account more complete. In 1518 the monk Romano Pane published the first account of the discovery of tobacco in America. In 1560 Jean Nicot, a French diplomatist, brought back with him from Portugal (to which country he had been sent as an ambassador) a small supply of the seeds of the plant. To commemorate this service the alkaloid found in the leaves of the tobacco plant was given the name of nicotine. Capsicum was made known to the world by Dr. Chanca, a companion of Christopher Columbus on the occasion of his second voyage (1493) to America. Balsam of Copaiva was discovered by a Portuguese monk in Brazil at some time between the years 1570 and 1600. It is mentioned for the first time in the Amsterdam Pharmacopoeia of 1636. Monardes described the Peruvian and Tolu balsams in 1565. Cacao was first made known to Europeans by Fernando Cortez in 1519. About the year 1550 coca was introduced as a drug that possesses the power of allaying hunger and of enabling one to endure the fatigues attending prolonged expeditions. Sarsaparilla came into use at about the same date. Then followed jalap in 1556 and sassafras toward the end of the century.
In Germany and in the Netherlands there were, during the sixteenth century, very few physicians who manifested any marked degree of learning in the science of medicine. The teachings of Paracelsus met with a favorable reception in these parts of Europe and they continued to hold supreme sway over the minds of men during a long period of time. There were some physicians, however, who had received their early professional training in Italy and France, and who for this reason were less ready to accept unreservedly the doctrines of Paracelsus; and, among these more independent spirits, Rembert Dodoens (Dodonaeus, 1517-1586) of Malines, near Antwerp, distinguished himself by making a number of valuable contributions to the science of medicine. He held the Chair of Medicine at the University of Leyden and was also the personal physician of the Emperors Maximilian the Second and Rudolphus the Second. He was a very accurate observer, and his writings are particularly rich in matters relating to pathological
