ng. In
1624, Pope Urban VIII. anathematized all snuff-takers, who
committed the heinous sin of taking a pinch in any church; and
so late as 1690, Innocent XII. excommunicated all who indulged
in the same vice in Saint Peter's church at Rome. In 1625,
Amurath IV. prohibited smoking as an unnatural and irreligious
custom, under pain of death. In Constantinople, where the
custom is now universal, smoking was thought to be so
ridiculous and hurtful, that any Turk, who was caught in the
act, was conducted in ridicule through the streets, with a pipe
transfixed through his nose. In Russia, where the peasantry now
smoke all day long, the Grand Duke of Moscow prohibited the
entrance of tobacco into his dominions, under the penalty of
the _knaut_ for the first offence, and death for the second;
and the Muscovite who was found snuffing, was condemned to have
his nostrils split. The Chambre au Tabac for punishing smokers,
was instituted in 1634, and not abolished till the middle of
the eighteenth century. Even in Switzerland, war was waged
against the American herb: to smoke, in Berne, ranked as a
crime next to adultery; and in 1653, all smokers were cited
before the Council at Apenzel, and severely punished."[39]

We shall see hereafter what a host of enemies tobacco found also among
medical writers. We speak here particularly of the moderns; for many of
the older physicians extolled its healing virtues to the skies, and they
were giants in knowledge; but as an old author says, "Pigmei gigantum
humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident." Indeed it must be
admitted, as a very powerful argument against the efficacy of tobacco as
a medicine, that the physicians of our day have in many cases abandoned
its use, and in others adopted some less dangerous succedaneum.

It may not be unamusing to the curious reader to know in what manner
this subject is handled by King James. The "Counterblaste" commences by
denouncing tobacco, because "the vile and stinking custome comes from
the wilde, godlesse, and slavish Indians," by whom it was used as an
antidote against the most dreadful of all diseases. Its use was
introduced "neither by a king, great conqueror, nor learned Doctor of
Physicke, but by some Indians who were brought over;" they died, but the
"savage custome" survived. King James contents himself by examining only
four of the pr