But it is the good Old Dominican, Père Labat, who has the most to say about the introduction and use of tobacco. His charming, gossipy account of men and things and his vagabunda loquacitas, have lost none of their fascination for the curious reader since they were first written nearly two centuries ago.
Among other things he does not hesitate to affirm that the Indians, “by introducing the use of tobacco among their pitiless conquerors, succeeded, in great measure, in avenging themselves for the unjust servitude to which they had been reduced.”[19] According to the good father, tobacco proved to be a veritable apple of discord, because it gave rise to a protracted war of words among men of science. In this war a large number of ignoramuses as well as savants participated. And not the last to declare themselves in favor of or opposed to what they understood no better than the serious affairs of the day, in which they had been but too active, were the woman-folk.
Physicians discussed its properties, nature and virtues, as if it had been known all over the habitable world from the times of Galen, Hippocrates, and Æsculapius, and their opinions were as diverse, and as opposed to one another as are to-day the opinions of allopaths and homeopaths, osteopaths and psychopaths. They prescribed when and how it was to be taken and in what doses. They and the chemists of the time soon recognized in tobacco a valuable addition to their pharmacopœa. Nay, more, it was not long before it was proclaimed as a panacea for all the ills that poor suffering humanity is heir to.
Its ashes cured glanders; taken as a powder it cured rheumatism, headache, dropsy, and paralysis. It was a specific against melancholy and insanity; against the smallpox and the plague, against fever, asthma and liver troubles. It strengthened the memory and excited the imagination, and philosophers and men of science could be, it was averred, no better prepared to grapple with the most difficult of abstract problems than by having the nose primed with snuff.
The effects induced by chewing tobacco were said to be even more marvelous, for among other things it was claimed that by thus using it hunger and thirst were allayed or prevented. It removed bile, cured toothache and freed an over-charged brain from all kinds of deleterious humors. It strengthened and preserved the sight. Oil, extracted from tobacco, cured deafness, gout, sciatica, improved the circulation, and was a tonic for the nervous. In a word, it was the great panacea of which physicians and alchemists had so long dreamed, but had hitherto been unable to find.
Finally, however, a reaction came. Books were written against it, and kings and princes forbade its use. On the 26th of March, 1699, the question was seriously discussed before L’Ecole de Médecine whether the frequent use of tobacco shortened life—An ex tabaci usu frequenti vita summa brevior? And the conclusion was a demonstration that the frequent use of tobacco did shorten life. Ergo ex frequenti tabaci usu vita summa brevior.[20]
But notwithstanding the opinions of learned men and university faculties regarding the alleged deleterious properties of tobacco, and the denunciations hurled against the use of this invention of the Evil One, the smoking of cigars and pipes soon became a general habit the world over, and, it was at times difficult for the supply to meet the demand. How little Las Casas dreamed that this “vicious habit,” as he called it, was soon to become universal, and that the time would come when young and old would regard the “fragrant weed,” prepared in one way or another, not only as an indispensable luxury, but also as a prime necessity—for rich and poor alike, if life were to be worth living.
And how far was Columbus from imagining, when he saw the Indians taking “their customary smoke,” that the leaves which they had so carefully rolled together for this purpose, would eventually prove to be one of the great staples of commerce, and one of the world’s most valued sources of revenue. He crossed “the Sea of Darkness” to discover a direct route to the lands of spice and the Golden Chersonese in order to fill the coffers of the land of his adoption. He and his companions explored every island they met in their wanderings in quest of gold and pearls and precious stones and here, in the narcotic plant, that appeared to them as little more than a curiosity, there were treasures greater than those of “Ormus and Ind.” In this very island of Cuba, of whose charms he has left us so glowing a picture, was in after years to be developed from the humble plant—Nicotiana Tabacum—one of Spain’s most important industries—an industry that would, in the course of time, contribute more to the nation’s exchequer than the combined output of the mines of Pasco and Potosí. Such was evidently the thought of the Cuban poet, Zequeira, when, in his much praised Horatian ode, A La Piña, he sings
“¡Salve, suelo felíz, donde prodiga