BOUQUETS AND BRICKBATS TO LADY NICOTINE
P.
THANKAPPAN NAIR
No
one knows how Lady Nicotine came into this world, but the credit for
introducing her to Europe goes to Francisco Fernades,
who enticed her from her mountain home in
Oviede was the first to make
a reference to tobacco in 1535, but the lady had to suffer defamation at the
hands of Girolama Benzoni
(1550) who tells us that “it happened to him several times that while going through
the province of Guatemala and Nicaragua and when entering the house of an
(American) Indian who had taken this herb, which in the Mexican language is
called tobacco, he could immediately perceive the sharp fetid smell of
this truly diabolical and stinking smoke” on account of which he was obliged to
go away in haste, and seek some other place.
The
smoking of tobacco had already become fashionable among the gentry of
Enlightened
opinion in
…..I
marvel what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this
roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full
of smoke and embers–there were four died out of one house
last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight...One
of them they say will never escape it...
Lady
Nicotine’s clientele began to increase day by day though she was not welcomed
by King James I. He deprecated the habit of smoking tobacco “as a custom
loathesome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful
to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof
nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”
He tried to outlaw her by heavily taxing He imposed her a
customs duty of 6 sh. 8 d. per pound.
His Counterblast to
Tobacco:
“Such
is the miraculous omnipotence of our strong tasted tobacco, as it cures all
sorts of diseases (which never any drug could do before) in all persons and at
all times. It cures the gout in the feet, and (which is miraculous) in that
very instant when the smoke there-of, as heavy runs down to the little toe. It
helps all sorts of agues. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry.
Being taken when they go to bed, it makes them sleep soundly,
and yet being taken when a man is sleepy and drowsy, it will, as they say,
awake his brain, and quicken his understanding. O omnipotent power of tobacco!
And if it could by the smoke thereof chase out devils, as the smoke of Tobias
fish did (which I am sure could smell no stronglier)
it would serve for a precious relic, both for the superstitious priests, and
the insolent puritans, to cash out devils withall.”
Cowper
(Conversation) was another enemy of the lady who castigates her:
“Pernicious weed! whose
scent the fair annoys
Unfriendly
to society’s chief joys,
Thy
worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilises
ours.”
William
Shakespeare was also against Lady Nocitine’s invasion
of
O
thou weed
Who
art so lovely, fair, and smell’st so sweet,
That
the sense aches at thee,–would thou
Had’st ne’er been born!
Swinburne
was against King James I, whom he called ‘a knave, a tyrant, a fool, a liar, a
coward’, but he loved him, worshipped him, because ‘he slit
the throat of that backguard
Shakespeare
or James I was against tobacco, there were hundred others
who eulogised her in glowing terms. To Isaac Brown
tobacco in a little tube was of “mighty power”, “the charmer of an ideal hour.”
R. Buchanan admired the ‘sweet post-prandial cigar.’
Like
other charmers, wooing the caress
More
dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
Yet
thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties–give
us a cigar. (Tsland)
“A
cigarette” says, Oscar Wilde (Dorian Gray) “is the perfect type of
pleasure. It is exquisite and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can you
want?”
C.
Sprague’s (Tony Cigar) admiration for tobacco is expressed in the
following versicle:
Yes,
social friend, I love thee well,
I
learned doctor’s spite
Thy
clouds all other clouds dispel
And
lap me in delight.
Tobacco,
according to C.S. Calverley (Ode to Tobacco) is
“Sweet,
when the morn is grey,
Sweet,
when they’ve cleared away
Lunch,
and at close of day
Possibly sweetest.”
Lamb
would ‘do anything but die for thy sake, tobacco.’
A
writer in the American College Magazine (1919) calls tobacco a ‘filthy weed’,
but all the same he liked it, because
It
satisfies no normal need–
I
like it:
It
makes you grow both thin and lean,
It
takes the hair right off your bean,
It’s
the worst darned stuff I’ve ever seen–
I
like it!
Lastly,
And
when the pipe is foul within
Think
how the soul’s defiled with sin;
To
purge with fire it does require
Thus
think and drink tobacco.
(Pills
to Purge Melancholy, 1699)
Advent of
Smoking
of tobacco did not find favour with the Vedic Aryans.
However, it is believed that once Indra asked Brahma, “What is the best thing
in the world?” And he replied by his four mouths, “Tabaku,
Pogaku, Hogesoppu, and Pogale or Tobacco, tobacco, tobacco, tobacco”
in Hindustani, Telugu, Kanarese and Tamil.
Charaka tells us that
it had become fashionable in his day to smoke a cigar after the meals. He has
prescribed the technique of preparing this cigar from sandalwood paste, nutmeg,
cardamom, etc. Tobacco did not form an ingredient of this cigar. During the
Gupta period (A. D. 300 to 750) smoking had become a habit of
the people. Smoking of the indigenous cigar is recommended by
Ayurvedic physicians, as it removed bad odour of the mouth.
Akbar
and Nicotine
The
Portuguese are responsible for introducing
“I
found some tobacco. Never having seen the like in
Emperor
Jahangir disliked tobacco as it produced bad effects.
He writes in his Memoirs (1617): “As the smoking of tobacco (tambaku) had taken very bad effect upon the health and
mind of many persons, I ordered that no one should practise
the habit. My brother Shah Abbas also being aware of
its evil effects, had issued a command against the use
of it in
The
following extract from a Persian manuscript of Shah Jahan’s
time is interesting:
“Nature
recoils at the very idea of touching the saliva of another
person, yet in the present instance our tobacco smokers pass
the moistened tube from one mouth to another without hesitation on the one
hand, and it is received with complacency on the other. The
more acrid the fumes so much the more grateful to the palate of the
connoisseur. The smoke is a collyrium to the
eyes, whilst the fire, they will tell you, supplies the body
the waste of radical heat, without doubt the hookah is a most pleasing
companion, whether to the way-worn traveller, or to
the solitary hermit. It is a friend in whose bosom we may repose our most
confidential secrets; and a consellor upon whose
advice we may rely in our most important concerns. It is an elegant ornament in
our private apartments; it gives joy to the beholder in our public halls. The
music of its sound puts the wardling of the
nightingale to shame, and the fragrance of its perfume brings a blush on the
cheek of the rose. Life in short is prolonged by the fumes inhaled at each
inspiration, whilst every expiration of them is
accompanied with extatic delight.”
Displacement of Hookah
Lady
Nicotine’s intrusion into the Indian social life has been held to be the main
cause for the downfall of hookah, who was welcome to the peasant and the prince
alike. The smoking of hookah is a wholesome habit and tobacconists would admit
the fact that the smoke inhaled from its mouth-piece is the purest puff you can
ever enjoy in the world. We wonder if the filter-tipped cigarette is worth its
name in comparison to the smoke of hookah with its wardling
sound. Indeed, the muse would put it: “The music of its sound puts the wardling of the nightingale to shame, and the fragrance of
its perfume brings a blush to the cheek of the rose.” Nicotine, the “pernicious
weed” did not have a smooth sailing. She had to contend with hookah in the
first instance, as the majestic hookah was the favourite
of the elite during the days of the Mughals.
Englishmen in
“In