But Nicot’s work as a healer of the sick with the Indian weed was not yet completed; there were patients at home demanding his immediate attention. Hearing that Lady Montague was dying at St. Germains of an ulcer ‘bred in the breast,’ which of course was none other than our old friend Noli me tangere in the form of cancer, and for which no remedy could ever be found, though the Countess of Russe had consulted on her friend’s behalf the most eminent physicians of the realm, Nicot, with commendable promptitude, despatched to the king a quantity of the weed, sending therewith precise instructions how to prepare and administer it. With this first instalment he wrote describing it as having a peculiarly pleasant taste, and oddly enough, he bestowed upon it his own name, saying, ‘Nicotiane est une espèce d’herbe de vertu admirable pour guérir toutes ulcères et autres tels accidents au corps humain.’ This letter is said to be still preserved in the Chateau Belem. To the Queen Mother he presented seeds of the plant which she caused to be sown in the royal gardens. This wondrous product of the new-found world, where all was strange and clothed in the garb of mystery, created a lively interest in France. But Europe had hardly yet emerged from the glamour of the Dark Ages, when every important event was governed by invisible agencies, and magic alone could explain the inexplicable. Catharine de Medici would secretly consult her magician before entering upon any of her numerous dark designs. Parenthetically it may be mentioned that George Buchanan, the Scotch philosopher and tutor to our James I., had so strong an aversion to Catharine de Medici that in one of his Latin epigrams, where he alludes to tobacco being called d’herbe Medici, he warns all who value their health to shun the herb, not that in itself it is hurtful, but being called by so vile a name it must needs become poisonous. A single instance may suffice to indicate the kind of interest the weed on its first introduction into France awakened in the French court. Gathered round the queen’s table are some of the brightest wits of the gay capital, discussing with eager curiosity the marvellous story told of the Indian’s herb in the despatch just received from Nicot. Listening to these things the Comte de Jarnac felt irresistibly impelled to do something significant of the occasion, and springing from his seat he hastened to the house of his dearest friend to repeat the story. His friend was ‘short-breathed,’ suffering indeed from a severe attack of asthma. Unfolding the packet containing his share of the precious herb, Jarnac directed an attendant to distil it; this done, he added to the liquor some euphrasy (eyebright). Then presenting the decoction to the patient, he explained to him with the eloquence born of a new faith that the spirit of the herb would enter into his own and would assuredly expel the demon of asthma. Thus urged and entreated, the sufferer swallowed the potation, and wonderful to relate, if we are to believe the zealous chronicler, the man who but a little while before was gasping for breath was now comfortably healed!
Clearly then tobacco owes its introduction into the highest ranks of European society to its credentials as a healer of the sick. Immediately after France had received her first instalment, along with Nicot’s laudatory account of its marvellous virtues, Italy obtained the herb direct from the hands of Cardinal Santa Croce on his return from his nunciature in Spain, and for years it bore in his honour the name of Erba Santa Croce. Castro Duranti celebrated the event in Latin verses, wherein he ascribes to the Indian’s herb the efficacy of a charm over every malady, and extols the cardinal for his service in bringing it, coupling his name with his distinguished ancestor, who brought to Rome a portion of the true cross. He assures the reader that their services rightly considered
Procure, as much as mortal man can do,
The welfare of our souls and bodies too.
Tidings of the pleasing delusion of tobacco’s wonderful curative properties reached these shores towards the close of the sixteenth century, when the pipe was already installed in almost every chimney-nook. Needless to say that lovers of the weed received the intelligence with warmth, and held to the new belief with a steadfastness nothing could shake. Some of England’s foremost poets and dramatists signalized their high appreciation of the exotic’s rare attributes in imperishable literature. Edmund Spenser, for example, was a great smoker, and as we have already seen, when he and Raleigh met in Ireland they would sit together by the hour over a soothing pipe, while holding delightful contests of responsive versifying. In the Faërie Queene is a sweet passage telling how Belphœbe hastened into the woods to gather herbs to heal the wounded Timais:
For she of herbs had great intendiment,
Taught of the Nymph which from her infancy
Her nursed had in true nobility:
There, whether it divine Tobacco were,