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loathsome custom
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The British king, James I, publishes in 1604 a pamphlet entitled A Counterblast to Tobacco, in which he pulls no punches. He describes the smoking of tobacco as:
'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.'
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