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The Social History of Smoking by George Latimer Apperson
page 11 of 245 (04%)
and brought into powder: they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by
sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomacke and heade:
from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and other grosse humors,
openeth all the pores and passages of the body: by which meanes the
use thereof, not only preserveth the body from obstructions: but if
also any be, so that they have not beane of too long continuance, in
short time breaketh them: wherby their bodies are notably preserved in
health, and know not many greevous diseases wherewithall wee in
England are oftentimes afflicted."

So far Hariot's "Report" regarded tobacco from the medicinal point of
view only; but it is important to note that he goes on to describe his
personal experience of the practice of smoking in words that suggest
the pleasurable nature of the experience. He says: "We ourselves
during the time we were there used to suck it after their maner, as
also since our returne, and have found maine [? manie] rare and
wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof: of which the relation
woulde require a volume by itselfe: the use of it by so manie of late,
men and women of great calling as else, and some learned Physitians
also, is sufficient witness."

Who can doubt that Hariot, in reporting direct to Sir Walter Raleigh,
showed his employer how "to suck it after their maner"?

All the evidence agrees that whoever taught Raleigh, it was Raleigh's
example that brought smoking into notice and common use. Long before
his death in 1618 it had become fashionable, as we shall see, in all
ranks of society. He is said to have smoked a pipe on the morning of
his execution, before he went to the scaffold, a tradition which is
quite credible.
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