“They talked about the price of eggs, sir, I was there,” a puny, grizzled man called from the audience.
Dr. Cheynell did not pay him any attention.
“Unfortunately, I was unable to join the London citizenry, learned gentlemen, for at that time I was here, here in this same Oxford, where, being only a youth, I was studying the medical sciences.” These words were met with polite applause. After waiting for it to end, the doctor continued: “At that time, gentlemen, pipes had not yet been invented, so the captains smoked rolled-up tobacco leaves, or cigars, in the matter in which the Spaniards smoke them to this very day, calling them ‘cigaras’ or ‘cigarellas.’”
Well, now this was a slightly inaccurate statement on Dr. Cheynell’s part, and for that reason Dr. Monardes, as I noticed, shook his head at that moment. Indeed, cigars and cigarellas are far from one and the same thing, and if in Sevilla someone asks you for a cigar and you sell him a cigarella, he’ll give you a sound thrashing, or at least will try to. Let me clarify: the cigar is a luxury item, while the cigarella is an everyday healing remedy. But we couldn’t expect Dr. Cheynell to know such details, just as we do not know the difference between their various kinds of pipes, do we?
“However, the true credit for introducing tobacco into England,” Dr. Cheynell continued, “must go not to the aforementioned captains, who, heeding the inexorable laws of the seafaring life, likely soon set sail again after this short stay in their homeland, but rather to Sir Walter Raleigh. Everyone knows the story of how Sir Walter’s servant Ridley doused his lordship with the tankard of ale he had been called to bring when he saw Sir Walter smoking for the first time and thought his master was on fire. Sir Walter, let us recall, patiently wiped his face with the tablecloth and turned to his devoted servant with the words: ‘Master Ridley, we are today lighting a candle in England which by God’s blessing will never be put out.’ Whereupon he again lit his pipe. By the way, gentlemen, those were Sir Walter’s exact words, which I know from the man himself. Let me also add that today Master Ridley himself is an avid smoker and spends most of his meager spare time in Sir Walter’s garden with a pipe in his hand.”
Some of the audience — albeit a minority — responded to these words with spontaneous applause. Of course, Dr. Monardes and Mr. Frampton were among them. It became clear that Mr. Frampton could also clap in the more usual manner. For a moment — only for a moment — the thought had crossed my mind that he actually did not know how to do it. But of course, this was not the case.
“For that reason our bard and my friend, the Dean Hole,” Dr. Cheynell continued, “exclaims in a wonderful poem:
Before the wine of sunny Rhine, or even Madam Clicquot’s,
Let all men praise, with loud hurras, this panacea of Nicot’s.
The debt confess, though none the less they love the grape and barley,
Which Frenchmen owe to good Nicot, and Englishmen to Raleigh.”
The hall burst into laughter. Without a doubt, the learned doctor had managed to lift the oppressive atmosphere that had reigned until that moment. I would say that with the abilities that he had demonstrated so far, he could easily don a barrister’s toga. A most remarkable señor!
“To be absolutely faithful to the historical truth,” he went on, “which in time will be commemorated, since it marks the beginning of a new era for our country, or at least for English medicine — something which most people today may not realize — let us clarify, gentlemen, that Sir Walter himself was initiated into the art of smoking by his assistant Thomas Hariot, whom he, paraphrasing our Holy Book in jest, called his ‘Faithful Thomas.’ Thomas Hariot was sent by Sir Walter to study which plants grow in the newly discovered pristine lands of Virginia and after he returned from there, he published his findings in a slim quarto from 1588, which some of you have likely seen, under that title ‘A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia’ and so on — I cannot cite the entire title for you, gentlemen, since it consists of precisely 150 words. It was namely from this work that we understood for the first time — at least we here in England, I mean — that when tobacco leaves are dried and ground into powder, the Indians take in the smoke or fumes, by sucking them in through a pipe made of clay into their stomach and head: from whence it purges superfluous phlegm and other gross humors, opens all the pores and passages of the body: by which means the use thereof, not only preserves the body from obstructions: but if also any be, so that they have not been of too long continuance, in short time breaks them: whereby their bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many grievous diseases wherewithal we in England are oftentimes afflicted. Here with us, gentlemen,” the learned doctor continued, “is a prominent Scottish physician, whose name is perhaps unknown to most of you, namely Dr. William Barclay.” Dr. Cheynell gestured towards one place in the hall where an intelligent-looking, middle-aged man with a very white face, reddish beard, and straw-colored hair stood up, with his hand on his heart. Some of the audience applauded as he stood up, and even the king waved to him in greeting. “Mr. Barclay, who, by the way, is a fellow countryman of our enlightened king, recently published a book in Edinburgh, which I heartily recommend to you, under the title, ‘Nepenthes or the Vertues of Tobacco.’ What a wonderful title, gentlemen! Because yes, just like the magical nepenthes of the ancient Greeks, tobacco drives sorrow and the painful spirit of taedium vitae far from us. But more interesting for us physicians are its physical properties. And although they are praiseworthy, just as with every strong medicine, we must not abuse them, as Dr. Barclay clearly shows. Our Scottish colleague, who, like most of his fellow countrymen, is highly observant of our weaknesses, which we Englishmen often do not notice, writes in his work”—the doctor bent down, picked up a book and read from it: “‘Tobacco smoke may be taken for the said medicinal effects, but always fasting, and with empty stomach, not as the English abusers do, which make a smoke-box of their skull, more fit to be carried under his arm that selleth at Paris dunoir a noircir to black men’s shoes than to carry the braine of him that can not walke, can not ride except the Tabacco Pype be in his mouth.’ Mr. Barclay goes on to say that he was once in company with an English merchant in Normandy — between Rouen and Calais — who was a merry fellow, but was constantly wanting a coal to kindle his tobacco.”