Nature's Pharmacy: Ancient Knowledge, Modern Medicine

Tobacco
Nicotiana rustica

Many nightshades produce alkaloids of varying toxicity with narcotic or poisonous effects. Nicotine is the alkaloid in tobacco. In its natural form, nicotine is liquid, colorless, volatile, and alkaline in reaction. It was discovered in 1807 by Gaspare Cerioli and first discovered in tobacco smoke by S. F. Hermbstadt in 1822. Hermbstadt named it Nicotianin after Jean Nicot, the consul of the King of France, who introduced tobacco to Paris in 1560.

It is the nicotine alkaloid which has made this plant so powerfully important for traditional social, religious, ceremonial, and medicinal purposes among indigenous peoples in the Americas and causes enjoyable effects, as well as illnesses and death for many recreational users worldwide.

Archaeological Evidence
Prehistoric evidence of the use of tobacco comes from indirect and direct evidence. The presence of pipes at archaeological sites is indirect evidence since, historically, other plants besides tobacco were smoked in pipes. Direct evidence comes from the presence of carbonized tobacco seeds. The oldest records of this type in eastern North America date to circa C.E. 100. Evidence of pipes predates this by 1,000 years. Nicotiana rustica has been identified at Iowa archaeological sites, the oldest dating to C.E. 550.

History
Many chroniclers, missionaries, soldiers, travelers, and scholars have recorded the use of tobacco by indigenous peoples of the Americas since it was first encountered by Christopher Columbus's expedition of 1492. They learned tobacco's importance was multipurpose: socially, in friendship and war; fertility-promoting in agriculture and courtship; spiritually, to incur trance spirit, consultation, and magical curing, and medicinally. They also learned it was addictive and were aware of its power, in small doses, to stimulate, and to depress hunger and thirst, and in large doses to produce visions, trance, and catatonia.

Two of Columbus's crew, Luis de Torres and Rodrigo de Jerez, reported to Columbus that they were the first Europeans to encounter tobacco smoking. Bartolome' de las Casas recounted the event around 1527 in his Historia de las Indias:

"These two Christians met many people on the road, men and women, and the men always with a firebrand in their hands, and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf, dry also, after the fashion of a musket [squib, or tube] made of paper, such as boys make on the feast of the Holy Ghost. [These are] lit at one end, and at the other they chew or suck and take in with their breath that smoke which dulls their flesh and as it were intoxicates and so they say that they do not feel weariness. Those muskets, or whatever we call them, they call tobacos."

The Europeans were eager to know first hand the purpose and power of tobacco smoking. Continuing from the above quote, Las Casas reports:

"I have known Spaniards in this isle of Hispaniola who were wont to take, and being reproved for it and told that it was a vicious habit, they replied that it was not in their power to stop taking them."

Four species of tobacco have been important to the Indians of the Americas. Nicotiana rustica is a hybrid species believed to have originated in the Andean highlands of Ecuador, Peru, or Bolivia, and arrived in North America possibly through Mexican and Caribbean routes. At the time of European contact, the range of cultivation of this species was from the southern limits of agriculture in South America to the northern limits of agriculture in North America. The nicotine content of this species is the highest of all tobaccos. Nicotiana tabacum also a hybrid species is believed to have originated in the Bolivian Andes. It was widely cultivated pre-Columbus in eastern South America from Brazil northward and in Colombia, Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies. It was introduced to Virginia circa 1610 from the Spanish West Indies. Except in a few instances of ceremonial use, this species eventually replaced the older tobaccos used by Native Americans. It is unknown whether it was Nicotiana tabacum or Nicotiana rustica which Columbus and his expedition encountered being used by the Indians. Nicotiana tabacum is the main commercially grown tobacco today and is less potent than Nicotiana rustica.

Nicotiana quadrivalvis is a native species of the western North America. Its wild range is from southern Oregon to southern California, its eastern wild limits are not known. It was cultivated within and beyond its wild range by Native Americans. Lewis and Clark on their expedition up the Missouri River in 1804-1805 found this tobacco being grown by the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa Indians of South Dakota and North Dakota.

Nicotiana multivalvis L. is another native tobacco of western North America cultivated by Native Americans. It was an important ceremonial and ritual smoke plant. Its distribution extended from the Pacific coast eastward.

Ceremonial Uses
As a ceremonial medicine, Tobacco was used in pre-ballgame rituals by the Apalachee Indians of Florida. The night before a ballgame, the Chief was required to consume black drink and smoke tobacco known as acchuma fina, mixed with a tobacco substitute or extender called atabac. Non-medicinal use of Nicotiana rustica was mainly in smoking. This tobacco was also cultivated and sold. Ethnobotanical research of Nicotiana quadrivalvis records the use of this species as a smoke plant, for ritual smoking, and as a ceremonial item.

The Blackfoot Indians ceremonially planted and harvested Nicotiana multivalvis. Members of the North Blackfoot Tobacco Society took part in elaborate sowing ceremonies at sacred planting grounds. Between the time of sowing and harvesting, taboos protected the planting grounds because the plants were being "tended" by supernatural Small People. In return, offerings of miniature apparel were left on the planting grounds at the end of the planting ceremony. After harvest, the leaves were distributed. The Blackfoot performed the Big Smoke or All Smoking ceremony, where the prestige and tribal positions of the participants were recounted. The ceremony would begin at sundown and continue until daybreak. Many pipes were smoked, and many songs were sung. Indian ceremonies of recent times typically involve tobacco offerings.

Historical Uses

• Analgesic to alleviate pain
• To treat parasitic worms
• Anticonvulsive
• Diaphoretic
• Diuretic
• Poultice for boils and insect bites
• Emetic
• Dermatological aid
• To treat colic
• Kidney aid for dropsy
• Remedy for ague (fever), lockjaw and black-yellow disease
• To treat apoplexy
• Snakebite remedy
• As a cure for toothaches
• To treat dizziness and fainting
• As an antidote for poison
• Psychological aid for insanity caused by masturbation
• As a remedy for tuberculosis (consumption)
• In ceremonial rituals

Warnings
Nicotine is highly addictive. Long-term use can cause severe heart and lung disease.

Modern Medicinal Uses
Modern medical tobacco-related research comprises several fields. Research into the medicinal use of nicotine to treat addiction has resulted in the development of pharmaceutical nicotine replacement agents in the form of transdermal patches, polacrilex (chewing gum), nasal spray, and oral inhaler. National Cancer Institute studies include research in the areas of prevention of tobacco use and nicotine addiction, treatment of addiction, and biological effects of nicotine use.