Tobacco plant
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A TREATISE, &c.
[CHAPTER I.]
Of the Discovery and Uses of Tobacco.
Tobacco, or Tabacco, is a medicinal plant, which remained unknown to Europeans till the discovery of America by the Spaniards; being first imported from thence about the year 1560. The Americans of the continent called it Petun; those of the islands, Yoli. Hernandez de Toledo sent it into Spain from Tabaco, a province of Yucatan, where he first found and learned its use; and from which place he gave it the denomination it still bears.
Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced the use of it into England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, about the year 1585. The plant was probably known in this kingdom before that time, by means of the Spaniards or Portuguese; it is however certain, that he first taught the English to smoke it.
The French, on its first introduction among them, gave it various names, as Nicotiana, or the Embassador's Herb, from John Nicot, who came soon after it was discovered, as embassador to that court, from Francis the Second of Portugal, and brought some of it with him; which he presented to a grand Prior of the house of Lorrain, and to Queen Catherine de Medicis: on this account it was sometimes called the Grand Prior's Herb, and sometimes the Queen's Herb.