Tobacco toothpaste, anyone?

For that pearly-white smile as sweet as Colgate’s. No kidding.

“Tobacco, probably mixed with lime or chalk, appears to have been used in these native American populations as a toothpaste to whiten teeth, as observed by Nino and Guerra in 1500 and by Vespucci at about the same time in Venezuela,” the Royal Society of Medicine cited in an article published in 2004. The citation comes from JE Brookes’ “Tobacco: Its History Illustrated by the Books, Manuscripts and Drawings and Engravings in the Library of George Arents, Jr.” published by Rosenbach, New York in 1937.

“This practice continues today in India, where powdered tobacco, or masheri, is rubbed on the teeth for this purpose and tobacco toothpaste is marketed commercially,” continued the article, this time citing “Children and Tobacco: the Wider View”, a paper presented by Charlton A. Moyer CA at the neva: International Union Against Cancer in 1991.

A panacea for 101 ailments

Teeth whitening was just one, certainly the least, of the many early uses of tobacco. It was regarded, almost to the point of worship, as a panacea for 101 ailments of early man. Articles from numerous sources chronicle the unbelievably countless uses of tobacco for medicinal purposes.

From Wikipedia: “Apart from smoking, tobacco had a number of uses as medicine. As pain killer, it was used for earache and toothache and occasionally as poultice. Smoking was said by the desert Indians to be a cure for colds, especially if tobacco was mixed with the leaves of the small Desert Sage, Salvia Dorii, or the root of Indian Balsam or Cough Root, Leptotaenia multifida, the addition of which was thought to be particularly good for asthma and tuberculosis.”

From hiccups to asthma

The uses and list of ailments that tobacco was prescribed for is a long one: tobacco was used as poultice, sedative, antispasmodic, for expelling intestinal worms, emetic, purgative, medicine for cough, hiccups, spasmodic laryngitis, asthma, headache, giddiness, fainting, treatment of sore, pain, rheumatic swelling, syphyllitic nodes, syphillis, colic gripes, skin diseases, wounds, headaches, goiter, headaches, ulcers, worms, dropsy, asthma, cough and a lot more.

From the website Botanical.com. tobacco was used as a “sedative, diuretic, expectorant, discutient, sialogue, emetic. The smoke injected into the rectum or leaf rolled into a suppository has been beneficial in strangulated hernia, also for obstinate constipation, due to spasm of the bowels, also for retention of urine, spasmodic urethral stricture, hysterical convulsions, worms, and in spasms caused by lead, for croup, and inflamamation of the peritoneum, to produce evacuation of the bowels, moderating reaction and dispelling tympanitis, and also in tetanus.” there are about a score more ailments in the list not included here.

Nicot used tobacco for Noli-me-tangere

The Royal Society of Medicine also tells of the story of Jean Nicot, the man after whom the word “nicotine” came from, as prescribing tobacco for various ailments. Here is one case on record: “One of Nicot’s pages had a noli-me-tangere on his cheek, which was beginning to ‘take root already in the gristles of the nose’, and had himself been applying bruised tobacco leaves and juice to it. Hearing of this, Nicot ordered that the tobacco treatment should be continued for eight or ten days and at the end of this time ‘this saide Noli-me-tangere was utterly extinguished and healed’. Throughout the treatment Nicot had the patient’s progress monitored by a respected physician to the king of Portuga, who certified the happy outcome.”

Used as medicince until the 20th century

The obsession with tobacco as medicine would last until the early 20th century. The Royal Society of Medicine cited “Medical Uses of tobacco: past and present”, an articles by Sivette H. Larson PS, Haag HB published in the Virginia Med Monthly in 1958″ “Even in the twentieth century the therapeutic uses of tobacco did not completely lapse. For example, in 1924, a salve made of burned tobacco leaves mixed with lanolin was said to be desicant, stimulant and antiseptic for pruritus, ringworm, athlete’s foot, superficial ulcers and wounds.”

What an irony!

It is mind-boggling that the herb we most dread today because it is associated with carcinogenic cigarettes was during the early days regarded as panacea, a cure-all medicine or remedy for all kinds of diseases or troubles, including those very diseases that we find today as having been caused by tobacco. What an irony! Perhaps it’s not nicotine that is the deadly component, but the cigarette companies that add all sorts of chemicals to their cigarettes. Smoke for thought….