Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914
"The Social History of Smoking" by George Latimer Apperson, can be purchased at Amazon.com in two different versions. Depending on the quality of the edition, prices range between $35 and $104.
From Chapter 2: A curious scene took place at Oxford in 1605 when King James visited the University. Two subjects were debated by learned dons before his Majesty, and one of them, at his own suggestion, was, "Whether the frequent use of tobacco is good for healthy men?" Among those who spoke were Doctors Ailworth, Gwyn, Gifford and Cheynell. The discussion, needless to say, being conducted in the presence of the author of the "Counterblaste to Tobacco," was not favourable to the herb. The King summed up in a speech which hopelessly begged the question while it contained plenty of strong denunciation. After his Majesty had spoken, one learned doctor, Cheynell, who is described by the recorder, Isaac Wake, the Public Orator of the University, as second to none of the doctors, had the courage to rise and, with a pipe held forth in his hand, to speak both wittily and eloquently in favour of tobacco from the medicinal point of view, praising it to the skies, says Wake, as of virtue beyond all other remedial agents. His wit pleased both the King and the whole assembly, whom it moved to laughter; but when he had finished, his Majesty made a lengthy rejoinder in which he said some curious things. He objected to the medicinal use of tobacco, and quite agreed with previous speakers that such a use must have arisen among Barbarians and Indians, who he went on to say had as much knowledge of medicine as they had of civilized customs. If, he argued, there were men whose bodies were benefited by tobacco-smoke, this did not so much redound to the credit of tobacco, as it did reflect upon the depraved condition of such men, that their bodies should have sunk to the level of those of Barbarians so as to be affected by remedies such as were effective on the bodies of Barbarians and Indians! His Majesty kindly suggested that doctors who believed in tobacco as a remedial agent should take themselves and their medicine of pollution off to join the Indians.
From Chapter 6: Other well-known men of the late seventeenth century were "tobacconists" in the old sense of the word. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have smoked immoderately; and a familiar anecdote represents him as using for the purposes of a tobacco-stopper, in a fit of absent-mindedness, the little finger of a lady sitting beside him, whom he admired, but the truth of this legend is open to doubt. Thomas Hobbes, who lived to be ninety (1588-1679), was accustomed to dine at 11 o'clock, after which he smoked a pipe and then lay down and took a nap of about half an hour. No doubt he would have attributed the length of his days to the regularity of his habits. Izaak Walton, who also lived to be ninety, as the lover of the placid and contemplative life deserved to do, loved his pipe, though he seldom mentions smoking in the "Compleat Angler." Sir Samuel Garth, poet and physician, once known to fame as the author of "The Dispensary," was another pipe-lover, as is shown by his verses quoted at the head of this chapter. Dudley, the fourth Lord North, began to smoke in 1657, and, says Dr. Jessopp, "the habit grew upon him, the frequent entries for pipes and tobacco showing that he became more and more addicted to this indulgence. Probably it afforded him some solace in the dreadful malady from which he suffered so long."
|