This is the oldest known pamphlet against smoking, and it was written by King James.
Okay, you know, King James, the guy who authorized the Bible to be translated back in the early 1600s.
King James, it turns out, hated smoking.
So he wrote a pamphlet against smoking. Now I can't read for you the whole thing just because it's so long.
But I'm just going to read for you some highlights from King James' pamphlet against smoking.
And you know, the language is kind of old, so you've got to really pay attention.
It says, and surely in my opinion, there cannot be a more base and yet hurtful corruption in a country
than is the vile use or other abuse of taking tobacco in this kingdom,
which hath moved me shortly to discover the abuses thereof in this following little pamphlet.
And I'm going to jump to the very end of the pamphlet.
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 hath too strong a virtue.
And so that which is an ornament of nature, and can neither by any artifice be at the first acquired,
nor once lost be recovered again, shall be filthily corrupted with an incurable stink,
which vile quality, as is directly contrary to that wrong opinion, which is holden of the wholesomeness thereof,
as the venom of putrefaction is contrary to the virtue preservative.
Now that's kind of a tongue toy. This guy's writing style.
I'm glad that he wasn't the one that translated the Bible, because his writing style is a little elevated.
But you've got to hear this. This next point cracks me up.
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.
So what he's saying is, if you're a man who smokes, you're either forcing your wife to smoke too,
and mess up her breath, and mess up her complexity, or you're forcing her to just live with the stinking torment
of your smell and your smoke. Listen to the last paragraph.
Have you not reason then to be ashamed, and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded,
so foolishly received, and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof?
In your abuse thereof, sinning against God, harming yourselves, both in person and goods,
and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you, by the custom thereof,
making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations, and by all strangers that come among you,
to be scorned and contempt, accustomed loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain,
dangerous to the lungs, and the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible,
Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.