Nicotine Columbus

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... 

Upon landing in the New World, members of Columbus s crew described natives on the island of present-day Cuba who inserted burning roles of leaves (called tobaccos) into their nostrils and drank the smoke. The crew quickly took up this practice and the custom was subsequently introduced into Europe upon their return. Nicotine was a runaway success in Europe for many reasons, not the least of which was the belief that it would increase libido. Nicotine was not the first drug taken for this reason and will not be the last. Inhalation proved to be an extremely efficient method for conveying nicotine into the human body in order to obtain its alleged aphrodisiac effect. 

Unlike cocaine and opium, tobacco and its primary psychoactive ingredient, nicotine, are products of the New World, two species being in cultivation at the time of Columbus. The sale of tobacco to France helped finance much of our Revolutionary War. Thus, together with hemp, tobacco contributed to the young country s positive cash flow. Between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, the primary forms of tobacco use in America were snuff and chewing. By 1911 smoking tobacco became the dominant form. 

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. 

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