NEPENTHES, OR THE virtues OF TOBACCO BY William Barclay Mr. of Art, and Doctor of Physic.  
EDINBURGH, Printed by ANDRO HART, and are to be sold at his shop on the North side of the high street, a little beneath the Crosse. Anno Dom. 1614   

A merry Epistle of the Author to the Printer  
GOod Master Hart, I have sent you here a parasitical Pamphlet, which, I am sure, will be as far been at every banquet as Gnatho himself or Pseudolus. It will be a meet piece for Tipplers at Taverns, and for peddlers to help away with their rotten Tobacco. So that by this work, I fear I shall be better loved amongst fine scoalers then famous scholars. But if I find favour in this Essay, I shall send you shortly God willing a scholastical subject, and a curious little work: fit only for those which aspire to the top of Pindus. The one will bring to your shop the common sort of people, the other the most learned, I deliver this Scottish brood unto you, Peraes & libram, make it your own if you think it worthy, and esteem me so long as I live also  
Your own from my heart W. Barclay Doct. Med.   

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL PATRICK BARCLAY son and heir to Sr. PATRICK BARCLAY of Tolly Knight WILLIAM BARCLAY his Uncle D. M. wisheth health and happiness.  
Very worshipful and my dear Nephew, I cannot but I must summoned you, the process being in matter of Tobacco, as a witness to testify the worth thereof, and since you are charged, the custom requireth that you have a just copy of the Libel, which I present here unto you, not so much that you may depose what you know of the virtues thereof, as that you may learn by this discourse to continue with discretion in the practice of this precious Plant, to the end you may eschew by precepts of Art the dulefull heritage of a natural and paternal disease, and that you may bliss the house of your nativity with a long, holy and wholesome life, and that house feel some consolation by the counsel and care of him who being a bough of that old and unfading tree, shall endeavour to bring forth such fruit as may both profit and pleasure all the branches and buds thereof, and you before all as the principal stock, which I wish may live longer than many long living Oaks, to the ornament of our race and the comfort of  
Your most affectionate and most serviable Uncle W. Barclay Doctor of Medicine.   

NEPENTHES, OR THE virtues OF TOBACCO BY WILLIAM BARCLAY D. OF MEDICINE AND MASTER OF ART.  
HERCULES to obey the commandment and will of JUNO, busied himself to overthrow the most famous monsters of his time, his Arms were a bag and a club. A most worthy Lady, and, if I durst say so, the very JUNO of our Isle hath commanded me to destroy some monstrous Diseases, so that to imitate the most chivalrous Chiftan of the world, I have armed myself with a box for his bag, and a pipe for his club: a box to conserve my Tobacco, and a pipe to use it, by those two God willing, to overcome many maladies. If the hosts of such Diseases do not betray my endeavours to their hating and hated guests by not using or abusing my weapons. But before I enter in the list, I must whet as it were my wits with these two points, First why do I treat of a matter so often handled by so many, so odious to Princes, so pernicious to sundry, and so costly to all?  
Secondly why do I as another CLODIUS reveal mysteria bonae Deae, and profane the secrets of Physic? I answer that a good matter is not the worse to be maintained by many: and Plus vident oculi quam oculus. As concerning the hatred of Princes, one man's meat is another man's poison. The wine prince of liquors hateth vehemently coleworts, and yet beer, ail, cider water, oil, honey, & all other liquors do well agree with coleworts. The king of France drinketh never Orleans wine notwithstanding his subjects do love it well.  
I know sundry men that have such Antipathy with butter that they dare not smell it. It hath been pernicious to sundry I grant it, so hath wine, so hath bread, so hath gold, so hath land, and what so wholesome thing is that cannot be turned to abuse? If it be costly use the less of it. What? is not rhubarb coastly? is not Musk coastly? is not ambergris coastly? As touching the second point of my revealing this secret of Physic, I answer, I mean but to reform the harm which proceedeth of the abuse, and to show to my country men that I am more willing to pleasure them then to profit myself, neither did I swear to conceal that point when in a rob of purpur I wedded the metamorphosed DAPHN●. It resteth now to unfold what moved me to entitule this treatise Nepenthes, because it hath certain mellifluous delicacy, which delighteth the senses, & spirits of man with a mindful oblivion, insomuch that it maketh & induceth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the forgetting of all sorrows & miseries. And there is such hostility between it & melancholy, that it is the only medicament in the world ordained by nature to entertain good company: insomuch that it worketh never so well, as when a it is given from man to man, as a pledge of friendship and amity  
The country which God hath honoured and blessed with this happy and holy herb, doth call it in their native language Petum, the Spaniards, who have given it the right of naturality, in their soil term it Tobacco, the Frenchmen which have received it in their country as in a colony call it Nicotian, in this our Isle of Britain, as in all other maritime parts, we use the Spanish name of Tobacco. But esteeming it worthy of a more lofty name, I have chosen for gossip the fair and famous Helena, and given to her the honour to name this most profitable plant Nepenthes.  
Albeit this herb disdains not to be nourished in many Gardens in Spain, in Italy, in France, Flanders, Germany and Britain, yet nevertheless only that which is fostered in India, and brought home by Mariners and traffickers is to be used, as after you shall hear the reason is.  Non omnis fert omnia tell us. 
But avarice and greediness of gain have moved the Merchants to apparel some European plants with Indian coats, and to install them in ●●ops as righteous & legittime Tobacco. Some others have Tobacco from Florida indeed, but because either it is exhausted of spirituality, or the radical humour is spent, and wasted, or it hath gotten moisture by the way, or it hath been dried for expedition in the Sun, or carried too negligently, they sophisticate and fared the same in sundry sorts with black spice, Galanga, aqua vitae, Spanish wine, Anise seeds, oil of Spicke and such like.  
So that the most fine, best, and purest is that which is brought to Europe in leaves, and not rolled in puddings, as the English Navigators first brought home.  
The finest Tobacco is that which pierceth quickly the odorat with a sharp aromatic smell, and tickleth the tongue with acrimony, not unpleasant to the taste, from whence that which draweth most water is most virtuous, whether the substance of it be chewed in the mouth, or the smoke of it received. Skillie tasters of wine, Bacchus' butler's, know the wine Odour▪ fapore colore.  
So they which traffic daily with Tobacco do know it by these same three senses. In a Goose there is nothing which doth not serve either for meat or medicine, ●o not so much as the dung: But in Tobacco there is nothing which is not medicine, the root, the stalk, the leaves, the seeds, the smoke, the ashes, & to be more particular, Tobacco may serve for the use of man either green or dry, of green Tobacco may be made Syrups, waters, oils, unguents, plasters, or the leaf of itself, may be used mortified at the fire to cure the asthma, or shortness of breath, dissolve obstructions, heal the old cough, burning ulcers, wounds, migraim, Colic, suffocation of the mother: and many other diseases, yea almost all diseases. If the Romans durst have wanted so many years the help of Physic, using for all diseases only Colwoorts. Truly I think the Romans might want now all Physicians eternally, if they knew the virtue of Tobacco, seeing the spring of all their diseases is defluxions & cathars for which the only antidote is Tobacco. I entreat here the Lector of this treatise, to have me excused if I do not set down in special the form and manner to prepare such remedies of green Tobacco, as I have mentioned, for I would wish to do with Tobacco as Aristoteles did with his Physics, for he wrote to his scholar Alexander, that he had published & not published his physical Philosophy: So I must assay to say, that I have revealed and not revealed the quintessence of Tobacco. As concerning the dry Tobacco, it may be used in infusion, in decoction, in substance, in smoke, in salt. Touching the infusion & decoction, because they are as dangerous & more, than Elleborus albus, or antimonium, I will forbear to particularise, remitting the practice of that part to the presence of some prudent Physician, except it be in some desperate case of unknown poison. As for Tobacco in substance held in the mouth, as an apophlegmatisme, or medicine to draw phlegm out of the head by the mouth, I avow it to be one of the best & surest remedies in the world against Paralysy, epilepsy or apoplexy, that is, the falling ill, & Vertigo Idiopathica, the passion of dizzines in the head by wind, that ever was found out. These are four of the most incurable diseases that besiege the brain of man: for understanding of the which cure I must remember the Lector, that since the days of Hypocrates, and in his days there have been invented five sundry sorts of vacuations to void this our body of filthy corruption whereof it is the continual harbinger, that is, phelebotomie, umition purging by the stool, by urins, & by sweeting. Now in the latter days hath been invented a sixth way or manner of purging, which is also by the mouth, not vomiting, but spitting: The only medicament which was wont to procure such spitting, or slavering, was Hydrargyrum, quicksilver: but now of new is found out this divine Tobacco, which if it be rightly used, is a sovereign help, and a present purgation, and approved preservative against the foresaid diseases, as also against Arthritis, the gout, Lithiasis, the stone in reins or bledder, and Hydropisie. But because it is said that Tobacco and Hydrargyrum, work both after one sort, It shall not be amiss to speak somewhat of the one and the other: First, there is no vegetal in the world, hath such affinity with any mineral, as hath Tobacco with Mercure, or quicksilver, for as Mercure purgeth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above and under, being taken at the mouth, so doth Tobacco, and as Mercure being applied exteriorly, purgeth all the body by slavering, so doth Tobacco being holden in the mouth. As the best Physicians, Philosophers and Alchemists that ever were, can not agree upon the qualities, neither first nor second of Mercure, some say it is both hot and cold, both dry and moist, that it can bind and loose, that it can rarefy and thicken, and in a word, that it is a Protheus, or a Magician. So Tobacco is hot, because it hath acrimony, it is cold because it is narcoticke and stupefactive, it maketh drunken, and refresheth, it maketh hungry and filleth, it maketh thirsty, and quencheth thirst: Finally to bring man to health, it changeth as many forms as jupiter doth shapes to convey himself to his Mistress: This difference only there is, that Mercure being applied to any part of the body, provoketh spitting: But Tobacco purgeth by slaver only, being taken in the mouth in substance or in smoke. The Alchemists vaunt that they are able to draw out of every thing Mercure, sulphur and salt, but truly out of nothing can they be sooner or better separated, then out of Tobacco: I think that I durst be bold to say, that Tobacco is the Mercure of vegetals, and Mercure is the Tobacco of minerals. Now to return to our purpose, to wit, to the cure and preservation of an army of maladies, Tobacco must be used after this manner. Take of leaf Tobacco as much as being folded together, may make a round ball of such bigness that it may fill the patient's mouth, and incline his face downward towards the ground, keeping the mouth open, not moving any whit with his tongue, except now and then to waken the medicament, there shall flow such a flood of water from his brain and his stomach, and from all the parts of his body that it shall be a wonder. This he must do fasting in the morning, and if it be for preservation, and the body very cacochyme, or full of evil humours, he must take it once a week, otherwise once a month: But if it be to cure the Epilepsy or Hydropisie once every day. Thus have I used Tobacco myself, and thus used Tobacco jean Greis a venerable old man at Nantes in the French Britain, who lived while he was six score years of age, and who was known for the only refuge of the poor afflicted soldiers of Venus when they were wounded with the French Picks, I should have said Pocks. Thus much for the use of Tobacco in substance. As concerning the smoke, it may be taken more frequently, & for the said effects, but always fasting, & with empty stomach, not as the English abusers do, which make a smoke-boxe of their skull, more fit to be carried under his arm that selleth at Paris dunoir a noircir to black men's shoes, then to carry the brain of him that can not walk, can not ride except the Tobacco Pipe be in his mouth, I chanced in company on a time with an English merchant in Normandy between Rowen and New-haven. This fellow was a merry man, but at every house he must have a Coal to kindle his Tobacco: the Frenchmen wondered, and I laughed at his intemperancy. But there is one William Anslop an honest man dwelling in Bishopsgate street, hard within the gate that selleth the best Tobacco in England, and useth it most discreetly. Because the matter of smoke taking is controverted and disputed, I will first decide this question of smoke before I enter to show the commodity which proceedeth of it. Suffumigation or receiving of smoke, is not a new invented remedy, it is an old and well approved form of medicine in many diseases, Hypocrates in his book of the diseases of women teacheth many kinds of smoke which women should receive and specially of many unsavoury and stinking things at the nose and the mouth, to repress and thrust back the mother in the suffocation, a fearful and dangerous disease. The most expert Physicians in our days admit with one consent the smoke of tussilago to be received at the mouth, by those which are phthisic, or asthmaticke or have the cough of cold. Gordon a learned old Physician, the Vade mecum of practitians, ordaineth Trochisques of Ambergreis, Musk, and other Ingredients to be used after the form as we take the smoke of Tobacco for the Epilepsy. In the book called Aphorismi tonsorum, or Schola Salerni, there is a suffumigation made of Leek seeds, and white Insquian seeds for the tooth ache to be received at the mouth. Leonardo Fioravanti an Italian practitian commendeth for deafness a suffumigation made with cinaber, frankincense and myrrh, to be taken at the mouth. Consider now good Lector, and repeat again, Shall Hypocrates permit the smoke of stinking feathers, and of old rotten shoes from a Coablers dunghill? shall other Physicians permit the smoke of tussilago? shall Gordon prescribe the aromatical smoke of musk & ambre? shall Schola Salerni permit Insquiam to be incensed in the mouth which is a venomous plant, shall FIORAVANTI command the smoke of cinabre, which is a present poison to infect the brain? and shall we only banish the poor Tobacco which hath more virtue for all these foresaid Diseases, than each of the forenamed things hath for their several sores. If the mother vex and torment a woman, the smoke of Tobacco either above or under, shall ease her more, than feathers or leather. If thou be phthisic, if thou be asthmaticke, if thou be urged to cogh through defluxion, the smoke of Tobacco is better than tussilago: if the rage of toothache excarnificate the gums, Tobacco is better than Insquiam: if there be sounding in the ears, it is fitter than cinabre. I add further, that amongst so many thousands which use & abuse Tobacco at all occasions without observation of any physical precept, there are very sew found that can ascribe their death to Tobacco: so that if Tobacco were used physically and with discretion there were no medicament in the world comparable to it. Now to return from whence I did digress to show the commodities of Tobacco, I lay here as a ground to build upon, that by reason of the situation of man's head, which is above all the other members of the body, the most part of diseases flow from the head, as from a fountain, so that Tobacco going immediately to the brain, it not only augmenteth and refresheth the animal spirits, but drieth the source of innumerable diseases, and fortifieth the brain. So that there is no man but may receive commodity by the use of Tobacco, except only those which have their brain dry & hot, which is a temperament unnatural to the brain, yea and a dangerous disease, and the next degree to reaving to fury, to madness. I know that every one will be curious to ask me how he shall know a hot & dry brain. GALEN in his book which he calleth ars parva, declareth at large the signs of all intemperies, yet to satisfy the minds o● curious Lectors, it is evident that his brain 〈◊〉 hot & dry who sleepeth very little or nothing who reaveth waking, and formeth monstrous dreams sleeping, and whose nose distilleth nothing. It were a world of work to specify in particular all the diseases, and symptoms that are helped or prevented by Tobacco, but I will only set down those which I know either by mine own experience, or by the faithful report of learned Physicians or of credible patients. I will begin at the Epilepsy which is called by HIPPOCRATES morbus sacer, the falling sickness, and this plant is called by some nations herba sacra: then after legittime preparation, & such diet as a skilful Physician shall prescribe, let the patient be purged with the infusion of Tobacco in hidromel, in the strained liquor of this infusion dissolve four grains of the salt made of Tobacco and give it to the patient to drink: hereafter, having a cauter in his neck, he shall take every day the smoke of a pipe of fine Tobacco fasting in the morning, & once every third day he shall hold in his mouth the apophlegmatisme of Tobacco in substance.  
Now because this disease hath some occult venom and malign quality, the old Physicians by long experience have found out some things which help this disease by an indeclarable virtue, and for this cause he shall take the smoke of this confected Tobacco every day.  
Take ambregreese, the seed of peonie, and stirax, of every one half an ounce, of musk twenty grains, of lignum aloes the weight of three crowns, of magisterium cranii humani an ounce, of the sowing thereof, half an ounce, of fine Tobacco as much as of them all, make of all these a gross powder, and take the smoke of it every morning, and thus the epilepticke shall attain to his health rather than by the galls of dogs & superstitious characters used by a number of ignorant debauched Vagabonds and Montebanckes. The Hydropisie is one of the ordinary customers that cometh to crave health at the shop of Tobacco, and specially if it be holden in the patient's mouth in substance, or if he take now and then of the salt thereof, and every day a pipe or two. The Arthritis or gout, & gravel are prevented prettily, because the antecedent cause is taken away: it preserveth from the toothache: it cureth the migraim, the colic, the cogh, the cold: It stayeth growing fat: it is the antidote of Hypochondriacke melancholy, it prepareth the stomach for meat: it maketh a clear voice, it maketh a sweet breath, it cleareth the sight, it opneth the ears, it putteth away the punaise, & openeth the passage of the nose, it is the nurse of the lights, it comforteth nerves, and taken in syrup there is no obstruction that can abide it: it is present relief against the most part of poisons: And in few words it is the princess of physical plants. To conclude this discourse I must excuse here my plainness and simplicity with this caveat to the curious Lector, that albeit the never too much commended Tobacco be of sufficiency to cure many diseases: yet it is not of efficacy in all persons, in all seasons, in all temperaments, but it must be used by the direction of some expert and prudent Physician. There was on a time a diseased Gentleman, who for to recover his health sent for a Physician, the which using prudently & artificially his cure, the Gentle man became well, & because he was subject to that disease often in the year, he remarked well how the Physician had prepared his potion, what herbs he had decocted, what simples he had infused, what electuaries he had dissolved, how much of every one, how long they seethed, or steeped, at what a clock he did minister it, how long he fasted thereafter, & at the next assault of the sickness he took the same potion, observing all Circumstances, but was nothing the better: he sent again for Master Doctor, and inquired what the matter should be, seeing he was diseased with the same malady, he had taken the same potion, he used it very rightly with all the circumstances and observations, he had not omitted one jot, No said the Physician you lacked a principal point, a very necessary Circumstance & an essential Cause, that is, you received not the potion from the hand of a Physician: for if the patient, as experience teacheth beginneth to feel the first hope of his health at the arrival of his Physician: how much more shall he be allevated when he giveth him out of his own hand the Cup which containeth the Covenant of his restitution, the earnest of his Welfare, and the weapon to destroy his disease. Happy were the land that had no need of Physicians, happy the land which having need of them hath of the best sort, and happy were the Physicians whose lote were to come in the land where the Law of good King REUTHER were curiously keeped, that no man under pain of death should exercise physic that could not show a public testimony of his lawful Calling. But I must say of Physic as a holy Father said of the holy Scripture, hanc delirus senex, hanc garrula anus, hanc sophista verbosus putteth in practice, and is not punished. God save the Country from diseases, and God save the diseased from such Doctors  
FINIS.   

To the favourable Lector health.  
THere were some pages which I thought not meet to leave empty, good Lector, either for thy sake, or for tobacco's sake, or for mine own sake: for thy sake, because I weary not to talk with thee: for tobacco's sake, because the worth of it deserveth some verses: for mine own sake, because I never having sleeped in Parnassus, but being a valley Poet, I persuade myself that my verse, shall be read more for the merits of the maetter, then for the value of the Work●man. Therefore I address myself first to gaze against a craig, from whence some musical influence may bed●w my brain.  
Vt sic repent Poeta prodeam.   

To his good and old friend, M. Alexander Craig,  
CRaig if thou knows the virtues of this plant,  
Why dost thou die thy quill in Ink of blame?  
If thou knows not, for to supply thy want,  
Why follows thou the voice of feigning fame?  
Is it not slander to this plant and thee,  
To speak of it so poetically?   

To his good Cousin M. john Hay, of Ranasse.  
HAnibal had a house in Bythinie,  
Builded after his crafty own conceit,  
On every side a door was privily,  
For to preserve his life and staggering state,  
But when the Romans came for to defait  
The only one of whom they stood in doubt,  
Hannibal would not fight against his fate,  
Knowing the doors were known and siegde about,  
Good Cousin Hay, the soul is Hannibal,  
The house with many doors it is the head,  
Death and disease as Romans siege them all  
To suffocat the life without remead:  
Except divine Tobacco make defence,  
Keep open doors, & raise the siege from thence   

To the abusers of Tobacco.  
WHy do you thus abuse this heavenly plant  
The hope of health, the fuel of our life?  
Why do you waste it without fear of want,  
Since fine and true Tobacco is not rife?  
Old Euclio w●nt foul water for to spair,  
And stop the bellows not to waste the Air.   

To my Lord the Bishop of Murray.  
THe stately rich late conquered Indian plains,  
Foster a plant, the princes of all plants.  
Which Portugal after peril and pains,  
To Europe brought, as it most justly vaunts:  
This plant at home the people and Priests assure,  
Of his goodwill, whom they as God adore,  
Both here and there it worketh wondrous cure,  
And hath such heavenly virtue hid in store.  
A stranger plant shipwrecked in our coast,  
Is come to help this cold phlegmatic soil,  
Yet can not live for calumny and boast,  
In danger daily of some greater broil:  
My Lord this sacred herb which never offendest  
Is forced to crave your favour to defend it.   

To the most accomplished, and true Philoclea of this Isle, L. E. L. L. F.  
SOme do this plant with odious crimes disgrace,  
And call the poor Tobacco homicide,  
They say that it, O what a monstrous case!  
Forestals the life, and kills man in the seed,  
It smoketh, blacketh, burneth all the brain,  
It dries the moisture treasure of the life,  
It cureth not, but stupefies the pain,  
It cuts our days before Atropus knife.  
Good Lady look not to these raving speiches,  
You know by proof that all these blames are lies,  
Forged by scurvy lewd unlearned Leiches.  
As time hath taught and practise that all tries.  
Tobacco neither altereth health nor hue,  
Ten thousand thousands know that it is true.   

To his very worshipful, an● dear Cousin, the Laird of Boine.  
THe Gut which Vulcan forged in his ire,  
To punish those which follow Venus' way,  
Can find nothing to quench that flaming fire,  
So fit as fine Tobacco sundry say,  
For proof of which great Pillar of my kin  
Tell what thou knowest: for to conceal were sin