Tobacco
Nicotiana; herba sancta, herba panacea
- Known today as
- Nicotiana tabacum.
- Kind
- Plant, in 3 older authorities
- Constituents
- nicotine, nornicotine
- Earliest authority here
- Jean Nicot
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
Caution. Addictive and poisonous.
Tobacco: what was it used for?
Hailed in the sixteenth century as a panacea: for wounds, ulcers, headaches, and the cleansing of the brain by smoke.
Tobacco: what does modern science say?
Nicotine is addictive and toxic; smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the world.
Tobacco: is it poisonous?
Yes, in some form or dose. Addictive and poisonous. Its poisoning is nicotinic poisoning (coniine, nicotine, cytisine): Minutes to an hour. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- Nicotine is a nicotinic agonist; the smoke’s tars are the carcinogens.
- Checked against ChEMBL
- nicotine: ChEMBL’s curated mechanism: agonist Neuronal acetylcholine receptor; alpha4/beta2.
- Toxic dose
- About 500–1,000 mg of nicotine for an adult, far more than the old 60 mg figure; a cigar’s worth has poisoned children.
- Syndrome
- Nicotinic poisoning (coniine, nicotine, cytisine)
- Standing
- Nicotine replacement is on the WHO list of essential medicines.
- Mayer, B. (2014). “How much nicotine kills a human?” Archives of Toxicology 88. Verified against its record · doi:10.1007/s00204-013-1127-0
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Tobacco: what lore surrounds it?
Long before it reached the sixteenth-century apothecary as a panacea, tobacco was sacred among many Native American peoples, above all in the calumet, the ceremonial pipe that carried prayer to the spirit world, sealed treaties, and opened councils, its rising smoke the bridge between the human and the sacred. That older meaning had already been set aside by the time European physicians praised it as herba sancta and herba panacea.
Tobacco: what did the older authorities say?
- Jean Nicot
- The French ambassador to Portugal sent it to Catherine de’ Medici in 1560, and it bears his name.
- Nicolás Monardes
- The Seville physician praised it as a cure for many ills.
- James I
- Called smoking “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs.”
Sources
- Monardes, N. (1574). Historia medicinal. Book, seen in reviews
- James I (1604). A Counterblaste to Tobacco. Book, seen in reviews
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Sacred pipe.” Book, seen in reviews
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Sources
- 4 cited: 1 verified against its record, 3 book, seen in reviews.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026
- Chicago
“Tobacco.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified September 25, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/tobacco.
- MLA
“Tobacco.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 25 Sept. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/tobacco. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Tobacco. (2026, September 25). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/tobacco
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See Also
Poisoned alike: nicotinic poisoning (coniine, nicotine, cytisine)
Broom · Lesser bean-trefoil · Gorse · Hemlock · the syndrome, with all of them →
Also in Nicolás Monardes
Sarsaparilla in Nicolás Monardes · everything Nicolás Monardes names →
Drawing on the same sources: Monardes, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nearby in the alphabet
Tongue stones (called tongue-stones, and by the Germans adders’ tongues) · Toadstone (Lepidotes, believed to come from a toad’s head) · Tormentil · Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) · Touch-pieces · Toad (dried, powdered, or worn) · Troche of agaric (Laricifomes officinalis (syn) · Tinder fungus (A hoof-shaped bracket of birch and beech)
Historical description, not medical advice.