Who introduced tobacco smoking to Europe?
1925150#1
Until the late 20th century, the use of tobacco for smoking and in the form of snuff was common among Jews. It is asserted that a Jew named Luis de Torres, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his expedition in 1492, settled in Cuba, learned the use of tobacco, and introduced it into Europe. From this time Jews were connected with the trade in tobacco, one of the most important in early American history (M. J. Kohler, in "Publ. Am. Jew. Hist. Soc." x. 52)
Smoking in Jewish law
18909502#11
Tobacco was introduced elsewhere in continental Europe more easily. Iberia exported "ropes" of dry leaves in baskets to the Netherlands and southern Germany; for a while tobacco was in Spanish called "canaster" after the word for basket, "canastro", and influenced the German "Knaster". In Italy, Prospero Santacroce in 1561 and Nicolo Torbabuoni in 1570 introduced it to gardens after seeing the plant on diplomatic missions. Cardinal Crescenzio introduced smoking to the country in about 1610 after learning about it in England. The Roman Catholic Church did not condemn tobacco as James I did, but Pope Urban VIII threatened excommunication to anyone smoking in a church.
History of tobacco
5192102#3
Jerez picked up the tobacco smoking habit. When he returned to Europe in the Niña, he introduced the habit to his home town, Ayamonte. The smoke surrounding him frightened his neighbours: the Spanish Inquisition imprisoned him for his "sinful and infernal" habits, because "only Devil could give a man the power to exhale smoke from his mouth". When he was released seven years later, smoking tobacco had caught on.
Rodrigo de Jerez
13319153#1
With the exception of a few Christian denominations, the Abrahamic religions originated before tobacco smoking was introduced to Europe from the New World. Therefore, these religions do not address it in their foundational teachings; however, modern practitioners have offered interpretations of their faith with regard to smoking.
Religious views on smoking
73298#9
Frenchman Jean Nicot (from whose name the word nicotine is derived) introduced tobacco to France in 1560, and tobacco then spread to England. The first report of a smoking Englishman is of a sailor in Bristol in 1556, seen "emitting smoke from his nostrils". Like tea, coffee and opium, tobacco was just one of many intoxicants that was originally used as a form of medicine. Tobacco was introduced around 1600 by French merchants in what today is modern-day Gambia and Senegal. At the same time, caravans from Morocco brought tobacco to the areas around Timbuktu, and the Portuguese brought the commodity (and the plant) to southern Africa, establishing the popularity of tobacco throughout all of Africa by the 1650s.
Tobacco smoking
73298#0
Tobacco smoking is the practice of smoking tobacco and inhaling tobacco smoke (consisting of particle and gaseous phases). (A more broad definition may include simply taking tobacco smoke into the mouth, and then releasing it, as is done by some with tobacco pipes and cigars.) The practice is believed to have begun as early as 5000–3000 BC in Mesoamerica and South America. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century by European colonists, where it followed common trade routes. The practice encountered criticism from its first import into the Western world onwards but embedded itself in certain strata of a number of societies before becoming widespread upon the introduction of automated cigarette-rolling apparatus.
Tobacco smoking
22145250#3
The first attempts to respond to the health consequences to tobacco use followed soon after the introduction of tobacco to Europe. Pope Urban VII's thirteen-day papal reign included the world's first known tobacco use restrictions in 1590 when he threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose". The earliest citywide European smoking restrictions were enacted in Bavaria, Kursachsen, and certain parts of Austria in the late 17th century.
Tobacco control
18909502#0
Tobacco has a long history from its usages in the early Americas. It increased in popularity with the arrival of Spain to America, which introduced tobacco to the Europeans by whom it was heavily traded. Following the industrial revolution, cigarettes were becoming popularized in the New World as well as Europe, which fostered yet another unparalleled increase in growth. This remained so until scientific studies in mid 20th century demonstrated the negative health effects of tobacco smoking including lung and throat cancer.
History of tobacco
17716336#46
Nazi anti-tobacco activists often tried to depict tobacco as a vice of "the degenerate Negroes". The Nazis claimed that Jews were responsible for introducing tobacco and its harmful effects. The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany announced that smoking was an unhealthy vice spread by Jews. During the opening ceremony of the aforementioned "Wissenschaftliches Institut zur Erforschung der Tabakgefahren" in 1941, Johann von Leers, editor of the "Nordische Welt" (Nordic World), proclaimed that "Jewish capitalism" was responsible for the spread of tobacco use across Europe. He said that the first tobacco on German soil was brought by the Jews and that they controlled the tobacco industry in Amsterdam, the principal European entry point of "Nicotiana".
Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany
168176#18
Following the European introduction of tobacco to Persia and India, Hakim Abu’l-Fath Gilani, who came from Gilan, a province in the north of Persia, migrated to Hamarastan. He later became a physician in the Mughal court and raised health concerns after smoking tobacco became popular among Indian noblemen. He subsequently envisaged a system that allowed smoke to be passed through water in order to be 'purified'. Gilani introduced the "ḡalyān" after Asad Beg, the ambassador of Bijapur, encouraged Akbar I to take up smoking. Following popularity among noblemen, this new device for smoking soon became a status symbol for the Indian aristocracy and gentry.
Hookah