ABSTRACT
In early modern Europe, when the discovery of the link between tobacco and cancer, stroke, and heart and respiratory disease still lay in the future, the consequences for health of tobacco use already engendered serious discussion. Proponents of tobacco lauded its benefi ts to body and spirit. They appreciated its virtues as a mild stimulant in recreational use, and exalted it as the long-sought “panacea”—a medicine that could cure all diseases. Meanwhile, tobacco’s opponents warned that it destroyed physical and mental well-being. Recreational use could enfeeble the body and the brain, while legitimate medicinal uses of tobacco were few to none. The medical issue took on a religious and a political cast as well. King James I of England, for example, opposed tobacco use and regarded it as a threat to users’ moral fi ber as well as to their physical health. Tobacco, he argued, caused laziness, which was sinful as well as detrimental to the interests of King and realm. No good could be expected of a product and custom that had originated amongst Native Americans, whom he characterized as devil-worshippers.2
