Salade Nicotine
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
My first foray into online forums anywhere, ever, was right here in h2g2. With my usual lack of judgement I chose the forum on "Cigarettes". What an emotive cauldron that forum is. An alternative suggestion by Peta for an article on this history of smoking was a more appealing option. This is what I discovered.
Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) into England in 1586. Tobacco is from the Haitian language and is the name of the pipe in which the dried plant leaves were smoked. Nicotine is derived from the name of the French Ambassador to Portugal Jean Nicot, who introduced the plant to France. The smoking of tobacco was opposed by Kings and Popes, attracting sever penalties for those caught doing so.
American Indians or Native Americans (calumnies on the heads of the politically correct) used tobacco for religious and ceremonial purposes, and artifacts used in tobacco smoking have been dated as far back as 8000 years. Native tobacco is found in many parts of the world, and humans have been using plants for a variety of reasons from pharmaceutical to recreational for at least as long as recorded history.
Three hundred years after it's introduction into England, tobacco was accepted in the British Pharmacopoeia as a medicinal adjunct. Tobacco was used as a relaxant, sedative, diuretic, expectorant, emetic, and in ointments and poultices for skin diseases. The leaf rolled into a suppository was believed beneficial in strangulated hernia, and a wet tobacco leaf applied to piles a certain cure. (Sitting in ashtrays however, does not cure worms.)
The tobacco alkaloid nicotine has been used as an insecticide since the middle of the 18th century. A newer compound in this class is the nitroguanidine, imidacloprid. It is much less toxic to mammals than nicotine. Imidacloprid too is an insecticide. It is used as a broad-spectrum pest insecticide on crops, in seed treatment, animal stockfeeds, and as a flea-control treatment. It even has a role in munitions formulations.
A search for the effects on human health in regard to this insecticide and its' components resulted in such non-comforting statements as "Human reproductive and developmental toxicity data are not available". Trust Monsanto? Sure Can!
So whether we are smoking it or eating it (You do eat up all your vegetables - don't you?) nicotine is a part of all our lives. Perhaps consideration and courtesy should be the order of the day, and we can then turn our collective energies toward those giants of industry who foist their specious arguments concerning the benefits of profitable and largely unaccountable science upon us.
But there lies another article.
Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) into England in 1586. Tobacco is from the Haitian language and is the name of the pipe in which the dried plant leaves were smoked. Nicotine is derived from the name of the French Ambassador to Portugal Jean Nicot, who introduced the plant to France. The smoking of tobacco was opposed by Kings and Popes, attracting sever penalties for those caught doing so.
American Indians or Native Americans (calumnies on the heads of the politically correct) used tobacco for religious and ceremonial purposes, and artifacts used in tobacco smoking have been dated as far back as 8000 years. Native tobacco is found in many parts of the world, and humans have been using plants for a variety of reasons from pharmaceutical to recreational for at least as long as recorded history.
Three hundred years after it's introduction into England, tobacco was accepted in the British Pharmacopoeia as a medicinal adjunct. Tobacco was used as a relaxant, sedative, diuretic, expectorant, emetic, and in ointments and poultices for skin diseases. The leaf rolled into a suppository was believed beneficial in strangulated hernia, and a wet tobacco leaf applied to piles a certain cure. (Sitting in ashtrays however, does not cure worms.)
The tobacco alkaloid nicotine has been used as an insecticide since the middle of the 18th century. A newer compound in this class is the nitroguanidine, imidacloprid. It is much less toxic to mammals than nicotine. Imidacloprid too is an insecticide. It is used as a broad-spectrum pest insecticide on crops, in seed treatment, animal stockfeeds, and as a flea-control treatment. It even has a role in munitions formulations.
A search for the effects on human health in regard to this insecticide and its' components resulted in such non-comforting statements as "Human reproductive and developmental toxicity data are not available". Trust Monsanto? Sure Can!
So whether we are smoking it or eating it (You do eat up all your vegetables - don't you?) nicotine is a part of all our lives. Perhaps consideration and courtesy should be the order of the day, and we can then turn our collective energies toward those giants of industry who foist their specious arguments concerning the benefits of profitable and largely unaccountable science upon us.
But there lies another article.
