Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 27, No 2 (Summer 2013) 156 SHAD (Summer 2013): 156-73 Matthew P. Romaniello is an Associate Professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa Who Should Smoke? Tobacco and The humoral body in early modern england maTTheW P. romaniello Abstract. Few products received the attention of tobacco in the early mod- ern world, with a plurality of opinions from medical, religious, political, and economic authorities arriving in the wake of the arrival of the prod- uct. In England, much of the language of this discussion was gendered, with a consensus emerging that smoking might be acceptable for men, but was potentially dangerous for women. By focusing upon the earliest period of tobacco’s arrival in England, this article reveals the connection between medical authorities who interpreted bodily functions as a process of balancing the humors and the beginning of popular tobacco consump- tion among men and women. In The Balance of Truth, Evliya Chelebi, a seventeenth-century scribe in the Ottoman Empire, related his knowledge of the origin of tobacco: the Portu- guese and English were exploring the New World and found the island of Guinea, which offered a cure for their ship’s doctor’s “lymphatic disorder.” The solution would be an application of hot and dry things, in accordance with the laws of treatment by opposites. When his ship reached that island, he noticed a kind of leaf was burning. He smelled it, and as it was hot of scent he began to inhale it, using an instrument resembling a pipe. It did him good. After this, the English returned with tobacco to England, and then brought it to France and “to the other lands.” Initial attempts to ban tobacco in the Ot- toman Empire failed, Chelebi suggested, because “His Majesty’s severity in suppression increased, and so did the people’s desire to smoke, in accordance with the saying, ‘Men desire what is forbidden.’” 1 His depiction of the role of the English was inaccurate, but Chelebi’s analy- sis relected his understanding of how tobacco arrived in the empire, based on how foreign merchants had delivered it decades earlier. However, it was true that tobacco had been forbidden, or at least denounced, upon its arrival nearly everywhere. And, as Chelebi observed, condemnation did little to suppress its spread. 2 A broad spectrum of European society aired negative views about