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The Spanish introduced tobacco to Europeans
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mentioned a tobacco merchant of Lisbon in his will, showing how quickly the traffic had sprung up
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Jean Nicot, French ambassador in Lisbon, sent samples to Paris. The French, Spanish, and Portuguese initially referred to the plant as the "sacred herb" because of its valuable medicinal properties.
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Swiss doctor Conrad Gesner reported that chewing or smoking a tobacco leaf "has a wonderful power of producing a kind of peaceful drunkenness"
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botanists referred to tobacco as Nicotiana
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Spanish doctor Nicolas Monardes wrote a book about the history of medicinal plants of the new world. In this he claimed that tobacco could cure 36 health problems and reported that the plant was first brought to Spain for its flowers, but "Now we use it to a greater extent for the sake of its virtues than for its beauty"
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Before Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe from the Roanoke Colony, referring to it as tobah
