Spec. Plant. Willd. L 1014. CI. 5. Orel. 1. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Solanaceae. G. 379. Corolla funnel-shaped, with the border plaited. Stamens inclined. Capsules two-valved, two-celled. Sp. 1. N. Tabacum.1 Tobacco. Med. Bot. 3d edit. 208. t. 77. Officinal. Tabacum, Lond. Nicotianae Tabaci folia, Edin.

Dub. Tobacco-leaves.

Syn. Tabac (F), Taback (G. Dutch), Tobak (Dan. Swed.), Tabak (Pol.), Tabacco (I.), Tobaco (S. Port.), Poghei elly (Tam.), Bujjer hany (Arab.), Doorkole (Cyng.), Tam bracoo (Malay), Tambroco (Jav.), Tambacu (H.), Tamracuta (San.), Quauryetl (Mexican), Sang-yen (Chinese).

Tobacco is an annual plant, a native of America, and partially cultivated in Europe; flowering in July and August. The root is large and fibrous, and sends up an erect, branch-ing stem, about four feet in height, round, villous, slightly viscid, and furnished with numerous, large, alternate, entire, pointed leaves, the lowermost of which are about two feet long and four inches broad; they are sessile, a little decurrent, with a strong midrib, and of a pale green colour on the upper surface, and still paler underneath. The flowers are in large terminal panicles, with long linear-pointed bractes at the base of each division: the calyx is bell-shaped, obscurely pentangular, villous, slightly viscid, and cleft into five acute, erect segments; the corolla is very viscid, its tube twice the length of the calyx, of a pallid greenish hue, and swelling into an oblong cup, which expands into five pointed, plaited, pale, red, or rose-coloured segments: the stamens are the length of the tube of the corolla, and support awl-shaped, compressed, oblong anthers : the style, which is the length of the corolla, and crowned with a capitate, slightly-cleft, stigma, rises from a conical germen, that changes to an ovate capsule containing many reniform, small seeds, and opening at the apex.

1 This plant was first discovered by the Spaniards in Yucatan in 1520, and was there called petun or petema. Humboldt says it has been cultivated from time immemorial by the native people of the Oroonoko; and was smoked all over America at the time of the Spanish conquest. He found only two of the species cultivated in Europe, the N. paniculata and N. glutinosa, growing wild; but the N. loxensis and andicola, which he found on the Andes, 1850 toises of elevation, closely resemble the tabacum and rustica. It was transported to the West Indies and North America; and brought to Europe by Hernandez de Toledo, who came from Florida to Portugal in the beginning of the 16th century. The seeds were sent from Portugal to Catherine de Medicis by Jean Nicot, an agent of Francis II., after whom it received its generic name Nicotiana; it was also called Herbe a la reine. The specific appellation is taken from tabac, the name of an instrument used by the natives of America in smoking the herb. The following are the names by which it is known in America - yeth in the Mexican or Azteek tongue; sema in Algonkiu; oyugoua in the Huron; in the Peruvian it is sayri; in Chiquito, pais; in Vilela, tusup , Mbaja, nalodagadi; Moxo, sabare; Omagua, potema; Tumanac, cavai; Maypure, jema; and Cabre, scna.-Humboldt, Person. Narr. vol. v. p. 666.

Tobacco was at one period raised to a considerable extent in Yorkshire1; but the cultivation of it for the purposes of trade has been long prohibited; and this country, as well as the greater part of Europe, is chiefly supplied from Virginia, where the plant is cultivated in the greatest abundance. There are two varieties of this species, known by the name of Virginian tobacco, a broad and a narrow-leaved sort; but they do not differ in their medical properties. In Virginia, the plant is not allowed to attain its full height, but is topped whenever a certain number of leaves is thrown out; by this process the plant becomes bushy, and the leaves are known to be ripe when a small bluish spot shews itself on the point of union between the leaf and the stem. It is cut down in August, and is not considered good if gathered in damp weather, or when the sun is not in full force. The plants are hung up in pairs, in sheds, to dry; after which the leaves are separated from the stem, bound up in bundles, and packed in the hogsheads in which they are exported.2

Qualities.-The recent leaves possess very little odour or taste; but when dried their odour is strong, narcotic, and somewhat fetid; their taste bitter and extremely acrid. When well cured, their colour is yellowish green. They emit sparks in burning, and give out a suffocating smoke; and, when distilled, yield an empyreumatic volatile oil of a green colour, on which their medicinal properties partly depend, and which is said to be a very virulent poison.3 This oil is dissipated by the long coction of tobacco with water; yet, in distillation with ether, water, or alcohol, no oil comes over. By infusion, however, it yields its active principles to all of these fluids. Its deflagration shows the presence of nitrate of potassa: and Bouillon La Grange discovered hydrochlorate of potassa in its inspissated juice.4 According to Vauquelin, tobacco appears to contain albumen or gluten, supermalate of lime, acetic acid, nitrate and hydrochlorate of potassa, hydro-chlorate of ammonia, a red matter soluble in alcohol and water, agreenfecula,and a peculiar substance on which the properties of the plant appear to depend, and which has been therefore named nicotin. This substance is colourless, acrid, has the odour of tobacco, and like it occasions violent sneezing.

It is volatile, poisonous, and produces colourless solutions with alcohol and water, from which it is thrown down by tincture of nutgalls. Vauquelin regards it as approaching the volatile oils in its properties.1

1 It was first cultivated in England in 1570, according to Lobel's account.

2 The Creoles of Tierra Firrae cure their tobacco in two ways: the first stage of the cura seca, or dry preparation, is nearly the same as that used in Virginia; but the leaves are next stripped of their midrib, and formed into balls to ferment; after which they are unrolled, and undergo a variety of treatment until they are dry; the cura nigra, or black or fluid preparation, is somewhat different, and intended to get the juice from the leaves; after various fermentations this is boiled to the consistence of a syrup, and is in great request, particularly with the females, who relish it as sailors do the chewing of the tobacco.

3 The poisonous effects of this oil are very powerful. Mr. Barrow, speaking of the use which the Hottentots make of tobacco-oil for destroying snakes, says, "A Hottentot applied some of it from the short end of his wooden tobacco-pipe to the mouth of a snake, while darting out his tongue. The effect was instantaneous as an electric shock; with a convulsive motion, that was momentary, the snake half untwisted itself, and never stirred more; and the muscles were so contracted that the whole animal felt hard and rigid, as if dried in the sun,"- Travels in Africa, p. 268.

4 Journal de Physiaue, xxxix. 193.