hemp plant occupies the third place.

Tobacco is believed to be a native of tropical America; at all events, it was cultivated and used by the native inhabitants of various parts of that continent long before its discovery by Europeans. In 1492, Columbus found the chiefs of Cuba smoking cigars, and Cortes met with it afterwards, when he penetrated to Mexico. From America it was introduced into Spain by the Spaniards, it is not certain in what year. In 1560 it was brought to France by Nicot, and in 1586 to England by Sir Francis Drake, and the colonists of Sir Walter Raleigh. Into Turkey and Arabia, according to Mr. Lane, it was introduced about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in 1601 it is known to have been carried to Java. Since that time both the cultivation and the use of the plant have spread over a large portion of the habitable globe.

Thus the different parts of America in which it is now

EXTENSIVE GROWTH OF TOBACCO.

Fig. 56.

9

grown include Canada, New Brunswick, the United States, Mexico, the western coast as far as 40° south latitude, Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad, and the other West India Islands. In Africa it is cultivated on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, in Egypt, Algeria, the Canaries, along the western coast, at the Cape of Good Hope, and at numerous places in the interior of the continent. In Europe, it has been raised with success in almost every country, and it forms at present an important agricultural product in Hungary, Germany, Flanders, and France. In Asia, it has spread over Turkey, Persia, India, Thibet, China, Japan, the Philippine Islands, Java, Ceylon, Australia, and New Zealand. Among narcotic plants, indeed, it occupies a similar place to that of the potato among food plants. It is the most extensively cultivated, the most hardy, and the most tolerant of changes in temperature, altitude, and general climate. From the equator to the fiftieth degree of latitude it difficulty, though it grows best within thirty-five degrees of latitude on either side of the equator. The finest qualities are raised between the fifteenth degree of north latitude, that of the Philippines, and the thirty-fifth degree, that of Latakia in Syria.

Nicotiana tabacum-
The Virginia Tobacco.

Scale, 1 inch to a foot and a half.
may be raised without

1o. EXTENSIVE USE OF TOBACCO.-And the use of the

plant has become not less universal than its cultivation. Next to salt, it is supposed by some to be the article most extensively consumed by man. Tea alone can compete with it; for although it may not be in use over so large an area, tea is probably consumed by as great a number of the human race.* In America, tobacco is met with everywhere, and the consumption is enormous. To its use in some parts of the United States, at the present moment, King James's description, in the opinion of many, applies more justly than to the practice in any other part of the world—" A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmfull to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless."

In Europe, from the plains of sunny Castile to the frozen Archangel, and from the Ural to Iceland, the pipe, the cigar, and the snuff-box, are a common solace, among all ranks and conditions of men. In vain, when it first came among us, King James opposed it by his Counterblast to Tobacco; in vain Pope Urban the Eighth thundered out his bull against it; in vain was the use of it prohibited in Russia, and the knout threatened for the first offence, and death for the second. Opposition and persecution only excited more general attention to the plant, awakened curiosity regarding it, and tempted people to try its effects.

So, in the East, the priests and sultans of Turkey and Persia declared smoking a sin against their holy religion; yet the Turks and Persians have become the greatest smokers in the world. In Turkey, the pipe is perpetually in the mouth. In India, all classes and both sexes smoke. The Siamese chew moderately, but smoke perpetually. The Burmese of all ranks, of both sexes and of all ages,

* See what is said in the succeeding chapter as to the consumption of the hop in England.

SPREAD OF THE USE OF TOBACCO.

11

down even to infants of three years old, smoke cigars(CRAWFORD). In China the practice is so universal that every female, from the age of eight or nine, wears, as an appendage to her dress, a small silken pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe.

Indeed, from the extensive prevalence of the practice in Asia, and especially in China, Pallas argued long ago that the use of tobacco for smoking in those countries must be more ancient than the discovery of America. "Amongst the Chinese," he says, "and amongst the Mongol tribes, who had the most intercourse with them, the custom of smoking is so general, so frequent, and has become so indispensable a luxury; the tobacco-purse affixed to their belt so necessary an article of dress; the form of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have taken the model of theirs, so original; and lastly, the preparation of the yellow leaves, which are merely rubbed to pieces, and then put into the pipe, so peculiar, that they could not possibly derive all this from America by way of Europe, especially as India, where the practice of smoking is not so general, intervenes between Persia and China." *

This opinion of Pallas has since been supported by high botanical authorities. Thus Meyen says: "It has long been the opinion that the use of tobacco, as well as its culture, was peculiar to the people of America; but this is now proved to be incorrect, by our present more exact acquaintance with China and India. The consumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense extent, and the practice seems to be of great antiquity, for on very old sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco-pipes. which are still used. Besides, we now know the plant which furnishes the Chinese tobacco; it is even said to grow wild in the East Indies. It is certain that this to

* Quoted in M'CULLOCH'S Commercial Dictionary, ed. 1847, p. 1314.

bacco plant of Eastern Asia is quite different from the American species.” *

According to the recent travellers, Messrs. Huc and Gabet, the yellow tobacco of eastern Thibet and western China is the leaf of the Nicotiana rustica. In flavour it also the leaf

resembles the finest Syrian tobacco, which is

of the N. rustica. The tobacco of central and southern India is the Nicotiana tabacum, or Virginian tobacco; that of northern India, the N. rustica—(HOOKER).

Fig. 57.

The common green tobacco (fig. 57) is a smaller plant than the Virginian, being only 3 to 5 feet in height, and has shorter and broader leaves, and smaller flowers, with rounded. instead of pointed segments. It is the species generally cultivated in Russia, Sweden, and North Germany, and two varieties of it are grown in some parts of Ireland, under the names of Oronooko and Negrohead. It is said, I do not know upon what authority, to have been imported to Britain from America in 1570. The variety cultivated in China is still smaller than the one represented in the above figure.

If this be really the species culti vated in western China, the argument of Meyen loses much of its weight, and the opinion that eastern Asia did not derive the use of tobacco from America Common green Tobacco. must rest chiefly on the general prevaScale, 1 inch to the foot. lence and antiquity of the custom in China. Other late writers, indeed, dissent from this opinion, and consider that there can hardly be a doubt but

Nicotiana rustica

Botanical Geography (Ray Society), 1846, p. 861.