Nicot, Jean

The tobacco plant was long used by Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. The word tobacco derives from tabacum, the Indian name for the pipe they used to smoke it. Nicotine, the principle psychoactive chemical in tobacco, was named after Jean Nicot de Villemain, a French diplomat who advocated its use in Europe in the late 1500s (Rudgley 1999). It is less commonly known that tobacco grew wildly in the interior of Australia, and was used by inhabitants there before Europeans arrived. 

Tobacco is a member of the nightshade (Solanaceae) family and its scientific name is Nicotiana tabacum. The name nicotine comes from Nicotiana after the French ambassador Jean Nicot (1530—1600). Nicot became familiar with tobacco when he was serving as ambassador to Portugal. Impressed with its use as a medicinal herb, Nicot sent seeds and cuttings back to the French Queen Catherine de Medici (1519—1589) in 1560, noting its therapeutic properties. Tobacco was called nicotiana and this was used for the scientific name. 

Jean Nicot introduces tobacco to the court of Catherine de Medici in... 

The French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, from whose name came the word nicotine, considered tobacco a cure for headaches and gout. Nicholas Monardes, a Spanish doctor, listed 36 illnesses that tobacco treated. Today, tobacco is linked to various forms of cancer. 

Christopher Columbus brought the practice back to Europe where it was first used for its medicinal properties. French diplomat Jean Nicot, for whom nicotine is... 

Another toxin found in plants, in particular tobacco (which is similar to coniine and is another alkaloid), is nicotine. This substance, with which we are aU familiar, is a very toxic chemical, and its presence in cigarette smoke is the essential ingredient that smokers crave. The tobacco plant and the habit of smoking the leaves, known as tobago, was probably first seen by Columbus and his crew in South America. Sir Walter Raleigh also saw the plant in his travels to the new continent of America. Leaves from the plant were sent back to Europe in the mid sixteenth century, and an explorer by the name of Jean Nicot de Villemain sent some seeds back to Europe. He helped to popularize the habit as a panacea, which became widespread in the sixteenth century. From the explorer s name and the name given to the practice of smoking, the plant was called Nicotiana tabacum. The active substance it contained, isolated in 1828, was called nicotine. 

Nicotine (NIK-uh-teen) is a thick, colorless to yellow, oily liquid with a hitter taste that turns brown when exposed to air. It occurs in high concentrations in the leaves of tobacco plants and in lower concentrations in tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and green peppers. Nicotine gets its name from the tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum, which, in turn, was named in honor of the French diplomat and scholar Jean Nicot (1530-1600), who introduced the use of tobacco to Paris. Nicotine s correct chemical structure was determined in 1843 by the Belgian chemist and physicist Louise Melsens (1814-1886) and the compound was first synthesized by the research team of A. Pictet and A. Rotschy in 1904. 

In 1511, the first tobacco plants reached Spain. In the middle of the 16th century, Francisco Hernandez de Toledo, personal physician to Philip 11, and Andre Thevet, a Franciscan monk who converted to Calvinism, cultivated Ma-pacho Nicotiana rustica) as an ornamental plant. In 1560, the French Envoy to Portugal, Jean Nicot de VOemain (Fig. 5.200) sent tobacco plants (Nicotiana tabacum) to Catherine de Medici in Paris. 

At the French Court, tobacco became enormously popular for smoking as well as for pharmaceutical purposes. Around 1570, smoking was common among Dutch seamen, and during the Thirty Years War, the soldiers of TiUy, Gustav Adolf and Wallenstein eventually extended the consumption of tobacco across the whole of Europe. The Swedish botanist Carl von Linne (1707-1778) named the plant genus after Jean Nicot, where also the name of its main alkaloid is derived from. 

In an exciting report in 1843 (stated to be nearly 300 years after Jean Nicot sent tobacco seed from Portugal to Paris), Melsens pointed out that the product of condensation of fumes of tobacco acted on insects ( ... sont rapidement asphyxias dans... 

When Christopher Columbus discovered America he found the natives chewing tobacco in much the same manner as is done today (1). The American Indians believed tobacco to have medicinal properties, and it was also used in native ceremonials in the New World. Once in Europe, the genus Nicotiana was named in honor of Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Lisbon, who sent the seeds of Nicotiana tabacum to Catherine de Medicis, the queen of France. The word tobacco was derived from an American Indian word referring both to a tube for inhaling the smoke and to a cylinder of leaf prepared for smoking. 

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