I recently found a really nice version of King James's Counterblast to Tobacco in a PDF. The spelling has all been updated, and the text is formated in an easy to read way across 9 pages, conveniently in the public domain. There are some latin phrases in the Counterblast. In this version translations to the latin phrases have been given in brackets, which I found very helpful because I don't know latin. Here is a link:
https://www.exclassics.com/blasts/tob.pdf
This was a short and entertaining read. I found myself laughing out loud in a few places. King James could be quite hilarious! I found a few sentences challenging and had to read them 5 times to understand the meaning. Some of the sentences are so long that I forgot what the sentence was about by the time I reached the end. I really enjoyed catching on to King James's train of thought. He was way ahead of his time in arguing that smoking tobacco is unhealthy.
Below, I have compiled my analysis of Counterblast to Tobacco. I have distinguished 11 points of argument.
King James's Counter Arguments and excerpts:
Summary of the Introduction: Even good people have a tendency towards corruption and as King he is going to act as physician and diagnose this societal disease of tobacco smoking.
#1. The origins of tobacco use are bad.
"For tobacco being a common herb, which (though under divers names) grows almost everywhere, was first found out by some of the barbarous Indians, to be a preservative, or antidote against the pox*, a filthy disease, whereunto these barbarous people are (as all men know) very much subject, what through the uncleanly and adust constitution of their bodies, and what through the intemperate heat of their climate: so that as from them was first brought into Christendom, that most detestable disease, so from them likewise was brought this use of tobacco, as a stinking and unsavory antidote for so corrupted and a execrable a malady, the stinking suffumigation whereof they yet use against that disease, making so one canker or venom to eat out another.......
.....Why do we not as well imitate them in walking naked as they do? In preferring glasses, feathers, and such toys, to gold and precious stones, as they do? Yea why do we not deny God and adore the devil, as they do?"
#2. People say that all hot and dry things are good for the brain because the brain is cold and moist. King James's counter argument goes like this:
Just because the brain is cold and moist it doesn't proceed that all things hot and dry are a benefit. If the brain is cold and moist, it is because it needs to be for it's good function and smoke is then a detriment.
#3. People say that smoking is good because it helps the body void phlegm. King James's counter argument goes like this:
The smoke doesn't help void phlegm. It causes the phlegm that then must be voided.
"....so this stinking smoke being sucked up by the nose, and imprisoned in the cold and moist brains, is by their cold and wet faculty, turned and cast forth again in watery distillations, and so are you made free and purged of nothing, but that wherewith you willfully burden yourselves: ...."
#4. People say there must be something good about tobacco because so many people find it pleasing. King James's counter argument goes like this:
People are just attracted to novelty.
"And so from hand to hand it spreads, till it be practiced my all, not for any commodity that is in it, but only because it is come to be the fashion. ..... and therefore the general good liking and embracing of this foolish custom, doth but only proceed from that affectation of novelty, and popular error, whereof I have already spoken."
#5. People think tobacco is a cure. King James's counter argument goes like this:
Correlation doesn't equate causation.
"...so if a man chance to recover one of any disease, after he have taken tobacco, that must have the thanks of all. But by the contrary, if a man smoke himself to death with it (and many have done) so then some other disease must bear the blame for that fault. So do old harlots thank their harlotry for their many years, that custom being healthful (say they) ad purgandos renes,["for purifying the loins"] but never have mind how many die of the pox* in the flower of their youth. And so do old drunkards think they prolonged their days, by their swinelike diet, but never remember how many died drowned in drink before they be half old."
#6. People say that tobacco is like a medicine and keeps one in good health. King James's counter argument goes like this:
Medicine can't be taken constantly (as people take tobacco) because it will cause harm if not used appropriately.
"Medicine hath that virtue that it never leaveth a man in that state wherein it findeth him: it makes a sick man whole, but a whole man sick. And as medicine helps nature being taken at times of necessity, so being ever and continually used, it doth but weaken, weary, and wear nature."
#7. Tobacco has addictive qualities.
"In your person having by this continual vile custom brought yourselves to this shameful imbecility that you are not able to ride or walk the journey of a Jew's Sabbath but you must have a reeking coal brought you from the next poor house to kindle your tobacco with? ..... To make a custom in anything that cannot be left again, is most harmful to the people of any land."
#8. Tobacco is a waste of money.
"Now how you are by this custom disabled in your goods, let the gentry of this land bear witness, some of them bestowing three, some four hundred pounds a year upon this precious stink, which I am sure might be bestowed upon many far better uses."
#9. Tobacco smoking is filthy and rude.
"And for the vanities committed in this filthy custom, is it not both great vanity and uncleanness, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanliness, of modesty, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of tobacco pipes, and puffing of the smoke of tobacco one to another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof to exhale althwart the dishes, and infect the air, when very often, men that abhor it are at their repast?"
#10. Smoking tobacco corrupts one's breath.
"But herein is not only a great vanity but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke, wherein I must confess it has too strong a virtue: and so that which is an ornament of nature, and can neither by any artifice be at the first acquired, once lost, be recovered again, shall be filthily corrupted with an incurable stink, ..."
#11. Tobacco smoking is dishonoring to one's wife.
"Moreover, which is a great iniquity, and against all humanity, the husband shall not be ashamed, to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and clean complexioned wife, to that extremity, that either she must also corrupt her sweet breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment."
Conclusion: [tobacco smoking is] "A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."
*The use of the word pox can refer to many diseases that cause a rash. I am guessing that this use of the word pox is in reference to syphilis. Syphilis is one of the few diseases that came from the Americas to Europe. This is to the best of knowledge, but I am not an authority on the subject.
I have made a recording of this Counterblast. I have been unable to find a reading of this work on YouTube. So I made one myself, though it is a little rough around the edges.
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