[The history of tobacco consumption and nicotine addiction in Europe until the middle of the XXth century].
Tobacco, a plant unknown in the Mediterranean civilization, has made a world-wide carreer in the social and economic areas for the last 500 years. The cultivation of tobacco, although originally taking place mostly in North and South America, quickly spread to the other continents, mainly to Europe and Africa. The huge profit from the cultivation of tobacco, based also on the ruthless exploitation of black slaves brought from Africa, founded the welth of such American states, as Virginia, North Caroline and Louisiana. Also European countries such as England, Spain and Portugal, gained a great deal from tobacco trading imposing monopoly and high taxes. The aforementioned factors created the raising supply of tobacco, which reached its the apogee in the XXth century. On the other hand, the demand for tobacco was the function of unreasonable beliefs in its therapeutic properties, religious prejudices, fashions and social rituals, and most of all by gradually increasing tobacco addiction. The purpose of this study is to analize different factors influencing the consumption of tobacco until the middle of the XXth century.
Grzybowski
Andrzej
A
Zakład Historii Nauk Medycznych Akademii Medycznej im. K. Marcinkowskiego w Poznaniu. andrzej_grzybowski@um.poznan.pl
D005060:Europe; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000266:history*