tobacco

[mn13189@WCUVAX1.WCU.EDU]

Poster: mn13189@WCUVAX1.WCU.EDU

I was doing a little light reading on the Bubonic Plauge over breakfast
this morning and I came across a curious fact.  Apparantly, smoking
tobacco was a common plague remedy during the 14th century, especially in
Holland.  Now, I had always thought that tobacco did not come into use in
Europe until after the age of Exploration in the late 15th and 16th
centuries, when the plant was brought over from the Americas.  I assumed
that if this was the case it would be a commodity available only to the
upper crust, and made more widely available as time went on.  
	Was there some European form of tobacco that would have been used
as a plague remedy in the 14th century?  (Please, no posts about Viking,
Celtic, or any other pre-Columbian American settlements--that's not what
I'm asking about, we've done it two or three times already, and I doubt
any of these excursions caused a great tobacco trade).
Aye,
Eogan

           "I brought ye to the ring.  Now dance best ye can."
    ------------------------<mn13189@wcu.edu>-------------------------
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