Whats the history of tobacco?
Smoking tobacco dates back to 5000 BC when it was used in shamanistic rituals in South America. Tobacco was soon cultivated as an agricultural product all over the Western hemisphere, and was smoked chiefly in pipes. Europe had to wait until 1560, when a Frenchman called Jean Nicot (from whose name ‘nicotine’ is derived) introduced tobacco to France. It spread to Britain soon afterwards, and by the early 1600s, ‘drinking smoke’ (as it was then called) was believed to cure ailments such as toothache, halitosis and worms. Bizarrely, tobacco was also used as an enema (injected into the anus) to resuscitate victims of drowning.
