 Apart from smoking, tobacco had a number of uses as medicine.As a pain killer it was used for earache and toothache and occasionally as a poultice.Smoking was said by the desert Indians to be a cure for colds, especially if the tobacco was mixed with the leaves of the small Desert sage, "Salvia dorrii", or the root of Indian balsam or cough root, "Leptotaenia multifida", the addition of which was thought to be particularly good for asthma and tuberculosis.