Tobacco smoke enema

The tobacco smoke enema, an insufflation of tobacco smoke into the rectum by enema, was a medical treatment employed by European physicians for a range of ailments.

Tobacco was recognised as a medicine soon after it was first imported from the New World, and tobacco smoke was used by western medical practitioners as a tool against cold and drowsiness, but applying it by enema was a technique adapted from the North American Indians. The procedure was used to treat gut pain, and attempts were often made to resuscitate victims of near drowning. Liquid tobacco enemas were often given to ease the symptoms of a hernia.

During the early 19th century the practice fell into decline, when it was discovered that the principal active agent in tobacco smoke, nicotine, is poisonous.

Until its discovery and importation from the New World, tobacco was unknown to western medicine. Europeans were not ignorant of the effects of smoke; incense has been used since antiquity, and the psychoactive effects of burning hemp seed was well known by the Scythians and Thracians. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates recommended the inhalation of smoke for "female diseases" as did Pliny the Elder, as a cure for coughs. The Native Americans from whom the first western explorers learnt about tobacco used the leaf for a variety of purposes, including religious worship, but Europeans soon became aware that the Americans also used tobacco for medicinal purposes. The French diplomat Jean Nicot used a tobacco poultice as an analgesic, and Nicolás Monardes advocated tobacco as a treatment for a long list of diseases, such as cancer, headaches, respiratory problems, stomach cramps, gout, intestinal worms and female diseases. Contemporaneous medical science placed much weight on humorism, and for a short period tobacco became a panacea. Its use was mentioned in pharmacopoeia as a tool against cold and somnolence brought on by particular medical afflictions, its effectiveness explained by its ability to soak up moisture, to warm parts of the body, and to therefore maintain the equilibrium so important to a healthy person. In an attempt to discourage disease tobacco was also used to fumigate buildings.

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