Both nicotine and the genus name of the tobacco plant were named for a French ambassador to Portugal named Jean Nicot, who sent seeds of the plant to Paris in 1550. Nicot is further credited with experimenting with crushed tobacco leaves to cure headaches and introducing this snuff to the French court, where the habit of inhaling tobacco soon became highly fashionable. Nevertheless, many other parts of the world were already very familiar with the plant’s effects, which typically consist of a feeling of well-being and increased alertness or relaxation. Native Americans and other peoples living in locales where tobacco plants were native had already been smoking, chewing, and inhaling the substance for hundreds of years.