Tobacco in SpainIn 1558, the tobacco plant was introduced into Spain by the physician Francisco Fernandes, as a healing herb (herba panacea, sana sancta Indorum). Imiorum). He had been commissioned by Emperor Philip II to go to Mexico to investigate the products of the Empire. Cultivation in France may have started earlier, in 1556, with importation of seed from Brazil by André Thévet. He claimed to have cultivated it at Angoulême before Jean Nicot sent the seed to François II. Yet it is Nicot, the French ambassador to Lisbon, whose name survives in the word nicotine. The habit of smoking tobacco was initiated from England from the example Sir Francis Drake later brought back (27 Jul 1586) from the American Indians. Ralph Lane, the first governor of Virginia has been credited as the first English tobacco pipe smoker.« |
