Women and smoking

Abstract

There is conflicting evidence about the term ‘tobacco’ and its origins. Whether it originated from the name of the island, Tobago, one of the Caribbean islands north of the equator, where evidence of tobacco cultivation has existed since 1493 or from the Spanish name of the province of Tobaco in the Yukatan Peninsula in Southeast Mexico is unclear (Brooks, 1953, p. 65). Nevertheless the most cultivated species of tobacco, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, have been smoked, drunk, licked, snuffed and chewed for thousands of years (Koskowski, 1955). Their use in pre-European times has been traced to various cultures including the Incas of Peru, West Indians and Central, North and South American Indians.

When Belphoebe finds Timices sorely wounded she enters into the wood to seek for herbs: There whether it divine Tabacco were, Or Panachea or Polygony, She found and brought it to her patient deare. (Fairie Queen)

The patient dear is Sir Walter Raleigh (A. Chute, 1961 Tabacco, edited by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).