Learning Something Every Day

While reading Agnes McClelland Dawson's From Sioux to Susan (story of a harum-scarum minister's daughter), came upon the use of "cubebs" or "cubeb cigarettes." (Haughty classmate of heroine Sue Roberts gets her into trouble by substituting real cigarettes for the "cubebs" Sue swears she has.)

Since everything seems to be on the web, I Googled "cubeb" and found it is a peppery type spice that, among other things, was smoked in the last century as relief for a headcold (or as the one website reprint of a nineteeth century text referred to it, "nasal catarrh," which makes it sound worse than it is). You learn a little something every day...

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:17:00 AM

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