Tobacco Smoke Enema
Tobacco was one of the earliest products of the New World to be welcomed in the Old World. The economy of the first permanent English settlement of Virginia was almost wholly dependent on tobacco. In Europe, physicians were soon touting its health benefits. First observed among the natives in North America, knowledge of the medical use of tobacco made it to England in descriptions from returning ships, and in the logs and diaries of visitors to the New World.
The use of smoke as a therapeutic for various complaints had been practiced for centuries. Incense was used in Biblical times, for instance. Physicians in Europe were soon using tobacco smoke to treat various afflictions. A Spanish botanist, Nicolas Monardes, touted the benefits of the tobacco plant, recommending its use to treat the common cold, gout, stomach disorders, and more than a dozen other complaints including respiratory disease and cancers.
By 1680 a visit to a physician in England for the treatment of constipation or other bowel disorder was likely to include, in addition to the requisite bleeding, a tobacco smoke enema. Tobacco smoke was forced out of a bladder or a device similar to a fireplace bellows, via a rectal tube, into the rectum, to be repeated if necessary, until success was observed through the passage of a stool. Tobacco smoke enemas became popular in England among medical practitioners, again believing that the balance of humours in the body was beneficially altered through its use.
It also became a routine treatment for drowning victims, often used in conjunction with artificial respiration. Smoke was blown into the lungs and rectum interchangeably. A tobacco smoke enema as a means of restoring respiration likely began with the Dutch, where drowning accidents in the canals were frequent, especially at night. It was then carried to England by sailors. By the time of the American Revolution respiration emergency sets were distributed along the Thames River containing smoke enema equipment.
By the early 1800s tobacco smoke enemas were used to treat hernia pain, other abdominal disorders, and even cholera. Their use began to decline when nicotine was defined as a poison capable of having an adverse effect on the circulatory system, although the continued use of tobacco medicinally continued for many years, especially in the form of snuff. That tobacco smoke contained poisons should have been no surprise however. As early as the mid seventeenth century it had been widely used to fumigate buildings.