Smoking is now swiftly falling out of fashion (and for good reason), but for centuries after it migrated over from the Americas, it was the height of fashion — and medicine. A pipe of tobacco was thought to be the perfect remedy for everything from chronic diseases to minor aches and pains. It was even thought “imbecility” could be improved with the addition of a little tobacco. Stories of the cure-all crop often credit Sir Walter Raleigh, the avid smoker who brought tobacco back with the Virginia colonists, but there was in fact another who is widely accepted as the first man to bring tobacco back to Europe.

On this day, March 5, in 1558, the Spanish physician Francisco Fernandes, sent to Mexico to investigate their flora, is said to have introduced tobacco to Europeans for the first time, bringing back the “herb panacea.”

Tobacco conquered all of Europe soon thereafter. After gaining popularity in the court of Spanish King Phillip II, the following year it was introduced by the Spanish to the French aristocratic Medici family. Catherine de Medici reported the miracle drug cured her of her crippling headaches and gave it the name that sticks today, “Nicotania.”