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THE
USE    AND    ABUSE
TOBACCO.
               JOHN  LIZARS.
                        «<



LATE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, AND LATELY


    SENIOR OPERATING SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY OF EDINBURGH.
          FROM TED




EIGHTH EDINBURGH EDITION.





                . i~.r-.~1 j
—£——~/v
          PHILADELPHIA:


LINDSAY  & BLAKISTON.


               1859. . 

                 TOBACCO.

  Snuffing, Smoking, and Chewing, are bad habits, and we
ADVISE ANY GENTLEMAN WHO IS  NOT nOPELESSI.Y  ABANDONED
TO either,  TO give it UP. — Medical Circular. 
           NOTICE
                 TO
THE  EIGHTH EDITION.
  In  this  Eighth  Edition  I have  made  some
alterations, chiefly as regards arrangement; but
I find, that less or more of a desultory character
must  necessarily attach itself to a brochure, in-
tended merely as a vehicle of Practical Observa-
tions.  The reader will  see that  I  have found
myself called  upon to make some allusion to the
recent attempts at that fatal operation—excision
of the tongue.
  The object of the Author will be  attained,  if
his Observations have any appreciable tendency
in arresting the progress of excessive Smoking,
by drawing the attention of the Public to so im-
portant a  subject.    It is difficult to estimate,
either the  pernicious consequences produced by
habitual  Smoking,  or the number of its victims
among all classes, old and young.  The enormous
consumption of Tobacco can be ascertained from 
X    NOTICE TO THE EIGHTH  EDITION

yearly returns made by the Government Custom-
House; but its physical, moral, and mental dete-
riorations,  admit of no such  tangible analysis.
These, although  certain, are slow and impercep-
tible in their development, and  it is therefore
impossible  to ascertain the extent of the  injury
which the poisonous weed inflicts upon the public
health, or the alteration it must necessarily effect
upon the character of its inhabitants.  The con-
sumption  of  Tobacco is  stated  to  be, in  1853,
29,737,561 pounds, thus showing an allowance of
considerably more than a pound,  on  an  average,
to every man, woman, and child, in the United
Kingdom of  Great Britain and  Ireland.   The
prevalence of Smoking has been of  late greatly
on the increase, and the use of the narcotic com-
mences with the young from mere childhood.
Such  a habit cannot be  more  lamented  than
reprobated.  The injury  done to the constitution
of the young may not immediately appear, but
cannot fail ultimately to become a great national
calamity.
                               John Lizars.
        Edinburgh,
   South Charlotte Street, 1859. 
CONTENTS.
                         CHAPTER I.
            GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS OF TOBACCO.
The Introduction of Tobacco into Europe—The question of its inten-
    tion for the Use of Man discussed—The Botany and Chemistry
    of Tobacco considered—Physiological Effect—M. Fievfi,  13-22

                        CHAPTER II.
 PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE  USE AND ABUSE OF TOBACCO.
Contagion from Cigar-smoking — Syphilis propagated  by smoking
    tobacco—Condition of Paris—Effect on a Fever Patient—Local
    Effects on the Mouth—Ulceration of the Lips, Tongue,  Gums,
    Mucous membrane of the Mouth, Tonsils, Velum  Palati, Pha-
    rynx— Constitutional Effects enumerated — Dyspepsia from use
    of Tobacco—Diarrhoea—Effects in Cholera—Disease of Liver—
    Congestion of Brain — Apoplexy — Palsy — Mania — Loss  of
    Memory—Amaurosis—Deafness — Nervousness — Emasculation
    —Cowardice—General Effects—Quotations from various Authors,
    and narrations of peculiar cases of poisoning by tobacco, 23-52

                        CHAPTER III.
                COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.
Opinions of Dr. Prout, Boussiron, Dr. Pereira, Orfila, Sir Benjamin
    Brodie, Dr. Cleland, Dr. Johnston,  King  James I., Rev. Dr.
    Adam  Clarke, Mr. Solly, Dr. Wm. Henderson, Mr. Fenn, Dr.
    Tod, Mr. Anton, Mr. O'Flaherty,  Dr.  M'Cosh,  Camden, Mr.
    Erichsen, Darwin,  &c.—Cases reported in the Lancet, the Half-
    Yearly Abstract of Medical Sciences, Dictionnaire des Sciences
    Medicales, in  the Account of Hospitals for the Insane in the
    United States, and in the Report of  the Penna. Hospital for the
    Insane—Communications from numerous Scientific men in illus-
    tration of the evil effects of Tobacco.......53-138
(xi) 
 
THE
USE   AND  ABUSE
               OP

      TOBACCO.
                   CHAPTEE I.

      GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OP TOBACCO.

  1. It is generally agreed  that the  use of tobacco in
Europe, as a means of inebriation,  originated in the
introduction of the leaves of the plant into Spain from
America.   There  is every reason to suppose that the
plant previously existed in Asia, if not from the earliest
times, though we have no very reliable authority for its
having been used, at least to any great extent, for any
of the purposes to which we have  devoted it.  I am
aware that various old authors  report, that the ancients
of the extreme East were acquainted with the burning
of vegetable substances as a means of inhaling narcotic
fumes; and, indeed, when we consider their love of in.
censes, both as a  luxury and an  element of their reli-
gious cult, we  need not be surprised at this;  but we
have no evidence that the smoking of tobacco was known
in the Old World  before the introduction of the  plant
from the New.   It was  in 1492 that Columbus first be-
       13                                (13) 
14     TOBACCO: ITS  USE AND ABUSK,

held, at Cuba, the custom of smoking cigars; but it was
not until some  years  afterwards that a Spanish monk
recognized the plant in a province of St. Domingo, called
Tabaca — a  much  more likely foundation for the  name
of the herb than that  adopted  by some, who assert that
it  originated in  tabac, a tube used  by the natives for
smoking.  That there was no particular aptitude in the
European  taste  for the  use of this herb, seems to me
evident from the very slow progress which ensued even
of the knowledge of its qualities.  So late  as 1560, when
Jean Nicot, the French  ambassador at  the court of
Portugal, reported of it to his  sovereign, scarcely any
thing was  known of the foreign  vegetable, and in place
of the men who accompanied Columbus having taken to
any imitation of the Cuban natives when  they returned
to Europe, it would rather seem that the  adoption of
the pipe is  attributable to an Englishman,  Eaphelengi,
who, having accustomed himself to it in Virginia, intro-
duced the practice into England.   Sir Walter Raleigh
does not seem  to  have used  the  pipe until after the
return of Sir Francis Drake in 1586, so that  nearly a
hundred years expired before even the roots of the habit
were fixed in the English  people.  Nor, probably, would
the practice after this have spread  so rapidly as it did,
if it had not been for the persecution to which it was
almost immediately exposed.   If it is true, as has  been
said, that a few opposing volumes will fix the roots of a
heresy,  we  need  scarcely wonder  at  the  triumph  of
tobacco, against the use of which more than a hundred
fulminating volumes issued from the press within a few
years. 
        GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS.      15

  2. These observations suggest a reference to the ques-
tion, how far tobacco was  intended for the use of man ?
The practice of the Cuban savages is seized by one party
as a proof of a final cause, insomuch as savages are sup-
posed to follow the first dictates  of nature;  and then
comes  the  other party, who point to the tardy adoption
of nature's gift by a civilized people  as a clear proof
that the weed was not intended for the uses to which it
is applied.  I believe that it is utterly vain  to discuss
questions of this kind.  We have  no elements for  a
proper judgment.  Perhaps,  for  aught we know,  the
American  savages were  some  thousands  of years  in
coming to  the habit — at least we  have no  reason to
suppose  that  it  could  be a  very primitive  adoption.
Whether, indeed, man's custom, in most cases, is a proof
of itself of nature's intention, must always^ be a puzzle;
but as we  know that many very bad things are greatly
more natural to  human beings than we would wish them
to be, we have just as good a right  to say for those to
whom good tendencies are delightful from the begin-
ning, that nature intended  they should do their best
to eradicate what is  hurtful,  and reclaim their  fellow-
creatures from the indulgences of vice.  The true prac-
tical question must in short  always be, what is bene-
ficial and what is hurtful, according to the results of our
experience.
   3. The botany of our subject presents us with seven
or eight  different species of the plant, all affecting, more
or  less,  the warm  latitudes.  Virginia seems, of all
regions, the best suited to its culture, and yields in great
quantity the  common  or Virginian  tobacco (Nicotiana 
16     TOBACCO:  ITS USE  AND  ABUSE.

tabacurn).  A more hardy  kind (Ar. rustka,) may be
cultivated in such latitudes as that of Scotland.   This is
the species which has been found  in Europe, Asia, and
Africa; and were it not for the restriction  imposed by
statute, we would  produce  it on  rich soils  in  greater
quantities than would be convenient for our treasury, or
beneficial to  our people.  I need  hardly say here, that
the question of intention, on the part of nature, is  not
much helped  by the habitat of the production used;
otherwise we might expect to find  the  northern races
less addicted to the use of this tropical weed than those
of the warmer regions.  We know that  probably the
contrary is the truth;  but  all our  efforts to draw  any
conclusion for or against  the adaptation of a race to a
production of  a climate, are rendered futile  by the
teachings, not more of our  religion, than of naturalists,
who insist for a central point  of origin  for all races,
and  a constitution  suited to all  climates.  The safest
position  to hold, is  that  for which  I  insist, that a bad
habit may be formed in any latitude, and supported by
any  number of arguments, where the wish still holds its
mysterious power over the  conclusions  of what we call
reason.
   4. As  regards the  composition of  tobacco, we have
endless experiments in that nearly new science, Organic
Chemistry, which seems to try the patience of  industry
itself.  There  are  some nine or ten different substances
which go to  the formation of a tobacco leaf, and  these
 seem to  change in their proportions according to  the
 condition of  the plant.  Setting aside  starch, various
 acids  and salts, we come  to what  may be termed  the 
        GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS.      17

essential element or principle called Nicotina, with the
formula C20 H14 N2.  These proportions of carbon, hydro-
gen, and azote, really tell to the analyst nothing from
which he could  predicate any thing  certain as to the
character of the compound.  In this respect, all the
formulae of organic  substances  are nearly under the
same mystery;  a small difference  in the  proportions
producing  the greatest difference in the combined re-
sults.  But we can be under no mistake as to the char-
acter of  the element which is called Nicotina — a color-
less liquid alkaloid, with an acrid, burning taste.  It is
one of the most intense of all poisons, approaching in  its
activity the strongest preparation of prussic acid.
   5.  The  other  important element procured from the
analysis of tobacco, is an oil called nicotianin, supposed
to  be "the  juice  of cursed hebanon" referred  to  in
Hamlet; this is the  poet's formula;  the  chemist's is
CnHn02;  but if the latter did not know from  actual
experience the deadly power of the substance, he  would
have  a  small chance of arriving  at  it by any analogy
between formulae.  As this oily substance is also a very
intense  poison, differing essentially from the  alkaloid,
and indeed it is supposed  capable of acting on  different
vital  organs, we have thus in tobacco two poisons —
rather a remarkable fact in organic chemistry, where we
find, generally,  only  one  very active principle at the
base of any particular production in the vegetable king-
dom.  It is indeed asserted by Landerer, that there is
none of this  deadly oil in the fresh leaves  of  tobacco;
and  Mr. Pereira remarks, that the substance  must be
developed in the drying of the leaves under the influ-
                          B 
18    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.

ence of air and water.  The discovery, if true, may free
the weed from the charge of possessing a  double poison;
but the consequence is all  the same to the foreign con-
sumer, who never sees the leaf in its green state.
  6. It has  been  said  that  the smoke  of tobacco, as
analysed  by Zeise  and others, contains nothing of the
deadly alkaloid, and tobacco  smokers have pleaded for
less detrimental effects from the pipe or cigar than from
the quid; but I fear their conclusion is not very tenable,
for the detrimental  oil, as we in fact see from the pipe
itself, is largely increased by the continued roasting and
burning.    We know, too, that the old pipe is a favorite
with the epicures; the more oil by which it is blackened
the better becomes the instrument, till it attains perfec-
tion as a mass of clay soaked with  poison, and  dried,
and soaked and dried a hundred times, so that the en-
tire  matter is imbued with the  absorption.  See Dr.
Waller Lewis's recommendation  to  the gentlemen of
the London Post-Office, at page 137.  The  chewer takes
less of the oil, but more  of the alkaloid; the smoker
less  of the alkaloid, but more of the oil;  the compari-
son is simply a balance of evils, which is  odious to either
set of debauchees, and  some get quit of the invidious
comparison by taking the drug in both forms—a refuge
from scientific doubt compensating for the greater amount
of destruction to health and comfort.  But if we are to
believe Dr. Morries, the nicotianin is not destitute of  a
portion of the  alkaloid; and as we know that the in-
haled smoke is largely infected with the oil of an old
pipe, the  smoker has less  to say for his habit than the
chewer will  concede; and I fairly  admit, that it does 
        GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.      19

not appear to me to  be at all clear, that the former has
any  advantage over the  latter in other respects;  for
while the smoker's  account  must be debited with the
topical  diseases, chiefly carcinomatous, from which the
chewer  is to  a great extent free, he  consumes  a  far
greater  portion of the weed than his competing debau-
chee—a surplus so great, in the confirmed cigar smoker,
that we are often called upon for a surprise at the num-
ber of these small rolls which  constitute his daily supply.
   7.  Turning to the main part of our subject, the phy-
siological  effects, we find  that, in the carnivora, tobacco
shows its power in a very striking manner, causing yo-
miting,  purging, universal trembling, staggering, con-
vulsions, and stupor.  Physiologists are not at one in
regard  to the  peculiar mode of action; the nerves  are
probably the principal medium; but the many instances
we have on record, of  death  produced by an application
of small quantities to wounds, would indicate  that  the
process  is more complex.  There is an ingenious expe-
riment  reported, where the effect of tobacco was noticed
in an animal whose head was cut off, and artificial respi-
ration kept up.  The tobacco did not, as in the ordinary
case, paralyse the heart; and the conclusion is  accord-
ingly drawn, that it is  through the medium of the brain
that the death  action is  exercised on that organ.   But
the whole of this  question is rendered dubious or diffi-
cult by  other facts.  For instance, there is a difference
of action  between the  alkaloid and  the oil; the  latter
of which is said not to possess  the power of paralyzing
the heart.  Applied to the tongue of a cat, one drop of
the oil  caused  convulsions, and in two minutes  death, 
20    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE  AND ABUSE

without for some time affecting much the action of the
heart; so that, in this respect, it operates very much in
the manner of prussic acid.
  8. On man, the physiological effects have been very
minutely observed.   I cannot do better than give the
words of Mr. Pereira:  " In small doses,  tobacco causes
a sensation of heat in the throat, and sometimes a feel-
ing of warmth at the stomach.   These effects  are, how-
ever, less obvious when the  remedy is taken in a liquid
form, and largely diluted.  By repetition, it usually ope-
rates as  a diuretic, and less frequently as a laxative.
Accompanying these effects  are often nausea,  and a pe-
culiar feeling,  usually described as giddiness, scarcely
according with the ordinary acceptation of this form.
As  dropsical swellings  sometimes  disappear under the
operation of these doses, it has been  inferred that the
remedy promotes  the operation of the absorbents.   In
larger doses it promotes nausea, vomiting, and purging:
though it seldom gives rise to abdominal pain, it pro-
duces a most distressing sensation of sinking at the pit
of the stomach.  It occasionally acts  as  an anodyne, or
more rarely promotes sleep.  But its most remarkable
effects are languor,  feebleness,  relaxation of muscles,
trembling of the  limbs, great anxiety, and tendency to
faint.  Vision  is  frequently enfeebled,  the ideas con-
fused, the pulse small and weak, the respiration  some-
what laborious, the surface cold and  clammy, or bathed
in a cold sweat, and, in  extreme cases, convulsive move-
ments are observed.  In excessive doses, the effects are
of the same kind,  but more  violent in  degree.  The
more prominent symptoms are nausea, vomiting, and in 
        GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS.      21

some  cases purging, extreme weakness,  and relaxation
of the muscles, depression of the vascular system (mani-
fested by feeble pulse, pale face, cold sweats, and ten-
dency to faint),  convulsive movements,  followed  by
paralysis, and a kind of torpor terminating in death."
   9. As an accompaniment to these physiological effects,
I may here  give  an extract from the newly published
pamphlet by Monsieur Fievee, showing the mental or
moral effects of this deleterious agent.
   " We do not insist  principally on the material disas-
ters resulting from tobacco, knowing very well that any
reasoning on this  subject will not  produce  conviction.
A danger of far greater interest to those concerned in
the preservation of the individual, is the enfeeblement
of the human  mind,  the loss of the  powers of intelli-
gence and of moral energy;  in a word, of the vigor of
the intellect, one of the elements of which is memory.
We are much deceived, if  the statistics  of actual men-
tal vigor would not prove  the low level  of the intellect
throughout  Europe, since  the introduction of tobacco.
The Spaniards have first experienced  the penalty of its
abuse, the example of which they have so industriously
propagated,  and the  elements  of which originated in
their  conquests and  their ancient energy.  The rich
Havanna enjoys  the  monopoly  of the  poison  which
procures so much  gold in return for so many victims;
but the  Spaniards have paid for it also  by the loss  of
their  political importance, of their rich appanage of  art
and literature, of their chivalry, which  made them one
of the first people of the world.  Admitting that other
causes operated, tobacco has been one of the most influ- 
22     tobacco:  its  use and abuse.

ential.   Spain is  now a vast tobacco shop, and  its only
consolation is, that other  nations are fast approaching
to its level.  Tobacco, as the great flatterer of sensuality,
is one of the most energetic promoters of individualism
—that is, of a weakening of social ties.  Its appearance
coincides fatally with reform and the spirit  of  inquiry.
Man inaugurates the introduction of logic in matters in-
accessible, at the same time that, as  Montaigne  says, he
gives way to a habit destructive of the faculty of ratioci-
nation — a contradiction which shows us that necessity
of defect by which he is tormented."
  My own experience confirms much of this, but a more
particular physiological account will be found in my
Practical Observations.  The reader will find a  very in-
teresting paper by Dr. Alfred Swaine Taylor, in Guy's
Hospital Reports, Vol. IV., p. 345. 
practical observations.      23
                  CHAPTER  II.

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON  THE USE  AND ABUSE
                   OF TOBACCO.

  10. Although  for a considerable time past  I had
collected many important facts regarding  the Use and
Abuse of Tobacco, the  publication of these Practical
Observations  has  nevertheless been in some  measure
accelerated by the  perusal of a paper by Professor Sig-
mund of  Vienna,  " Upon  Syphilitic  Contagion from
Cigar Smoking," which appeared in the Medical Times
and  Gazette, under " Selections from Foreign Journals."
From the brief statement there given, it is difficult to
decide what  opinion  Dr.  Sigmund  entertains  on the
subject—whether he considers that the tobacco generates
the syphilitic ulceration of the  lips, tonsils, and  gums;
or that the cigar is impregnated  with the venereal virus,
through the medium of the manufacturer of it.
  11. Many cases of syphilitic virus, introduced into the
healthy constitution, by smoking a cigar or pipe used by
a diseased person, have come under my notice.  The
practice is by no  means uncommon, in some ranks of
life, for two individuals to smoke the same pipe or cigar
alternately, the one taking a puff, or draw, after the
other, and in this way the morbid  poison produces a
similar effect  to what  is exemplified in the communica- 
24     tobacco:  its  use and abuse.

tion of yaws or sibbens, by drinking out of an infected   ,
cup or vessel.  I have often been consulted by gentlemen
having marked syphilitic  ulcerated throat, which they
could not account for, having had no primary symptoms
on the genitals.   On interrogating them, they have ad-
mitted lighting  a  pipe  used by another,  or having
accepted a puff of a friend's cigar.  Some patients have
presented  themselves with syphilitic ulceration on  the
lower or  upper lip, or the commissure between  them
having a thickened  base.   Some have had syphilitic
ulcers of the mucous membrane of the cheeks, tongue,
and tonsils.  A few have had, with the preceding ulcers,
secondary eruption of the skin and loose  hair:  while
others have been affected with secondary condylomata.
I once witnessed an operation  performed upon a woman
with syphilitic ulcer of the lower lip,  combined with a
hardened base, produced by smoking a pipe of a syphilitic
patient.  Excision of the diseased mass was resorted to
by the operator, a man of great experience and dexterity,
mistaking the affection for carcinoma.   In a few weeks
after  the  operation,  the secondary syphilitic eruption
manifested itself, and was cured by the hydriodate of
potass.  It is scarcely possible to heal a syphilitic sore,
or to unite a fractured bone, in a devoted smoker — his
constitution seems to be in the same vitiated  state as in
one affected with scurvy.
   12.  A writer on tobacco describes Paris, in  its relation
to smoking, thus : " In Paris," says he, " it is impossible
to walk in the streets without being constantly exposed
to receive into the mouth, and consequently to inhale,
the fumes of tobacco from so many mouths, clean  and 
practical  observations.       25
unclean, passing before and behind, to the great annoy-
ance, and indeed injury to the health of every one, and
most  disgusting to  those  cognizant  of its  poisonous
effects.  In the  arcades and passages  it  is particularly
offensive and obnoxious, the atmosphere of those close
places being always contaminated by the pestilential ex-
halations.   I may add, this must be still more so  the
case in  the smoking-rooms of our  clubs.  And I may
here put a query—May not the fumes of tobacco, ex-
haled from a smoker  laboring under syphilitic  sore
throat and mouth, be inhaled by a clean, healthy indi-
vidual, with an abraded or ulcerated lip, and the former
contaminate the latter ?   I have seen  syphilitic ulcera-
tion of the lip, the  chin, the mouth, and the throat, indi-
vidually and collectively, where no  trace whatever could
be brought to bear on how the ulcers were caused.  How
often does syphilitic onychia  occur without  our being
able to discover any  contamination ?"
   13. A remarkable change  occurs  to the  excessive
smoker, when he labors under influenza or fever, as he
then not only loses  all  relish for the cigar or pipe, but
even  actually loathes them.   Does not this  important
fact satisfactorily show, that the furor tabaci depends on
the morbid condition produced on the salivary secretion
and organ  of taste by the deleterious drug, and  at the
same time illustrate the pathological law, that two morbid
states seldom or ever co-exist  in the same individual ?
The sudden removal of all desire to smoke, affords the
best refutation to the delusive representations which the
unhappy tobacco victim urges  for  continuing  the inju-
rious habit, on  the ground, that its  abandonment would 
 23    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

 be prejudicial to his health, and proves, if he had a will
 to relinquish the  pipe or cigar,  he would find a way.
 The best argument to use in dealing with the obstinate
 prejudices of such people, is  to tell  them, that an acci-
 dental attack of a new disease can safely and at once
 occasion the total  withdrawal of tobacco without pro-
 ducing any bad  consequences.  It is scarcely possible to
 cure either syphilis or gonorrhoea, if the patient continue
 to indulge in smoking tobacco.
   14.  When  tobacco is too much indulged  in, it pro-
 duces, both  locally and constitutionally, the  most dire
 effects.   Locally, smoking causes  ulceration of the lips,
 tongue,*  gums, mucous  membrane  of the  mouth  or
 cheeks, tonsils, velum, and even pharynx.  Many, from
 smoking, produce carcinomatous ulceration of the lower
 or upper lip, or its commissure, requiring excision of the
 diseased  structure.  One individual, a  captain  of the
 Indian navy, fell a victim under my care (from smoking
 Cherouts).  When I first saw him, he had  ulceration
 of the mucous membrane of his  left cheek,  extending
 backwards to the tonsil  and  pharynx of the same side
 having all  the characteristic  appearances of carcinoma.
 The disease resisted every variety of treatment.  Inter-
 nally— alteratives  and mild diet; externally__fomenta-
 tions, poultices, a solution of honey and water,  and nitric
acid.   From this case, and other instances, it  would ap-
pear that the cigar induces carcinoma just as  readily as
the cutty-pipe.   It would seem that the  pungent oil of
the tobacco, combined with the heat, constitutes the ex-
* See Chapter III., p. 132. 
         PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.      27

citing  cause.  The ulceration of the lips, especially the
lower, so closely resembles syphilis, that it requires great
care and examination to distinguish it.  If there be no
carcinomatous condition of the ulcerated surface of the
lips, mouth, or throat, rinsing the mouth with a solution
of honey (a teaspoonful in a tumbler of warm water)
three or four times a day, prescribing an alterative pow-
der of the bicarbonate of soda 9ji, rhubarb g™, columba
g™, twice a day;  a blue pill once a week; light diet, as
the farinaceous, with occasionally fowl or veal; confine-
ment to a large,  well-ventilated room;  and the  rigid
abstinence of the  pernicious weed, will generally soon
effect  a cure.  In some, it  may be  necessary to touch
the  ulcerated surface  with nitric  acid every fourth or
fifth day.
   15.  Devoted smokers as pertinaciously insist, that they
cannot give up such a luxury, as  the drunkard affirms
that he cannot  relinquish his stimulus.   But I have
known instances  in both classes of individuals manfully
giving them up.   There is  an  officer in Her Majesty's
service who had  upwards of ten severe attacks of deli-
rium tremens, and is now a teetotaller; and he has been
so for  upwards of fifteen years.
   16.  The  following  case, from the Half-Yearly Ab-
stract  of the Medical  Sciences, for January onwards to
July, 1854, page 70, satisfactorily shows  that tobacco
can  be given up.   It  is likewise a terrible illustration
of its  baneful effects on the constitution.   Drs. Rankin
and Radcliffe, the editors, head it, " A case of Angina
Pectoris resulting from the  Use of Tobacco," and thus
introduce it: " The following case possesses a very high 
28    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

degree of interest."   The history of the  case  is thus
related by Dr. Corson, of New York:
  "A highly intelligent man, aged  sixty-five, stout,
ruddy, early married, temperate, managing a large busi-
ness,  after premising that he commenced chewing to-
bacco at seventeen, swallowing the juice, as is sometimes
customary, to prevent injuring his lungs  from constant
spitting, and that years  after he  suffered  from a gnaw-
ing, capricious appetite, nausea, vomiting of meals, ema-
ciation, nervousness, and palpitation of the heart, dic-
tated  to Dr. Corson, recently, the following story:
  " ' Seven years thus miserably passed, when, one day
after dinner, I was suddenly seized with intense pain in
the chest, gasping for breath, and a sensation as  if a
crowbar were pressed tightly from the right breast to the
left, till it came and twisted in a knot  round the heart,
which now stopped deathly still for a minute, and  then
leaped like  a  dozen frogs.  After two  hours of death-
like suffering, the attack ceased; and I found that ever
after my heart missed every fourth beat.  My physician
said  that  I had  organic  disease of the  heart, must die
suddenly,  and need only take a little brandy for the
painful paroxysms;  and I soon found it the only thing
that  gave them any relief.  For the next twenty-seven
years I continued to suffer milder attacks like the above,
lasting from one to several minutes, sometimes as often
as two or  three times a day or night; and to be sickly
looking, thin,  and pale as a ghost.  Simply from revolt-
ing at the idea of being a slave  to one vile habit alone,
and without dreaming of the suffering it had  cost me, 
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.      29
after thirty-three years' use, I one day threw away tobacco
forever.
   " ' Words cannot describe my suffering and desire for
a time.   I was reminded of the Indian, who, next to all
the rum in the world, wanted all the tobacco.  But my
firm will conquered.  In a month my paroxysms  nearly
ceased, and soon after left entirely.   I was directly a
new man, and  grew stout and  hale  as  you  see.  With
the exception  of a  little  asthmatic  breathing, in close
rooms and the  like, for nearly twenty years since  I have
enjoyed excellent health.'"
   On examination, Dr. Corson found the heart seemingly
healthy in size and structure, only irregular, intermitting
still at every fourth pulsation.
   17.  After such well-marked  examples of manly firm-
ness, no one need  pretend to  affirm that the luxury of
smoking, snuffing, plugging, or chewing, or quidding,
cannot  be given up;  or  that  the stimulus of wine, or
spirits, or malt liquors, cannot be relinquished.  I may
here remark, that  chewing or quidding does not seem
to irritate the mucous membrane of the mouth to the
extent that smoking does; it never causes ulceration.
   18.  Some  of the constitutional effects of tobacco have
been already  detailed  under Dr. Corson's case.  But  I
shall commence their enumeration  by generally stating,
that they are numerous and varied, consisting of giddi-
ness, sickness, vomiting, dyspepsia, vitiated taste of the
mouth, loose bowels,  diseased liver, congestion  of the
brain, apoplexy, palsy, mania, loss of memory, amauro-
sis, deafness, nervousness, emasculation, and  cowardice.
   19. When a youth  commences  his apprenticeship to
       14 
30    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

smoking tobacco, he suffers often the most inconceivably
miserable sickness  and vomiting — almost as bad as sea-
sickness.  It generally produces these effects so rapidly,
that their production must entirely depend upon nervous
influence, as giddiness is  almost immediately induced.
The antidote  or  cure for this miserable condition is
drinking strong coffee, or brandy and water, and retiring
to bed or sofa.  If he perseveres, he has just to suffer
onwards, until  his nervous system becomes habituated to
the noxious weed, and too  often to the bottle at the same
time.   It is  truly melancholy to witness the great  num-
ber of the young who smoke now-a-days; and it  is pain-
ful  to contemplate  how many promising youths must be
stunted  in their growth, and  enfeebled in their minds,
before they arrive  at manhood.
  20. "Let the young adept," says Boussiron, in  his
interesting Treatise on Tobacco, " whom you wish to
form by your lessons, smoke the leaves of tobacco, thorn-
apple, or deadly night-shade,  and you may be certain to
see take place  the  effects nearly identical in violence__
giddiness, intoxication, disturbed vision, nausea, vomit-
ing, and frequently diarrhoea."
  21. Dyspepsia from the use of tobacco  is accompanied
with the same  symptoms as when the disease is produced
by  drinking or gluttony,  and  want of exercise in  the
open air.  The only cure is, by " throwing away tobacco
forever"—and this will  be  accelerated by a blue  pill
once a week, the alterative powder morning and evening,
prescribed under ulceration of  the  mouth, the  infusion
of quassia, or quassia and gentian combined, mild nutri-
tious  diet, as  coffee or tea, with lightly toasted bread 
         PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.       31

beef-tea with or without rice, or toast for three  or four
days, a glass or two of  sherry wine, and exercise in the
open air, either on foot or horseback, or carriage, or still
better, all  combined.   Exercise  should be taken before
meals, and the patient  lounge on a sofa for two or three
hours  after meals.   Change  of air, fully fifty  or  one
hundred miles distant, is of great benefit.   After three
or four days, beef-steak  or mutton-chop should supersede
the beef-tea, and then a few vegetables, well  boiled, may
be taken.  A few drops of the balsam of copaiba, say
eight or ten drops combined, with ten of aquae potassae,
and a teaspoonful of sweet nitre, in  half  a  cup  of cold
water  sweetened, and  taken  at bed-time, has  a  most
soothing effect.   Frank's Specific is the most  elegant
and agreeable preparation  of copaiba, even preferable to
the capsules.   There is an imitation  of Frank's Specific
prepared by the chemists of London.
   22. The vitiated taste  of  the mouth is  generally a
symptom of dyspepsia, and is  to be cured in the same
way.
   23.  The looseness of the bowels  is to  be treated  by
"throwing away tobacco for ever;" by prescribing  an
astringent  mixture of the electuary of catechu, prepared
chalk, syrup of  ginger and laudanum; by  farinaceous
and milk diet for eight days, with rest in bed for four or
five days, then  for the same time on a sofa.  At the end
of eight or ten days, beef soup with rice, or lightly toasted
bread, puddings of rice, sago, and arrow root, for  four or
five days.  Then beef-steak or mutton-chop, with  rice,
lightly toasted  bread, and  a glass or two of port wine, 
32     TOBACCO:  ITS USE AND ABUSE.

made into  negus or mulled.   Exercise in the open air
should now be freely taken.
  24. During the prevalence of cholera, I have had re-
peated opportunities of observing, that individuals ad-
dicted to the use of tobacco, especially those who snuff
it, are more disposed to attacks of that disease, and gene-
rally in its most malignant and fatal form.*
  25. Disease of the liver  seems to be caused  by the
tobacco exciting the system, and by the dyspeptic symp-
toms  produced.   It is  to be treated  by " throwing aicay
tobacco  for ever;"  by prescribing half a  grain  of the
protoioduret of mercury, with  or without opium, accord-
ing to the state of the  bowels, made into a pill with the
extract  of gentian, morning and evening; by an infusion
of quassia,  or quassia and gentian combined; by  blister-
ing over the region of the liver, and dressing the tender
surface  with mercurial ointment.   In some cases it  is
necessary to keep a portion of the blistered surface open
for  some time.   In the commencement, rest, and farina-
ceous and  milk diet.   Afterwards, exercise in the open
air, beef-tea with rice,  or lightly toasted bread, for a few
days; and  then beef-steak  or  mutton-chop, and a glass
or two of sherry.   If the protoioduret threatens to affect
the mouth, it should be  given up, and the same with
the mercurial dressing of the blistered surface.  Dr. Scott
of India's foot-bath of nitro-muriatic acid is often bene-
ficial.   When convalescent, nothing is so beneficial as
change  of air.
  26.  Congestion of the brain occurs almost  only in
* See Fenn's cases, p. 66. 
PRACTICAL  OBSERVATIONS.      33
those much addicted to smoking, in whom a  cigar is
never out of the mouth; but I have witnessed it also to
occur in the snuffer of the plant.   It is denoted by head-
ache, want of sleep,  or rather restless nights, and occa-
sionally flushing of the  countenance.  The worst case I
have had under my care was a foreigner, who travelled
for a manufacturer of cigars — he was at the same time
fearfully nervous.  He had a red, swollen countenance,
as if he combined the bottle  with his  smoking, but this
he assured me he never did — the tobacco was enough
for him.   I inserted an issue or seton in the nape of his
neck, purged him with calomel and aloes, put him on as
low a diet  as  he would permit, confined him to the
house, and entreated him to  smoke as few cigars as pos-
sible.  In  a fortnight the congestion of the brain was
subdued, and  then he was allowed gradually more and
more nourishing diet and exercise in the open air.  He
returned to Edinburgh in two years after in good health
but still nervous even from  the moderate use of cigars.
He said that he had  tried  to give them up altogether,
but that he had found  that  impracticable — a difficulty
connected, no doubt, with his avocation.
   27. Apoplexy  has been taken notice of by several
authors,  supervening to the smoking of tobacco : also to
the immoderate use of snuff, as related by Morgagni;
likewise  in the Ephemerides des Curieux de la Nature,
and in the Journal d'Allemagne for 1830, page 179.
The treatment here is  the  same as that for congestion
of the brain.
   28. The form of palsy produced by excessive smoking
is generally hemiplegia, and  it is almost  always incura-
                         c 
34     TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

ble.   It follows as often from too much snuffing as too
much smoking.   The treatment consists in " throwing
away tobacco for ever" inserting setons in the lumbar
region, tonics, cold bathing, and good diet.
  29. Mania is a fearful result of  the excessive  use of
tobacco — two cases of which  I have witnessed since the
publication of this treatise.   I have also  to  mention,
that a gentleman  called on me, and thanked me for the
publication of my Observations on Tobacco, and related
to me, with deep emotion, what had occurred in his own
family from  smoking tobacco.  Two amiable younger
brothers  had  gone deranged,  and committed suicide.
There is no  hereditary predisposition to mania  in the
family.   At a meeting of  the Medical and Chirurgical
Society of London, on May 2d, 1854, a  paper was read,
entitled,  "Additional Remarks on  the Statistics  and
Morbid Anatomy of Mental Diseases," by Dr. Webster,
wherein  he cites,  among  the causes, the great  use of
tobacco, which opinion he supported  by  reference to the
statistics of insanity  in Germany.
  30. Loss of memory takes  place in an extraordinary
degree in the smoker, much more so  than in the drunk-
ard, evidently from  tobacco  acting more on the brain
than alcohol.   The cure consists in " throwing away to-
bacco for ever."
  31. Amaurosis is  a very common  result of smoking
tobacco to excess; but I have never seen it  produced by
snuffing or chewing.   It occurs with or  without conges-
tion of the brain.  It is  commonly confined to one eye.
It is generally curable, but  not always, by " throwing
away tobacco for ever"—by inserting  a seton in  the 
         PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.       35

back of the neck, another seton in the temple or tem-
ples, according as one or both eyes  are affected.   In the
course of eight or  ten  days, the seton in the temple is
to be withdrawn, a common fly blister applied, and  the
blistered surface sprinkled with strychnia.  The bowels
to be freely opened with calomel and aloes.  The diet
to be light, as the farinaceous.  The patient should be
confined in a large, well-ventilated apartment, and an
obscure light.
   32. Deafness is  not so common a sequence to smoking
tobacco as amaurosis.   It is to be treated on precisely
the same principles, with the difference of applying the
blisters and strychnia behind the ears.
   33. Nervousness is remarkably common from indulging
too much in  smoking, snuffing, or chewing tobacco.   It
is to be treated by "throwing away tobacco forever" —
by having recourse to  the shower-bath in winter, and
sea-bathing in summer — by nourishing  diet, attention
to the bowels, the  alterative powder,, as prescribed under
ulceration of the lips, the tonics, as quassia and gentian,
and even quinine;  exercise in the open air, and by mix-
ing in quiet, agreeable  society, as the nervous system is
easily and readily over-excited; and, lastly, by change
of air, and ultimately travelling about.
   34. Emasculation, as an effect of tobacco, may well
astonish the  gay Lothario, as  he might, unconscious of
the cause, have boasted, that " never in my youth did I
apply the means  of weakness  and debility."  I have
been consulted by fathers of from thirty  to forty years
of age, who, having married in early life,  have had two
or three children soon after marriage  onwards to thirty 
36    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

years  old, but have been surprised that they had even-
tually lost all inclination for sexual indulgence.   On in-
terrogating them, I have invariably found that they were
all excessive smokers; and on convincing them that to-
bacco was the cause of their temporary impotence, they
have instantly " thrown away tobacco forever," and in a
few months after have returned to me, saying that they
had become fathers again.  I have found unmarried men
similarly affected with  the  want  of  the sexual  vis et
animus.
  35. I have invariably found, that patients addicted to
tobacco smoking were in  spirit  cowardly, and deficient
in manly fortitude to  undergo  any  surgical operation,
however trifling, proposed to relieve them from the suf-
fering of other  complaints.  In such  cases chloroform is
a great boon.
  36. When we consider the effect of tobacco in tetanus,
and in strangulated hernia in former days, we can read-
ily comprehend its.powerful narcotic  effects: they are
stronger than opium—opium differing from tobacco only
in constipating the bowels.  The use of tobacco for me-
dical purposes  has been long known, but its application
has been carried, fundamentally, of  late, to the full ex-
tent to which the human body can be subjected—a cigar
having been actually inserted into the anus, by an Ame-
rican physician, as a medical reagent—thus introducing
the poison into every vital passage.
   37. The number of people who from twelve years of
age are given to smoking, snuffing, plugging, and chew-
ing, or quidding the noxious weed, appears  quite incre-
dible.  By its so general consumption, we must become 
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.      37
changed in both corporeal and mental faculties—we can-
not fail to be enfeebled  in body and mind, and become
a deteriorated race.   I  once travelled with a gentleman
from  South America, who first filled his nostrils  with
snuff, which  he prevented falling out, by stuffing shag
tobacco after it, and this he termed "plugging" — then
put in each  cheek a coil of  pigtail  tobacco, which he
named " quidding," in this country called " chewing :"
lastly, he  lit a Havannah  cigar, which he put into  his
mouth; and  thus smoked and chewed,  puffing at one
time the smoke of the cigar, and at another time squirt-
ing the juice from his mouth, as so graphically described
by Dickens in the boat story, on the way to the Far
West.  This gentleman was as thin as a razor, with an
olive-colored countenance, and frightfully nervous. The
preceding is  neither a caricature, nor an exaggerated ac-
count of the fearful  extent to which the use of tobacco
is carried — not merely in Europe, as we know, but, as
there is every reason to  fear, in  every  quarter  of  the
globe where it either grows, or is unhappily conveyed.
   38. There can be  no doubt, from what has occurred
in the war just ended, that had the Turks never indulged
in the vicious habit of  smoking tobacco,  they would  not
have required the assistance of the French, Sardinians,
and British.   They would have  been as powerful as in
the days  of  the  Sultans Othman, Orchan, Amurath  the
First, and Bajazet, and would have sent  such a message
through Menschikoff to the Czar Nicholas, as the Sul-
tan Bajazet said  to the Count de Nevers, of France, when
taken prisoner after his celebrated unsuccessful cavalry
 charge (like that at Balaklava) near Nicropolis. 
38    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.

  39. It is allowed by British and other European offi-
cers, that the Turkish soldier is  equal, if not superior,
to the private  soldier of any other European  nation.*
But  the  officers are ignorant, lazy, and indolent, con-
stantly stupefied with tobacco.  The late expedition of
Omer Pacha from Batoun to Kutais, is graphically de-
scribed  by  one of  the  correspondents of  an English
journal: while the private soldiers were toiling away in
dragging the artillery through forests, their officers were
squatted, smoking their pipes or chibouques!
  40. It is stated that Abbas the First, Shah of Persia
in the beginning of the seventeenth century (he reigned
from 1587 to 1629),  denounced opium and tobacco; and
that, when leading an army against the Cham of Tartary,
he proclaimed that every  soldier in whose possession to-
bacco was found, would  have his nose and lips cut off,
and  afterwards be  burnt alive.   He re-established the
Persian empire by his activity and  conquests.
  41. Amurath the Fourth, of Turkey, denounced the
use of tobacco.  He ended his reign in 1389.
  42. The manner of the embodiment of the Janizaries,
and especially their training for soldiers by their founder
Ala-ed-deen, the brother  of  the  Sultan Orchan, is well
worth  the consideration  of  the  Secretary-at-War, the
Commander-in-Chief, the Horse-Guards, and, more par-
ticularly, of the Army Reform Commissioners.
  43. "The Mahrattas,  in  working  a  battery,  never
pointed their cannon so  as to mark in a particular spot,
  * Vide Le Continent, in 1854. Paris, 1854.  Also, General Wil-
liams's (the brave defender of  Kars) Speech at the Army and Navy
Club, June, 1856. 
        PRACTICAL  OBSERVATIONS.       39

but aimed at random all round the wall.   After loading
a gun they sat down, smoked and conversed for half-an-
hour; then fired, reloaded, and resumed their conversa-
tion.  Two hours at mid-day, by mutual consent, were
set apart for meals and recreation."   " The English cal-
culated  seven years as the period in which a breach
might be  effected." *
   44. It is stated that the Sikhs, now named the Pun-
jabees,  never smoke tobacco, it being contrary to their
religion.  I  may ask, are there any soldiers  in India
equal to the Sikhs ?  At Chillianwallah, at Moodkee, at
Ferozshah, at Aliwur, at Mooltan, at Sobraon, no soldiers
behaved better.
   45. Mr. Meadows, in  an interesting  account of the
Chinese, states, that " the soldier who smokes tobacco is
bambooed, and he who smokes  opium is beheaded."—
 Vide British Quarterly Review, No. 51, for July, 1857,
page 49.
   46. Rumph, in his Herbarium Amboinense, says, that
the Chinese and natives of India used tobacco  only as a
medicine or  medicament.   "Neutiquam," he  observes,
" vere ad suctionem sed tantum  modo ad usum  medicum
unanimo enim consensu, Indi assentiunt sese Tabaci suc-
tionem  ab  Europeis  dedicisse."
   47. The celebrated  French  surgeon, Percy,  states,
that tobacco was as regularly served out to the French
soldiers as provisions, and thus comments on  the prac-
tice : " It had doubtless been calculated that smoking
hurt  the  appetite;  and  to  save daily from four to six
   * Murray's British India, vol. ii. p. 127. The author here alludes
to the siege of Darwar, occupied by Tippoo in September, 1791. 
40     TOBACCO: ITS  USE AND  ABUSE.

ounces of bread per man, they furnished him with three
farthings' worth of bad tobacco.   During the conquest
of Holland, Louvois paid  more attention to furnishing
tobacco than provisions; and even at this day, as well as
in former times, more  care is taken to procure tobacco
than bread to the soldier.   Every soldier was obliged to
have his  pipe and his match."
  48.  Constant relates  the following  anecdote  of  the
great Napoleon:  " Napoleon," says he, " once  took  a
fancy to  smoke, for the purpose of trying a very fine
oriental pipe  presented to him by a Turkish or Persian
ambassador.  Preparation  having been made — the fire
having been applied to the recipient—nothing more was
to be done than to communicate it to the  tobacco,  but
that could never be effected in the way taken  by his
majesty for that purpose.   He contented himself with
opening and shutting his mouth alternately, without the
least  in  the world drawing in his breath.   ' How  the
devil,' cried he at last —' that does nothing!'  I made
him observe, that he made  the attempt badly, and showed
him the proper mode of doing  it.   But the emperor
always returned to his kind of yawning.   Wearied by
his vain attempts, he at last desired me to light the pipe.
I obeyed, and returned it to him in order.  But scarcely
had he drawn in a mouthful, when the smoke, which he
knew not how to expel from his mouth, turned back into
his palate, penetrated into his throat, and  came out by
the nose and blinded him.  As soon as he recovered
breath —' Take that away from me—what abomination !
Oh, the  swine ! — my stomach turns !'  In fact, he felt
himself so annoyed for at least an hour, that he renounced 
PRACTICAL  OBSERVATIONS.       41
for ever the pleasure of a habit which he said was only
fit to amuse sluggards."
  49. The students attending the American colleges are
said  to destroy their physical  and moral  powers  by
smoking tobacco, so  as to unfit them to prosecute their
studies, and afterwards  to become useful members of
society.  But we have even the judges on  the  bench
quidding tobacco, as well as the members of parliament,
so facetiously described  by Dickens in his American
Notes for general circulation, wherein  he terms Wash-
ington  the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured  saliva.
Dr. Budget, in  his treatise on tobacco, states, that in
America, " it is no uncommon circumstance to hear of
inquests on the bodies of smokers, especially youths;
the ordinary verdict  being, ' died from extreme tobacco
smoking.'"
  50.  " The pupils of the Polytechnic  School in Paris
have recently furnished  some curious statistics bearing
on the tobacco  controversy.  Dividing the young gen-
tlemen  of  that  college into two groups — the smokers
and  non-smokers — it is  shown that the smokers have
shown themselves in the various competitive examina-
tions far inferior to the others.   Not only in the exami-
nations on  entering the school are the smokers in a lower
rank, but in the various  ordeals that they have  to pass
through in a year, the average rank  of the smokers had
constantly  fallen, and not inconsiderably, while the men
who did not smoke enjoyed a cerebral atmosphere of the
clearest kind."—From the Globe, also the Dublin Medi-
cal Press.
  51.  Excessive smoking has had no small share in the 
42     TOBACCO:  ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.
degeneration of Spain.   A Spaniard is never without a
cigar in his mouth.   It was observed during the Penin-
sular war, that the Spanish officers passed the whole day
in smoking, in cutting  and mincing  tobacco to make
paper  cigars, and in  eating and sleeping — and never
existed  men sunk  in  such idleness,  indolence,  and
apathy.   I  am  sorry to  add, that the Portuguese were
in the same degraded  condition.   Germany is said to be
as immersed in tobacco as Spain.   And  I fear we are
fast drifting into the same degraded condition.   Fenelon
says, "Youth is the flower of a nation; it is in the flower
that the fruit should be cultivated."   Condorcet, on the
progress of the  human mind, thus concludes : " Such is
the  practice of using  fermented liquors, hot  drinks,
opium,* and tobacco, that  men have sought with a kind

  * The author of " Confessions  of an English Opium Eater," states,
that the number of amateur opium-eaters in  London  is immense.
And in  Manchester, the  work people of  the cotton manufactories are
rapidly getting into the practice of opium-eating.  In the Nineteenth
Report  of the Inspectors of Prisons in the Northern and Eastern
Districts of England, it is  stated that, in the district of Wisbeach,
" opium-eating is very prevalent in this district, and the use of the
drug  is  often apparent in its effects on the morals and intellects of the
prisoners."  The  Rev. A.  S. Thelwall,  in his interesting work on
" The Iniquities of the Opium Trade with China," gives a deplorable
account of the destructive effect on the health of the Chinese who in-
dulge in it.  He gives a translation of a memorial to the Emperor,
by Choo Tsun, a member of Council, &c. " In the history of For-
mosa,"  says he, "we find  the following passage:  Opium was first
produced in Kaoutsinne, which by some is said to be the same as
Kalapa or Batavia. The  natives of this place were,  at the  first,
sprightly and active, and, being good soldiers, were always successful
in  battle.  But the people  called Hung-maou (red-haired,) came
thither, and having manufactured opium, seduced some of the natives 
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.        43
of frenzy, means of procuring sensations which may be
continually  renewed.   There are  few nations  among
whom these practices are  not observed, from which  is
derived  a pleasure that  occupies whole days,  or is re-
peated  at every interval, that  prevents the  weight of
time from  being felt, satisfies  the  necessity of having
the faculties roused, and at  last blunting the  edge of
into the habit of smoking it.  From these the mania for it spread
rapidly throughout the whole nation; so that in process of time the
natives became feeble and enervated, submitted to foreign rule, and
ultimately were completely subjugated.  Now the English," continues
he, "are of the race of foreigners called Hung-maou.  In introducing
opium into this country,  their purpose has been  to weaken and en-
feeble the Central Empire. If  not early aroused to a sense of our
danger, we  shall find ourselves ere  long on  the last step towards
ruin."  " It thus appears," concludes Choo Tsun,  " it is beyond the
power of any artificial means to save a people enervated by luxury."
In the same memorial, Choo Tsun thus observes:  "While the stream
of importation of opium is not turned aside, it is impossible to attain
any certainty that none within the camp  do ever  secretly inhale the
drug.  And if the camp be once contaminated by it, the baneful in-
fluence will work  its  way, and the habit  will  be  contracted  beyond
the power of reform.  When the periodical times of desire for it come
round, how can the victims (their legs tottering, their hands trembling,
their eyes flowing with child-like tears,) be able in any way to attend
to their proper exercise ?  Or how can such men form strong and pow-
erful  legions ? - Under these circumstances, the military will become
alike unfit to the fight, or  in a retreat to defend their posts.   Of this
there  is a clear proof in  the instance of  the  campaign against the
Yaou rebels  in 1832.  In the army sent to Leenchnow on that, occasion,
great  numbers of the  soldiers were opium-smokers  ; so that, although
their numerical force was  large, there was hardly any strength to be
found among them."  If the smoking of opium produces such direful
effects, why should not tobacco ?  They are both narcotics, nay, to-
bacco is the  more potent narcotic or poison. 
44    tobacco:  its  use  and abuse.

this necessity, thus prolongs the duration of the infancy
and inactivity of the  human mind.   These practices,
which have proved an obstacle to the progress of igno-
rant  and enslaved nations, produce also their effects in
wise and more civilized countries, preventing truth from
diffusing, through all degrees of men, a pure and equal
light."
  52. While investigating the baneful  influence of to-
bacco, I have been led  to consider the effects of  brandy
and other stimulants on the courage of the soldier, during
the last Russian war.   It  appears to me,  that the Rus-
sians  lost their  different battles  in the Crimea  chiefly
from  having served  out to them too much brandy or
raki, immediately before entering into action.  This was
especially remarked after the battle of Inkermann. That
extraordinarily intelligent  soldier, Philip O'Flaherty, in
his Sketches of the War, thus observes, after the battle
of Inkermann:  " We took a good many  prisoners who
were half-drunk.  It appears that the authorities sup-
plied  the men plentifully with liquor, in order that they
might fight well.  The Russians had a great many killed
and wounded. The hills were strewn with them."  This
intoxicated  condition of the Russians is also described
in several letters from the camp.  Even our own troops,
about the conclusion of the war, were  becoming  exces-
sively addicted to  drinking.  It  may be  said that the
Russians, besides their prodigal allowance of raki, were
often  led  into action after long forced marches, and in
an ill-fed condition.  Nevertheless, the over-dose of raki
would, in my estimation, detract  from their powers of
endurance, instead of prolonging them. 
        PRACTICAL  OBSERVATIONS.      45

  53. Our prize-fighters are not allowed stimulants or
tobacco, either  during the time of their training, or on
the day of their battle—not even during their fighting.
The training of the prize-fighter, with some modification,
appears admirably adapted to the rearing of soldiers, es-
pecially young  recruits.   I understand boat-racers, like
pugilists,  are prohibited tobacco.  See Lancet  for 2d
May,  1857.   The huntsman who indulges in a glass of
brandy (jumping powder) on the morning of the chase,
does not ride to hounds like the sober rider.  The Iron
Duke, or any other true sportsman,  never indulged on
the morning of a hunt with fox-hounds.   The hunter,
or horse, gets only a small feed of oats, on the morning
of his going out to hounds.  The fox-hound gets no food
on the day of his chase.  The greyhound, like the fox-
hound, is  fed the day before.   The  race-horse gets only
half a feed of oats on the morning of his race.
   54. Thus men and animals, intended for a hard  day's
work, depend on the stamina acquired by previous train-
ing, and not on immediate stimulus.  It is evident, that
had mankind never indulged in stimulants  or narcotics,
they would have been earlier  advanced  in civilization,
humanity, and  morality—would have had stronger phy-
sical and  higher mental powers.  Let us read only the
history  of the  great Franklin.  He who  smokes  and
drinks has his  mind stupefied, like  the opium-eater, or
the wine-bibber, or the brandy, whisky, or ale-drinker.
It is only  what  his mind has previously learned that he
makes, or  can make use of.  He  cannot advance a step
farther.
  55. The cases  of diseased brain and spinal cord oc-
        15 
46    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

curring in tobacco-smokers, afford strong proof that to-
bacco, besides affecting the nervous system through the
medium  of  the  nerves of the nose and  mouth, when
smoked, must also enter into the circulation of the blood,
by being mixed with the saliva, and swallowed, and thus
taken up by the lacteals or absorbents.  The latter pro-
cess  must take  place in those who  use tobacco in the
form of snuff, as it must often be  swallowed, especially
during sleep.  It must also occur in those who chew or
quid the weed.  The relaxation of the bowels, termina-
ting in obstinate diarrhoea, proves that it passes down
the alimentary canal with the saliva, even in the smoker.
  56. When  nux vomica, or its alkaloid, strychnia, is
prescribed  in small doses, several days  elapse before its
effects on the constitution are exemplified; and, in like
manner, a considerable period intervenes before its effects
leave the system, after it  has been discontinued.   The
same apparent result seems  to take place with tobacco.
It is evidently a cumulative poison, as is shown by its
ultimately  producing softening of the  brain, and fre-
quently  amaurosis.
  57.  In the above view of the action of tobacco, I am
supported by Mr. Solly, in his interesting and able Lec-
ture on Paralysis, published  in the Lancet for the 13th
December, 1856, and of which I have given a brief ex-
tract.  There is also an interesting paper in the Lancet
for 3d January, 1857, by Mr. Fenn of Nayland, Suffolk,
wherein he  states that " he has  seen very mild cases of
typhoid  fever rendered fatal from the excessive use of
tobacco."  The extreme  liability  to attacks of typhus
fever is now well ascertained;  for  every febrile state, 
        PRACTICAL  OBSERVATIONS.      47

from the most simple, even influenza, is liable to dege-
nerate into various typhoid forms.  A fuller extract from
Mr. Fenn's paper I have already given.
  58  The incurable nature of ulceration of the tongue
led me to consider whether the poison might not pervade
the sanguiniferous  system, otherwise  why should the
removal of the diseased  mass by ligature,  or the knife,
prove unsuccessful in eradicating the contaminated tis-
sue ?   Dr. B----'s and  Dr. Tod's case of the woman's
tongue, show satisfactorily that the teeth had  nothing to
do in producing the  ulcerated surface.   Dr. B----'s
case,  and  Dr. Tod's case of M. J----T----'s  demon-
strate, that neither the knife  nor the  ligature had any
effect in arresting the disease; and  Sir Astley Cooper's
views of the inutility  of these means in  checking the
disease  in Dr. B----'s case, confirm these—the consti-
tution of  the unfortunate individual having been poi-
soned with the ensnaring weed, through his ignorance
of the nature of  his hallowed luxury.
   59. Representations have been made of the ulcera-
 tion  of the tongue as it occurred in Dr. B----'s case
 and  also  Mr. J---- T----'s.   I  have  here  to ac-
 knowledge the handsome liberality of Dr. B----, in  •,
permitting me to copy the  interesting case of an affec-
tionate  friend, and the admirable sketches of the dis-
eased tongue, made by that talented draughtsman, Mr.
James Stewart.   Dr. B----acknowledges that he was
an excessive smoker himself for years, until he  became
so nervous, that he could not steady his hand, when he
" threw away tobacco  forever."   Here I may remark,
how  many  narrow escapes of  having cancer  of the 
  48    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

  tongue must every smoker have  had, when we consider
  that every one with a disordered  stomach has had one
  or more pimples  on his tongue,  which, had they been
  irritated with pungent tobacco smoke, as in Dr. B----'s
  case, would in all  probability have ended in ulceration,
  becoming cancerous, and ending fatally.
    60. Although the subject is yet far from being ex-
  hausted,  "the  tobacco  controversy" has  nevertheless
  elicited much additional information, valuable  because
  practical, as  to the effect  of smoking on the  human
  body, both in a physiological, pathological, and  thera-
  peutic aspect.  The liberal and  enlightened policy of
  the editor of the Lancet, by opening  the columns of his
  journal as  the  medium for impartial investigation, de-
  serves the warmest expression of thanks, not less from
  the profession than the public; and I make no apology
  for availing myself of the many interesting contributions
  which have there  appeared on the subject.
    61. Experience is the only test to confirm the deci-
  sions of truth, and refute the errors  of mere authority.
  But its verdict unfortunately is in  many cases injuriously
  delayed, in  consequence of  long-protracted and mislead-
a ing exculpatory pleadings.  " The evil that men do lives
  after them; the good is oft interred with their bones •"
  and this holds equally true with the customs, habits, etc.
  of a country.   The evils these occasion, live after them.
  Their extent  and  magnitude are only known after they
  have become so apparent that they cannot longer be de-
  nied.  And if the controversy evoked on the injurious
  effects of  excessive smoking, should gradually arrest the
  progress of so dangerous a luxury,  and sensibly diminish 
         PRACTICAL  OBSERVATIONS.      49

 a mischief which is unlimited, in a certain sense, almost
 either as to extent or duration, the author will rest satis-
 fied that his own exertions, with the powerful co-opera-
 tion which  he has received from others, have not been
 in vain.  He would earnestly indeed rejoice,  if the na-
 tional authorities here would adopt the same regulations
 which obtain in  Switzerland.  There, we are told, "that
 the Governing Council of the Canton of Berne have just
 enacted, that young men who are  as yet unconfirmed
 (confirmation is administered in Switzerland between
 the  fifteenth and sixteenth year) are prohibited from
 using tobacco."  As the Council came to this determi-
 nation  in consequence of their belief in  the deleterious
 effects of tobacco on the  human frame, it seems equally
 to be the duty of the Council to extend their regulations,
 by a general prohibition, when they consider that the
 health of the community is injured by the use of tobacco.
   62. I consider it my duty to append Dr. Hassall's truly
 valuable and warning remarks on tobacco smoking — to
 whose long  and truly invaluable practical labors in the
 field, as well as  by his writings  on "adulterations de-
 tected," the nation owes a debt of gratitude which never
 can  be repaid.   " Tobacco owes  its  chief properties to
 the  presence of  two active  principles, termed nicotina
 and  nicotianin.   The first  of these, nicotina, is  thus
 characterized: It is liquid and volatile,  with an acrid
 burning taste, and possesses  the strong odor of tobacco;
to test-paper, it shows an alkaline reaction; water, ether,
alcohol, and  the  oils dissolve it.   It combines with va-
rious organic and inorganic acids to form salts.  1000
grains of tobacco yield, according to the kind used, from
                          D 
50    tobacco: its  use  and  abuse.

3.86 to 11.28 grains of nicotina.  The action of nicotina
on the human frame is that of an acrid, narcotic poison,
causing giddiness  and vomiting, and, in  doses of a few
grains, death.
  " The  properties of the latter, nicotianin, are as fol-
low : It is  a concrete  oily substance, having the smell
of tobacco, and a bitter taste.  It is volatile; the dilute
acids and water do not dissolve it, but it is soluble in
liquor potassae and ether.  In swallowing nicotianin, the
same sensation  is produced on the tongue and fauces as
by tobacco.  A grain administered  internally, quickly
caused giddiness, nausea, and retching.  It also produces
sneezing when applied to the nose.  Six pounds of to-
bacco leaves furnish about eleven grains of nicotianin.
It is also known as ' concrete oil of tobacco^ and ' tobacco
camphor.'
   " Both these active principles and constituents have
been shown, by Zeise and Melsens, to be present in the
smoke of tobacco: they are, therefore, undoubtedly not de-
stroyed by the combustion of the tobacco, whether used
in the form of  cut tobacco or cigars; but in the  act of
smoking they are inhaled, and thus  drawn into the mouth,
fauces, lungs, and even the stomach, especially when the
saliva, impregnated with the tobacco smoke, is swallowed.
Further, that these active constituents are  actually ab-
sorbed, and make  their way into the system,  is proved
from the sickness, giddiness, and death-like  faintness
experienced by those who are unaccustomed to smoking;
that they are absorbed to some degree, if not to the same
extent, in the case of habitual smokers of tobacco, is un-
questionable — the difference in the effects experienced 
practical observations.       51
being due to the circumstance of the  system becoming
more inured to its use, and therefore less susceptible of
its influence."
  63. In a moral and  physical point of view, the  im-
portance of the inquiry cannot be over-estimated.  The
strongest proof of this, is attested by the fact, that, du-
ring last year, not less than  twenty-eight million  lbs.
(28,000,000) of tobacco were consumed in Great Bri-
tain, exclusive of the large portion smuggled, which can-
not be estimated.
   64. A vast load of responsibility is  devolved upon the
members of the medical profession, who are, if not the
sole, by far the most competent section of the commu-
nity to  pronounce a judgment on, and solve so important
an inquiry.  So far as the discussion has progressed, the
three following  deductions have been indisputably esta-
blished by unquestionable medical testimony:
   1st.  That excessive smoking, long  persisted in, is in-
 jurious to man in the highest degree — physically, men-
 tally, and morally.
   Idly. That the commencement  of smoking in early
 life, and indulgence in the practice early in the  day,
 cannot  be  too strongly condemned, as  leading  to. most
 pernicious effects on the constitution.
   Sdly. That smoking, even in what is called a moderate
 degree, is, to say the very least of it, indirectly injurious,
 more especially to the young; because  it is not denied,
 it acts as  an inducement to drinking — thus becoming
 the source  of intemperance, and  all its accompanying
 evils.   It  is notorious that the practices are, almost
 without exception, inseparably  associated.   The remark 
52     tobacco:  its  use and abuse.

has  become a  maxim:  " Smoking induces  drinking,
drinking jaundice, and  jaundice  death."
  65. If insurance companies would act upon Mr. Solly's
test__the peculiar morbid condition of the palate and
fauces as  proving inveterate  smoking — and raise the
annual premiums to smokers in whom such appearances
were detected, as on  hazardous insurances, the practice
of smoking might receive that great arid salutary check,
from motives of self-interest, which  admonition  and
warning, as to the evils resulting from the noxious weed,
have failed to effect:  and the detection, by Mr. Erichsen,
of the mixture of so many deleterious and  poisonous
ingredients in the  manufacture of snuff, it is to be ex-
pected, may, in like manner, operate upon the selfish feel-
ings of the snuffer, and  powerfully tend to root out his
disgusting habit. 
COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   53
                  CHAPTER  III.

          COMMUNICATIONS  AND EXTRACTS.

  66. In his valuable work on the " Nature and Treat-
ment of Stomach  and Urinary Diseases," Dr. Prout, at
pages 24 and 25, observes: " There is an article much
used  in  various ways, though not as an  aliment, the
deleterious effects of which on the assimilating organs,
&c, require to be briefly noticed, viz., tobacco. Although
confessedly one of the most virulent poisons in nature,
yet such is  the fascinating  influence of this noxious
weed, that mankind resort to it in every mode  they can
devise, to ensure its stupefying and pernicious agency.
Tobacco disorders  the assimilating functions in general,
but particularly as I believe,  the assimilation of the sac-
charine principle.  I have never, indeed, been able  to
trace the development of oxalic  acid to the use of to-
bacco ; but that some analogous and equally poisonous
principle (probably of an acid  nature,) is generated  in
certain individuals by its abuse, is evident from their
cachectic looks, and from the dark and often greenish-
yellow tint of  their  blood.  The  severe and  peculiar
dyspeptic symptoms sometimes  produced by inveterate
snuff-taking are well known;  and I have more than once
seen such cases terminate fatally with malignant disease
of the stomach  and liver.   Great smokers, also, espe- 
54     TOBACCO:  ITS USE AND  ABUSE.

dally those who employ short pipes and cigars, are said
to be liable to cancerous affections of the lips.  But it
happens  with tobacco, as with deleterious articles of
diet, the strong and healthy suffer comparatively little,
while the weak  and predisposed to  disease fall victims
to its poisonous operation.   Surely, if the dictates of
reason were  allowed to prevail, an article so injurious to
the health, and so offensive  in  all its forms and modes
of employment,  would speedily be banishe#d from com-
mon use."
  67. Professor Petit-Radel  is said to have died of cancer
of the pylorus, consequent on smoking tobacco.
  68. Bouissiron states  that he has seen many smokers
perish of atrophy.
  69. Pereira, in his valuable work on Chemistry and
Materia Medica, page 1426, states, that " Nicotina is an
energetic poison, almost equalling  in  activity hydrocy-
anic acid."
  70. In the Dictionnaire  des Sciences  Medicaids for
1821, two brothers  are  said to have smoked until they
died of  apoplexy—the one  after  smoking  seventeen
pipes, the other eighteen pipes.  Fourcroy cites several
instances of the destructive effects of tobacco  in  his
translation of Ramazzani.   The  little daughter of a to-
bacco  merchant died  in  frightful convulsions, from
having  slept  in  a  chamber where  a great quantity of
tobacco had been rasped.  An intoxicated soldier swal-
lowed  his saliva impregnated with tobacco, awoke in
strong convulsions, and  nearly became insane.   I have
strong suspicions that such a  melancholy event as  the
latter must have occurred frequently. 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND EXTRACTS.    55

  71. Orfila, in his General System of Toxicology, 1817,
Vol. II., page 211, quotes the following experiments to
show the poisonous qualities of tobacco: " Sir Benjamin
Brodie injected into the rectum of several dogs, and one
cat, from one to four ounces  of a strong infusion of to-
bacco; these animals became insensible, motionless, and
all died in less than ten minutes;  the pulsations of the
heart were no more sensible a minute before death; one
of them only vomited.  Their bodies were opened imme-
diately after death; the heart was very much distended,
and no longer contracted."
  72. Sir B. Brodie states in his Physiological Researches,
published in 1851, under Effects of  Vegetable Poisons:
" We may conclude from these experiments, that  the
empyreumatic oil of tobacco occasions death, by destroy-
ing the functions of the brain, without directly acting on
the  circulation.  In other words,  its effects are similar
to those of alcohol, the juice of aconite, and the essential
oil of almonds."
   73.  In volume seventh of the Biographical Dictionary,
the Rev. Mr.  Rose, under the life of Richard Fletcher,
Bishop of London, informs us, that " he (the Bishop)
was  very fond of tobacco, then little known, and that
Camden imputes his death to the immoderate use of it."
And Camden, in his Annals, 3d edition, p. 469, transla-
tion, states that " Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London,
a courtly prelate, who, while by immoderate use of to-
bacco he smothered the cares he  took by means of his
unlucky marriage, and by the Queen misliked (who did
not so well like  of married  bishops), breathed  out his
life."  The Bishop died in 1596. 
56     TOBACCO:  ITS USE  AND  ABUSE.

   74.  Dr. Cleland, in his  treatise  on the  Properties
Chemical and Medical, of Tobacco, states that " the cir-
cumstance which  induced Amurath the Fourth to be so
strict in punishing tobacco smokers, was the dread which
he entertained  of the  population being thereby  dimin-
ished, from  the antiphrodisiac property which he sup-
posed tobacco to possess"—vide Cleland on the History
and Properties, Chemical and Medical, of Tobacco, p. G.
If, as I understand, Amurath is synonymous with Mourad,
the antiphrodisiac properties of tobacco must have been
a subject of credence and observation so early as the first
part of the seventeenth century, the period of the reign
of the fourth Amurath or Mourad, extending from 1622
to 1640.
   The Counter-blast of  King James  had considerably
preceded the prohibitory punishment against the  use of
tobacco by the  Ottoman Sultan.
   75. The injurious properties of tobacco are determined
by the following analysis of its chemical constituents by
Professor Johnston, of Durham,  in his  Chemistry of
Common Life :  " These are three in number: a volatile
oil, a volatile alkali, and an empyreumatic oil." ....
" The volatile oil has the odor of tobacco, and  possesses
a bitter taste.   On the mouth and throat it  produces  a
sensation similar to that caused by tobacco smoke.  When
applied to the nose, it occasions sneezing, and when taken
internally, it gives rise to giddiness, nausea, and  an in-
clination to vomit."   " The volatile  alkali  has the odor
of tobacco,  an  acrid, burning, long-continuing tobacco
taste, and possesses narcotic and  very poisonous quali-
ties.  In  this  latter  respect, it is scarcely  inferior to 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   57

prussic acid—a single drop being sufficient to kill a dog.
Its vapor is so irritating, that it is difficult to breathe in
a room in which a single drop has been evaporated.  The
reader  may  recollect the  great  sensation  produced  in
1851,  by the trial of the  Comte de Bocarme, at Mons,
and his subsequent execution, for poisoning his brother-
in-law with nicotin.  A hundred pounds of the dry to-
bacco-leaf yield about  seven  pounds of  nicotin.   In
smoking a hundred  grains of tobacco, therefore,  say a
quarter of an ounce,  there  may be drawn into the mouth
two grains or more of one of the most subtle of all known
poisons."  " The empyreumatic oil is acrid and disagree-
able to the taste, narcotic,  and  poisonous.  One drop ap-
plied to the tongue of a cat brought on convulsions, and
in two minutes occasioned death.   The Hottentots are
said to kill  snakes  by putting a  drop  of it  on  their
tongues.   Under its influence, the reptiles  die as in-
stantaneously as if killed  by an electric shock.   It ap-
pears to act nearly in the same way as prussic acid."
   " The crude oil is supposed to  be the  juice of the
cursed hebenon,"  described  by Shakspeare as a  distil-
ment.
                     "Sleeping within  mine orchard,
          My custom always of the afternoon,
          Upon my secure hour  thy uncle stole,
          With juice of cursed hebanon  in a vial,
         And in the porches  of mine ear did pour
          The  leperous distillment: whose effect
          Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
          That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
          The  natural  gates and alleys of the body;
         And with a sudden  vigour it doth posset
         And curd,  like eager droppings into milk, 
58    tobacco: its  use  and  abuse.

         The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine;
         And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
         Most lazar-like, with vile  and loathsome crust,
         All my smooth body."
                            Hamlet — Act L, Scene v.

  "The  cigar, especially if smoked to the  end, dis-
charges directly into the mouth of the smoker every-
thing that is produced by the burning.  Thus, the more
rapidly the  leaf burns  and the smoke is  inhaled, the
greater the proportion of the poisonous substances which
is drawn  into the mouth.  And  finally, when the saliva
is retained, the  fullest  effect of all the three narcotic
ingredients of the smoke  will  be  produced  upon the
nervous  system  of the smoker.  It is not surprising,
therefore, that those who have been accustomed to  smoke
cigars, especially of strong tobacco, should find  any other
pipe both tame  and  tasteless,  except the short black
cutty, which has lately come into favor among invete-
rate smokers.  Such persons live in an almost constant
state of narcotism  or narcotic drunkenness, which must
ultimately affect  the health even of the strongest.
  " The  chewer of tobacco, it will  be understood from
the above description, does not experience the  effects of
the poisonous oil which is produced during the burning
of the leaf.  The natural volatile oil and the nicotin are
the substances which act upon  him.  These, from the
quantity of them which he involuntarily swallows or ab-
sorbs, impair his  appetite,  and gradually  weaken his
powers of digestion.
  " The same remarks apply to the  taker of snuff.  But
his  drug  is still milder than that of the chewer.  Durin°- 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND EXTRACTS.   59

the first fermentation which the leaf undergoes in pre-
paring it for the manufacturer of snuff, and again during
the second fermentation^ after it is ground, a large pro-
portion of the nicotin escapes, or  is decomposed.   The
ammonia produced during these fermentations is partly
the result of this decomposition.  Further, the artificial
drying or roasting to  which tobacco is exposed in fitting
it for the dry snuffs, expels a portion of the natural vola-
tile oil, as well  as  an additional portion of the natural
volatile alkali or nicotin.  Manufactured snuff, therefore,
as it is drawn up into the nose, and especially dried snuff,
is much less  rich in active ingredients  than the natural
leaf.   Even  the rappees, though  generally made from
the strongest Virginian and  European tobaccoes, con-
taining five  or  six per cent, of nicotin, retain only two
per cent, when fully  manufactured."
   76.  The following  extracts are from King James's
"Counterblast to Tobacco," pp. 213-222 —a work from
its rarity inaccessible to the general reader, and which
may be considered not uninteresting by many, consider-
ing the  character  of the royal author, and the early
period at which his remarks were  published, nearly two
centuries and a half ago :
   " In my opinion," says the royal commentator, " there
cannot be a more base and yet more hurtful corruption
in a country, than is the vile use (or  rather abuse) of
taking tobacco  in this kingdom, which hath moved me
shortly to discover the abuses  thereof in  the following
little  pamphlet."  In the Counterblast to Tobacco, he
remarks : " That the manifold abuses of this vile custom
of Tobacco-taking  may the better be  espied, it  is fit, 
60    tobacco:  its  use  and  abuse.

that you first enter into consideration, both of the first
originall thereof, and likewise of the reasons of the first
entry  thereof into this country.  For certainly, as such
customs that have their first institution, either from a
godly, necessary, or honourable ground, and are first
brought in by the means of some worthy, vertuous, and
great personage, are ever and most justly holden in great
and reverend estimation and account, by all  wise, vir-
tuous, and temperate  spirits, so should it  by the con-
trary, justly bring a disgrace into that sort of customs,
which having their originall  from base corruption and
barbarity, do in like sort make their first entry into a
country, by an  inconsiderate and childish affectation of
novelty,  as is the true case  of the first invention  of
Tobacco-taking,  and of the first entry thereof  among
us.   For Tobacco was  first found  out by  some  of the
barbarous Indians."
  " Tobacco is, as you use or rather abuse it, a  branch
of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins."
" To take a custom in anything that cannot be left again,
is most harmful to the people of any land.  Mollicies
and delicacy were the wreck and overthrow, first of the
Persian and  next of the Roman empire.  And this very
custom  of taking Tobacco is even at this day accounted
so effeminate among the Indians themselves, as  in  the
market  they will offer  no price for a slave to be sold,
whom they find to be a great tobacco-taker."
  " Is it not a great vanity, that a man cannot heartily
welcome his friend now, but straight they must be in
hand  with tobacco; no, it is become in place of a  cure, a
point of good fellowship, and he that will refuse to take 
      communications  and  extracts.   61

a pipe of tobacco among his fellows (though by his own
election he would rather feel  the savour of a sinke), is
accounted peevish and no good company, even as  they
do with tippling in the cold eastern countries.  Yea, the
mistress cannot in a more mannerly kind entertain her
servant, than by giving her, out of her fair  hand, a pipe
of tobacco."
  " Moreover, which is a great iniquity and against all
humanity, the husband  shall not be ashamed to reduce
thereby his delicate, wholesome, and clean-complexioned
wife to  that extremity, that either she must also corrupt
her sweet breath therewith, or else resolve  to  live in  a
perpetual stinking torment."
  He concludes thus  in  reference to smoking: " Have
you  not reason  then to be ashamed, and to forbear this
filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly  received,
and so grossly mistaken, in the right use thereof."   "A
custom  loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful
to the brain, dangerous  to the lungs, and in the  black,
stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling  the horrible
Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."
   Vide " Workes of the Most High and Mightie Prince
James,  by the grace of God, King of Great Britain,"
&c, 1616.
  77. The following extract is from an able article on
the United States, which appeared in the London  Spec-
tator of July 5th, 1856 :
  " We have been long familiar with the fact, that the
manners and social habits of Americans are not to our
taste, and that few persons who could obtain a respect-
able  maintenance in Europe, would find the change to
       16 
62     tobacco: its  use and abuse.

the United States a change for the better.....
It is  in  startling  contrast with  our ordinary train of
thought about the United States, to hear it even whis-
pered as a possibility, that the race of men which inhabit
the country is  undergoing a  process of physical and
moral degeneracy;  that  the  symptoms  we  have been
accustomed to consider as evidences of growth are really
proofs of decay; that the people are, like medlars, rotten
before they are ripe; and that a premature senility is
the true characteristic of the great Anglo-Celtic Republic
of the West.   That such a theory  should  have been
started, gives one a shock, which does not pass off when
the facts upon which it professes to rest are  calmly con-
sidered.  It is said, for instance, that the bulk of Ameri-
cans  live thoroughly  unwholesome lives;  consuming
inordinate quantities of  spirituous  liquors from  youth
Upward, and at  all hours of the day smoking and chewing
tobacco to excess, eating greedily, and giving themselves
no time to digest their food, always  in a bustle and ex-
citement, enjoying neither quiet  nor rational recreation,
nor domestic peace.  And how few Americans has  any
Englishman known of  whom he could  say, that they
were  genial or happy!  what an  anxious, nervous, hag-
gard  expression of face, is that by which we instinctively
recognize  a Yankee everywhere!  how  completely the
manner,  and countenance, and  figure  of  the  typical
Yankee answer to this  account of the usual life of the
people !.....What if the bad habits  of men
and women, acting with a climate that tends to exhaust
vitality, should  really in a few generations have produced
a palpable inferiority of physique ?   The positive asser- 
     communications and extracts.   63

tion of this degeneration would indeed be most unphilo-
sophical, on  a  basis  of  facts such  as are  patent  to
common observation;  but that these facts are patent, is
sufficient to  excite the alarm  and  sharpen the  self-
watchfulness of all classes of Americans, who can look
forward to the tremendous consequences of a degrada-
tion of the national nerve and muscle, through intempe-
rance and bad habits of living.......The
fashionable  classes of American  society are  more noto-
rious  for  their  luxury than  for  their  refinement  or
ambition."
   78. I am given to understand  that there exists a rule
among  a  large and  influential  religious sect,  when  a
student presents himself as a candidate for examination
for ordination, which  compels him to answer, Whether
he smokes tobacco, or uses it in  any form ?  If he con-
fesses he does so, he is remitted  to his studies until he
gives it up,  and can aver that he has " thrown away to-
bacco for ever."
   79.  The  great Wesley, I  believe, first suggested the
rule, which still obtains, that no minister connected with
the Wesleyan body should use snuff  or tobacco, unless
prescribed by a physician.
   80. Adam Clarke,  LL. D., a Methodist divine,  pub-
lished in 1837, among his detached pieces, a dissertation
on " the Use and Abuse of Tobacco."  It is unnecessary
for me to enter at present into a formal criticism of his
treatise, but in referring to such authority in support of
my views, I  may be  permitted  to quote the following
case.   At page 29, he says :  "A person of my acquaint-
ance, who had  been an immoderate snuff-taker for up- 
64     tobacco:  ITS USE  AND  ABUSE.

wards  of forty years, was  frequently afflicted with a
sudden suppression of breathing, occasioned by a para-
lytic state of the muscles which serve for respiration.
These  affections  grew more and more alarming, and
seriously threatened her life.  The only relief she got in
such cases, was from  a cup of cold water poured  down
her throat.  This became so necessary to her, that she
could never venture to attend  even a place of worship,
without having a small vessel of water with her, and a
friend  to administer it.   At  last she left off snuff; the
muscles  re-acquired their proper tone, and, in a short
time after, she was entirely cured of a disorder, occa-
sioned solely by her attachment to the snuff-box, and to
which  she had nearly fallen a victim."
  81.  Anton, in  his  interesting " Retrospect of a Mili-
tary Life," relates the death  of one of the sergeants  of
the 42d  Regiment  from smoking tobacco, which  appa-
rently  had induced apoplexy.  See page 154.  On con-
versing with  Mr.  Anton, he states that the sergeant was
an excessive smoker of the weed.
  82.  The Paris correspondent of the New Orleans Pica-
yune, in recording  the  death of the poet Berat, says:
" Berat was not forty-five years old.   He, too, was slain
by that disease which is so fell a destroyer to our con-
temporaries, and especially to Frenchmen—the softening
of the spinal marrow.   Trousseau attributes to the ex-
cessive use of tobacco the fatal effects on the nervous
system.  Roger  Collard, who died  in the  dawn of a
most brilliant career, some three years ago, of this ter-
rible disease, attributed his untimely end  to his cigar.
Count D'Orsay was another  victim of this  disease, and 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   65

his death  made a profound impression on the Emperor,
who  at  once sent his physician,  Bretonneau, to whom
the Count complained of fatigue  in all his  members —
of enervation.   Dr. Bretonneau  replied, 'You  surely
smoke some twelve or fifteen cigars a-day.   Smoke less.
Abstain, if you  can, altogether from smoking, and you
will end these symptoms of weakness and enervation.'"
   83. In the able Clinical Lecture of Mr. Solly, Surgeon
of St. Thomas's Hospital, on Paralysis, there occurs the
following statement:
   " There was another habit, also, in which my patient
indulged,  and which I cannot  but regard as the  curse
of the present age — I mean smoking.  Now, don't be
frightened, my young friends, I am not going to give a
sermon  against smoking—that is  not my business; but
it is my business to point out to you all the  various and
insidious causes  of general paralysis, and smoking is one
of them.   / know of no single vice which does so much
harm 'as  smoking.  It is a snare and a delusion.  It
soothes  the excited nervous system at the time, to render
it more  irritable  and more feeble  ultimately.  It is like
opium in that respect; and if  you want to know all the
wretchedness which this  drug  can produce, you should
read the < Confessions of an Opium-eater.' I can always
distinguish by his complexion,a man who smokes much;
and the appearance which the fauces present, is an un-
erring  guide to  the habits  of such a man.  I believe
that  cases  of general paralysis are  more  frequent in
England than they used to be,  and  I suspect that
smoking tobacco is one of the causes of that increase."
— Vide  Lancet for 13th December, 1856, page 641.
                         E 
66    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.,

  84. I lately visited a gentleman in a Lunatic Asylum,
laboring under general paralysis, and his mind becoming
idiotical.  On corresponding with  his former  medical
attendant, I understand his habits were, that he lived
temperately as  regarded drink,  but worked hard in a
mercantile house, and smoked to excess; the phrase he
makes use of is — that " he blazed  away at a fearful
rate."
  85.  In  Dr. William  Henderson's  work  on   "Plain
Rules for Improving Health," second edition, pages 87,
88,  89, and  261, there are  cases of dyspepsia, palpita-
tion of the  heart, of insanity,  etc. produced by using
tobaceo.  One gentleman, " from having been one of the
most healthy and fearless men, became one of the most
timid.   He  could not present a petition, much  less say
a word concerning it, though he was a practising lawyer.
He  was afraid to be left alone at night."
  In the cases of insanity mentioned by him, the patients
" had used tobacco to excess, though perfectly temperate
otherwise, as regarded drink."
  The reader is referred to pages 18 and 52, for further
information  on mania.
  86. In the Lancet  for 3d January, 1857, Mr. Fenn
thus describes  the  result of his investigations  on  the
effects of tobacco:
  " Tobacco," says  he, " has the effect of relaxing  the
skin and mucous membranes, causing the latter to pour
out their secretions more freely, and to shed the epithe-
lium more rapidly;  at the same time, the sensibility of
the nervous system is greatly depressed, and the vital
force diminished.  On account of its softening  and re- 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   67

laxing effect upon the mucous membrane of the bowels,
it is greatly resorted  to  in  habitual constipation.  But
it will be seen that this weakening influence is  exerted
upon the organ liable to be most seriously affected in
typhoid  fever, and very frequently is the predisposing
cause of the uncontrollable diarrhoea  and haemorrhage
which occur in such cases.  I have seen very mild cases
of typhoid fever rendered fatal, from the excessive use
of tobacco, either from diarrhoea or peritonitis, the result
of perforation.   Now perforation  scarcely ever occurs
until the patient is moribund, and the body semi-putrid;
but  the  immoderate  use of tobacco  will predispose to
perforation under very different circumstances.    For in-
stance, a gentleman in my practice had progressed very
favorably to the  fifteenth  day  of typhoid  fever:  the
diarrhoea was very moderate, and the  symptoms altoge-
ther so mild as to call for a purely expectant treatment,
nourishment, with very little stimulant, sufficing to keep
the patient  in a very fair condition from day to day.  On
the  fifteenth day his bowels were relaxed at 6 in the
morning; at 5  p. M.  he got out to have his bed made,
and  as his bowels had not moved since 6 a.m., he thought
it might save getting out again if he could evacuate them
at the same time; for this purpose he made a straining
effort, and  almost instantly felt something give  way; a
violent pain ran rapidly across the region of the bladder,
and  soon diffused itself over the whole  abdomen; tym-
pany occurred within an hour, and in twenty-four hours
he died from peritonitis, the result of perforation of the
small  intestine.   A milder  case  than  this  I never  saw,
but  the patient  was accustomed to smoke  ten or twelve 
68    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

cigars daily.   I could quote other cases almost parallel,
where the immoderate  me  of tobacco destroyed  all the
chances  of recovery, in otherwise  favorable  or  merely
doubtful cases of typhoid."  How many  of  our brave
soldiers  must  have died at Varna, Burmah,  and other
localities, where diarrhoea,  dysentery, and cholera were
epidemic, and where  tobacco was consumed immode-
rately !   I should imagine  that  the greater number of
those who died suddenly, and in agony, must have had
perforated intestine.
  The reader is referred to page 53, Prout's experience,
which in a measure confirms this.
  87. Dr. B----, an experienced  physician, has kindly
communicated the following interesting and satisfactory
case of a near relative, who fell  a victim to tobacco
smoking, which produced  cancerous ulceration  of the
tongue;  also a graphic delineation of the disease.
  Mr. A., a gentleman about fifty-eight years of  age, of
a strong wiry frame and healthy constitution, none of
whose relations had ever had a cancerous affection, was
observed, in  1831, to  articulate  with difficulty — his
tongue being too large for his mouth.  On being inter-
rogated  by a medical friend, a relation of his own, he
acknowledged that he was a devoted victim to the weed.
His tongue at this time was enlarged, firm, and coated
with a  white  crust, somewhat resembling the  confec-
tionery named kisses.   There was a sulcus in the centre
of the tongue, with a bright red line at the base.  The
sore was washed with a solution of the  chlorate of soda
before this sketch was  taken.  His medical  attendant
to induce him to give up  smoking, informed him that 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   69

the disease of his tongue would kill him; so that he at
once " threw away tobacco forever."
   From  this time the  disease progressively got worse.
In May,  1833, the patient, accompanied  by his medical
relation,  visited London, and consulted Sir Astley Cooper,
when the patient put the following question to Sir Astley:
" Had I  come early enough, could I have been cured ?"
—to which Sir Astley replied : " Sir, there never was a
time early enough to have warranted an operation: every
fibre, every papilla  of your tongue  is diseased;  and it
would have  been merciful  to have clapped a pistol to
your  head, the instant the disease  began."  Sir Astley
prescribed for him, but to no purpose, as the  disease
increased with a rapidity inconceivable;  for by the end
of June, the anterior portion had  mouldered away (so
graphically described by his medical attendant);  the
tongue  being previously cleansed  by the  chlorate of
soda, in  doing  which  the  foetor was intolerable.   He
now suffered acute pain, and was obliged  to take morphia
every night.  His pulse was from 120 to 160.  In July,
his spirits began to be dreadfully depressed, accompanied
with  pains  in his head, and  he  at this time remained
chiefly in bed.
   By the 24th, the ulceration had extended  to  the
fauces, and  the  glands  at the angle  of the  lower jaw
bone became  swollen.   Deglutition was  now difficult
and painful, and his strength began to fail—but still no
haemorrhage.
   By the middle of  August, the tongue had mouldered
 away—the  stump presenting an  irregular, lumpy sur-
 face, covered  with a  flocculent, dirty, greenish-white 
70     TOBACCO:  ITS USE  AND  ABUSE.

deposit, and the ulceration  extending on the left side to
the os hyoides, accompanied with a most offensive dis-
charge.  There was a spasmodic  difficulty in swallowing,
a troublesome  cough, with difficult expectoration, great
mental depression, and hallucination of mind.
  On the 25th of this month, for the first time, an oozing
of arterial blood took place, but not to any extent.   His
pulse was 130, and very weak—some aberration of mind.
Cough very incessant during the night, and he appeared
in great agony.
  In the beginning of September he became very weak,
so that he was confined to bed, passing restless nights,
with profuse perspirations:   His mind much affected,
breathing very difficult, with constant  expectoration of
viscid phlegm mixed with blood.   When he attempted
to swallow fluids, they were returned  by  the nostrils.
The dressing  the extensively-ulcerated surface caused
severe pain, and the fcetor was excessively offensive.  The
sub-maxillary glands were now greatly enlarged.   Pulse
generally above 120.
  By the 25th September, the whole of the uvula, velum,
and  tonsils were  destroyed by  the  ulceration.    The
glands at the angle of the  lower jaw  larger and  more
painful.   He was then unable to swallow, and  hence
could take no nourishment.
  From this to the  2d October, all his symptoms be-
came aggravated, the salivation  more  profuse, the per-
spirations more abundant, and the difficulty of breathino-
insupportable; and after three hours of intense sufferino-
he expired.   "All the death-bed scenes and death-bed
sufferings I  had  ever witnessed,"  says  his  medical 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   71

friend,  " were  comparatively  easy,  to the  individual
agonies and gaspings for breath  this kind  and amiable
man was destined  to  endure."  His  medical friend
adds :  " The disease is novel and unique to me" —" it
has differed  in its appearance  and  progress from any
and every disease of the tongue that I have ever seen or
read of."
  Professor Bennet, in his microscopic examination of a
section of the late D. R.'s tongue, goes to corroborate the
above view.
  Query—If the ulceration differs from  carcinoma, a
smoker runs the risk of two diseases, viz., carcinomatous
sarcoma, and carcinomatous nicotianum ?
  A case precisely similar to Mr. A/s, I have  received
from my friend Dr. Tod, of Gilmore  Place.
  88.  A middle-aged woman, an inveterate smoker, was
alarmed at seeing a small warty-looking growth in the
centre of her tongue, which frequently gave her a sting-
ing pain, and which she requested a neighbor to look at.
She continued  to  smoke her pipe, never dreaming that
the tobacco was the cause of her sufferings, until the
excrescence began to ulcerate, which it did rapidly, and
extended to the root of her tongue, destroying the ante-
rior portion by sloughing, and ultimately destroying life
in twelve months.
  89.  J. T----,  aetatis 46, consulted Dr. Tod, of Gil-
more Place, in  the middle of January, 1856, regarding
a slight swelling on the right side of his tongue, which
was  attributed  partly to  decayed teeth, and partly  to
smoking tobacco.   He consumed two ounces weekly with
a pipe.  His wife states, that whenever any thing agi- 
72     TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

tated  him, he  flew to the pipe,  and smoked until  ho
trembled  nervously.   He " threw  away  tobacco  for-
ever."   As three of the contiguous teeth were decayed,
with ragged  edges,  they  were immediately extracted,
but without any benefit.   In a short time, a fissure took
place at the swollen point, which  increasing, I was con-
sulted, and,  after a careful  examination, it  was pro-
nounced  cancerous, and recommended to be treated  by
ligature.   On the 14th July, 1856, ligatures were passed
from under the tongue to  its upper surface, so as to in-
clude all  the disease;  but on the fifth day, such smart
haemorrhage  took  place from the  central ligature, that
they required to be removed,  and the actual cautery  ap-
plied.   The  cautery was  repeated very often  in  conse-
quence of the  bleeding  occurring.   [The  manner  of
applying  ligatures  to  the tongue, when  affected with
cancer, is delineated in Fig. 4 of Plate XXXVIII. of my
Practical  Surgery, 2d edition, and described at page 305
of the same work.]
  In  September following, the glands at the angle of
the jaw became swollen, and threatened  suffocation.
The ulceration spread rapidly, involving the right half
of the tongue.  At this  time he was sadly tormented
with profuse salivation, and foetor of breath.  His pulse
from first to last has never been  under 100, but often
above.
  Towards the  end of October, fearful haemorrhage took
place, requiring Dr.  Tod  to sit up all the  night of  the
27th, applying  one actual cautery at a black heat after
another.   Next day his tongue was swollen as if he had
been  severely  salivated with  mercury, the point pro- 
      COMMUNICATIONS AND  EXTRACTS.    73

 jecting an inch or two beyond the lips and teeth, and
 very turgid.
   3d November. — Tongue  still tremendously  swollen
 and pallid, causing perpetual exudation of the saliva,
 and preventing him swallowing.   He is now much ema-
 ciated, and the pulse never under 110.   The  glands at
 the back of the tongue and neck are much increased in
 size.
   10th November. — His tongue now projects  beyond
 his teeth fully two inches,  and he  cannot  retract it.
 The teeth are beginning to indent themselves in the soft
 tongue, and threaten  to cut it in two.  His existence is
 now kept up, more by nutrient enemata, than by nourish-
 ment from the  mouth, the difficulty of swallowing  is so
 distressing.
   19th. — Dr.  Tod nipped, with the bone pliers, the
 upper teeth parallel with the gum, which gave  him some
 relief.
   3d December. — His face has  a hideous appearance,
 from  the  protruded swollen tongue, which  is daily be-
 coming more  detached  by  the ulceration  extending
 across, and from the  enormously swollen glands of the
 neck.  He is unable to  swallow any quantity,  and is
 therefore  still  nourished  by enemata.  In  the night
 time,  his breathing is so laborious, that it can be heard
 in the  adjoining  room.   Smell of  tongue  still  very
 offensive.
   22d.—At his solicitation we have this day put a liga-
ture in the fossa, between the root and the projecting
portion of the tongue, to facilitate the separation of the
latter.   While  tightening the ligature, a point  of the 
74    tobacco:  its  use  and  abuse.

surface  of the projected  part  bled a little, but  soon
stopped.   We punctured  the tumor below his chin, as
it pointed, and the  skin threatened to inflame and ulce-
rate.  Strumous-looking matter, whey-colored, with flakes
of lymph, flowed.
  1st January, 1857.—Whenever the ligature is tight-
ened, it threatens to  bleed.  He is now fearfully ema-
ciated, pulse  hardly  perceptible,  and he is  delirious
during the night.   Bleeding occurs from time to  time
to the extent of an  ounce  or so, but is easily checked.
  4th. — For the last four days, life has been  ebbing
apace, but fortunately no pain of any consequence.   He
expired at 3 o'clock, p. M.  He died more from inanition
than any other cause.
  90. Upon investigation,  I find that the late Dr. R----
fell a victim to the smoking of tobacco, and hence I give
a brief description of his  case, which has already been
published, but with  no reference to the cause — tobacco.
I had myself often  seen him smoking, and on inquiry
at his nearest relatives', I understand that he was devoted
to the custom. One  of his relatives states, that he smoked
till within two months of his death; and his biographer
writes, that " in the evening he obtained temporary relief
from a cigar."  Now,  unless Dr. R----had been accus-
tomed to the  pernicious weed, he never would have been
able, with an ulcerated tongue, to smoke a cigar.
  His biographer thus writes:  " In the  month  of No-
vember, 1847, a small blister appeared on his  tongue,
which before long  opened into  an ulcer, betraying the
symptoms of cancer — a disease which, in spite  of the
advancement of medicine, is still  almost  synonymous 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   75

with protracted, unappeasable torture, and painful, lin-
gering death."
  In May, 1848, he consulted the surgical staff of Lon-
don, from Sir Benjamin Brodie downwards, who tried to
dissuade him from an operation; so that he returned to
Scotland.
  In July, 1848, the ulcerated surface was the size of a
five-shilling piece, and soon afterwards a lymphatic gland
appeared enlarged on the right side of his neck. On the
last day  of August, 1848, he  prevailed on a dexterous
operator to  excise  it, which  was  accordingly done
most scientifically.   In a week, trifling bleeding super-
vened.
  Professor Bennet, of this University, a most profound
physiologist, examined the excised portion of the tongue,
and thus remarks:
  " I took the utmost pains to make out all the facts
connected with the structure of this  lesion;  and it will
be seen, on comparing  the figures  representing it with
those illustrating the  formation of cancerous growths,
that they differ materially.  In this, as in  most other
cases of epithelial ulceration, the disease commenced at
the surface, producing increased formation of epithelial
cells, and great thickening and induration by their con-
densation.   A true cancer always commences below the
epithelium, in the  form of a white deposit,  which soon
appears  as a  nodule, and  by its pressure subsequently
causes ulceration through the mucous coat. A thin slice
of the hardened schirrus-looking matter presented a very
different appearance from that observed in similar slices
removed from cancerous growths, and exhibiting nothing 
76    tobacco: its  use and  abuse.

but epithelial scales, more or less condensed and pressed
together."
  In November, 1848, the submaxillary glands enlarged,
and were excised.  These, when carefully examined, ex-
hibited  the same  epithelial form of morbid  growth 'as
affects the tongue or face.
  On the  16th July,  1849,  bleeding took place, and
again on  the  18th, violent haemorrhage occurred,  fol-
lowed by great exhaustion.   For several days  no food
or drink  was  taken.   Every function  but  breathing
seemed suspended.  When sensitiveness  to all  else ap-
peared extinct, the  consciousness of agony  returned;
and before the final close, which took place on the 30th
of that month, the suffering, but for chloroform, would
have been extreme.
  Here  I  may remark, that it seems  as malignant and
as painful a disease as exists; so that, to the sufferer, it
is immaterial whether it is cancroid or carcinomatous.
  Dr. R----is described by his biographer as enjoying
health in its fullest measure when attacked — "that he
had a robust body, great physical strength, a sanguine
temperament, a vigorous  intellect, a happy temper, and
a resolute, courageous spirit."
  91. A merchant in Dublin  lately fell a victim to can-
cer  of the tongue, produced by  smoking.    A  friend,
whose authority is undoubted, visited him a few days
before his  death;  but the picture was so  appalling that
he could not make up his mind to see him  again.  He
was sitting surrounded by an amiable family, writhing
in agony, and unable to speak or swallow, from his tongue
having mouldered away.  He  was  reduced nine stone in 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   77

a few months.   I wrote his ordinary medical attendant
to furnish me with a narrative of his case, which I have
not yet obtained.
   92.  From the cases I have recorded, I may presume
that a person with a cancerous  diathesis, or predisposi-
tion or constitution, smoking a cutty pipe, must be liable
to communicate the disease to another who might  take
up the same pipe.
   93.  In the  syphilitic constitution, the  mucous mem-
brane  of the  mouth is very prone to  excitement and
ulceration;  and if the latter is produced  by smoking
tobacco,  the ulceration, in nine cases  out of ten, will
degenerate  into cancerous  or cancroid ulceration, and
prove fatal,  after lingering and cruel sufferings.
   94.  Since I commenced the  investigation of cancer
of the tongue, I have been led to consider the structure
of the tongue.   1st. Can the papillae be the termination
of the nerves of sensation — the glossopharyngeal and
the gustatory branches of the inferior maxillary nerves ?
2dly. Do these nerves of sensation terminate in pulpy
matter, like the other nerves of sensation ?   Thus, the
olfactory nerves spread  like pulp on the  mucous mem-
brane of the nares, after passing through  the cribriform
plate of the ethmoid bone; the optic nerve becomes the
retina, after piercing the  sclerotic  coat of the eye; the
auditory is distributed on the labyrinth of the ear, viz.
the cochlea, vestibule, and three  semi-circular  canals.
The nerves  of the fingers form the pacinian bodies.
   Reasoning from  analogy, therefore, that  four of the
senses — smelling, seeing, hearing,  and touching — are
supplied with nerves which terminate in pulpy expanse,
       17 
78    tobacco: its  use  and  abuse.

it seems  consistent to expect to find the same arrange-
ment or distribution in the nerves of tasting.   In Kbl-
liker's  able work on human histology, he describes the
various  tissues  of the tongue as being very minute and
delicate; but he says:  " I have been unable to make
out, with certainty, how the nerves terminate; yet every-
thing appeared to indicate the existence of loops — not,
however, in  the simple papillae,  but  at  their base."
Kblliker quotes " Remark," who states that " the terminal
branches of the glosso-pharyngeal  and  gustatory nerves
form a very dense plexus before entering the papillae."
The  largest animals examined were the calf and sheep.
It would appear necessary to examine the tongues of the
horse and elephant, and the foetal tongue, like the fcetal
brain, according to Tiedemann.
  From  the delicate texture of  the tongue, must arise
the difficulty of arresting disease in it, especially malig-
nant ulceration, and when  the constitution is poisoned
with tobacco, for then  it seems  to spread from  the one
end to the other with electric rapidity.
  95. Since  the publication of  the  preceding observa-
tions by Sir A. Cooper, Professor Syme has excised the
entire tongue in two cases, both of which were followed
by pyaemia and death.  One would  have thought, that
the frequency of so fatal an affection as pyaemia super-
vening  on the  perineal section,  would have made  any
surgeon acquainted with pathology, pause, before excising
the tongue, which is equally vascular as the  corpus spon-
giosum  urethras, and much nearer the lungs, wherein
pyaemia develops itself.   But as  John Bell says, " Ope-
rations have come at last to represent the whole science." 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.    79

Such seems to be the case in the opinion at least of the
so-called " First Surgeon in Europe."
  96. The best marked case  of  pyaemia is that of  Cree?
occurring from the perineal section, which is  detailed in
my Practical Observations on the Treatment of Stricture
of the Urethra.  Professor Syme must have preserved
in his note-book a few similarly fatal cases.  From these
two instances of pyaemia supervening to excision of the
tongue, and those following the perineal section, it  is
evident how pyaemia occurs so often after  wounds in
vascular tissues, especially  veins — inflammation is first
set up, and suppuration rapidly following, the  pus be-
comes absorbed  by  the veins,  acts  as a  poison in the
circulating system, and hence proves rapidly  fatal.   For
a full detail of the first case, the reader  is referred to
two  unanswerable letters  by Dr. John Renton, in the
Medical Times and Gazette for the 20th February and
13th March, 1858.  The  two patients, more especially
the  second, Richard Ratcliff, are  stated  to  have been
great smokers of tobacco.
   97.  The following is an  interesting case of amaurosis,
or blindness, from smoking tobacco : — J. W., a coach-
builder, upwards of  fifty years of age, had smoked for
thirty  years, generally two ounces  of tobacco  a week,
when he  became  so blind as to be unable  to work, or
even walk through a crowded street.  He applied to an
eye dispensary, where the  medical man,  who is consid-
ered a  good oculist, told  him  that he  labored under
amaurosis, and prescribed accordingly.  After following
his  treatment  for some  time,  and  finding himself no
better, he visited a neighboring city, and consulted an- 
80     TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

other oculist, who instantly detected tobacco to be the
cause of his blindness, as if the obnoxious stench of the
weed had led him  at once  to this conclusion.   J. W.
instantly " threw away tobacco for ever," visited a  rela-
tive in the Highlands, where in a short time his vision
gradually returned,  became  clear, and enabled him  to
return  to his business quite cured.  It is  now six years
since he recovered, and he now can  read a small printed
book without glasses.   He  says  his health is much im-
proved since he gave up the pernicious weed.
  98.  This case is important, as it explains how tobacco
affects  us.  If tobacco smoking produces such serious
effects  on the nerves of the eyes, so as to cause blindness,
why may it not produce paralysis  of any of the other
nerves, as those of  the arms, legs,  and  indeed of every
other organ.  (See page 34.)
  99.  It would appear that the nerves of the mouth and
nostrils are first affected — then the brain — thirdly, the
nerves of the eyes—and lastly, the whole nervous system.
At the same time, the poison,  being mixed and  swal-
lowed with the saliva, must be absorbed by the lymphatics
of the stomach and intestines,  and be thus circulated
with the blood, and again act on the nervous  system like
strychnine.
   100. I was consulted by a captain of dragoons, affected
with amaurosis, consequent on smoking tobacco, for which
he  was compelled  to  sell  his  commission, after being
several years  in the army, and  only forty years of age.
I could not convince him that his  smoking tobacco was
the  cause of his blindness, and I suppose that he con-
tinues blind to this date. 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   81

  101. In a recent  correspondence with Mr. Anton, he
thus states : "lam convinced that a soldier, who is an
inveterate smoker, is incapable to level his musket with
precision, and without shaking his hand, so as to take a
steady aim at the object he is  desirous to hit."   .  .   .
" Your remarks," says he, " bring back to my recollec-
tion many instances of that  nervous trepidation, which
rendered many a brave  man  useless as a marksman or
musqueteer."
  102. The British soldiers, says Mr. O'Flaherty, had
no tobacco  at the battles of Alma, Balaklava, or Inker-
mann, while the Russians had too much, both of tobacco
and raki; and  that he never saw stronger  men  or more
noble soldiers than the Russians.
  He  also  says that he has known men, who, previous
to their  using  tobacco,  were the finest marksmen, and
could send a bullet  through the target at 800 yards dis-
tance; but  who, after they had commenced to smoke
and chew tobacco,  became so nervous that they could
scarcely send a bullet into a haystack at 100 yards dis-
tance.  In this statement, O'Flaherty is confirmed by a
soldier of the Scots Fusilier Guards.
  103. Here I may remark,  that surgeons, especially
operating surgeons,  who smoke tobacco, cannot have the
same cool head  and hand, as he who never uses the weed.
The late  Mr. Liston never smoked.   Before  performing
any important operation, he took a gallop over the Pent-
land Hills to brace his nerves.
  104. Dr.  M'Cosh, once a professor  in  the  Calcutta
Medical College, who had much experience in the East
Indies, having  served in the  Bengal Medical  Staff in 
82     TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

four campaigns and nine general actions, and experienced
all the vicissitudes of an Indian climate, from the snowy
mountains of the Khyber to the tepid marshes of BKirmah,
makes the following valuable observations in his "Advice
to Officers in India" :
  "Tobacco smoking," says he,  "is  a very common
habit; so much so, that two-thirds of the European popu-
lation indulge in it;  nor is the vice contracted in India
only.   A large proportion  of cadets acquire the habit in
England, and are  not a little proud of their accomplish-
ment.  Young  men  think it  manly to blow as  big a
cloud as  their  commanding officer.  Their breath not
only smells of  an  old pipe, but every thing that  comes
out of their house — a book, a newspaper, or a letter —
does the  same; so that the perusal, by any one not sea-
soned to  such fumes, is sickening;  and to ladies, dis-
gusting.   The very difficulty of learning to smoke, the
headache, and nausea, and vertigo, with which that is
acquired, are enough to  show that  the  habit is  most
injurious; only made endurable by long habit, and per-
severed in from want of some more congenial occupation.
Habitual smoking, too, often leads to habitual drinking;
the drain upon the  system must be  replenished, and
brandy and water is the succedaneum.   Some pretend to
gainsay this, and maintain  that they do not spit; but this
only shows the torpor of the salivary glands; for, if they
were  in a healthy state, saliva would be as copious  as
when they were learning the habit.
  105.  Some  smoke from  medicinal  motives, and  to
produce a laxative effect, or from absurd notions that it
neutralizes malaria;   but these  same  persons  would 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   83

grumble  loudly at being obliged to take a pill every
evening to produce the same effect.   If a general order
were issued, rendering smoking compulsory,  how  the
fathers of youthful, heroes would protest against so very
expensive a habit being imposed upon their sons; what
an outcry there would be amongst the married ladies for
having such an intolerable nuisance forced  upon their
domestic economy!   How the  surgeons would  be perse-
cuted with  applications for certificates, recommending
exemption  from the rule, on the score of their consti-
tutions being  too delicate  to  admit of smoking being
practised with impunity.   Strange  infatuation 1  Great
smokers  blow  away money enough  during their career
in India to purchase  them a moderate annuity; they
waste more good health than their pensions can redeem;
and shorten the period of their lives several years by this
filthy habit."
   106. The following are  the sentiments of the great
Camden: —
   Camden, in his Annals rer. Anglicar, page 415, thus
expresses himself on the smoking of tobacco :  " In con-
sequence of this  use of  it, the bodies of Englishmen,
who are  so highly delighted with this  plant (tobacco),
seem to have degenerated into the nature of the barba-
rians, seeing that they are delighted with the same thing
which  the barbarians use."
   107.  The following extract, from  the leading article
of the Lancet of April  4, 1857, contains  a brief  and
conclusive summing up of the evidence adduced by the
numerous correspondents of that journal on  the tobacco
controversy, as to the  injurious effects  of  excessive 
84     TOBACCO:  ITS USE  AND  ABUSE.

smoking;  and I have annexed, in a continued series,
excerpts from the several papers which appeared in that
journal, being convinced that the audi alteram partem
is the only legitimate mode of dealing with the question:
  " It is almost unnecessary to  make a separate inquiry
into  the pathological conditions which follow upon ex-
cessive smoking.  Abundant evidence has been adduced
in the correspondence in our columns, of the gigantic
evils which attend the use pf tobacco.   Let it be granted
at once, that there is such a thing as moderate smoking,
and let it be admitted that we cannot accuse tobacco of
being guilty of the  whole of Cullen's ' Nosology/  it
still  remains  that there  is a long catalogue of frightful
penalties attached to its abuse.
  "Let us briefly recapitulate—
     "1.  To smoke early in the day is excess.
     " 2.  As  people are generally constituted, to smoke
           more than one  or  two pipes of tobacco, or
           one or two cigars daily, is  excess.
     " 3.  Youthful indulgence in smoking is excess.
     "4.  There are physiological indications, which, oc-
           curring  in any  individual case, are criteria
           of excess.
  " We most earnestly desire to see the habit of smoking
diminish, and we entreat the youth of this country to
abandon  it  altogether.   Let  them  lay our  advice to
heart.  Let them give up a dubious pleasure for a cer-
tain  good.   Ten years  hence  we shall receive  their
thanks."
  108. The subjoined extract  is taken  from  a second 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   85

communication on the tobacco question, by Mr. Solly, in
The Lancet of February 14th, 1857:
  " The more I think of the tobacco question the more
it haunts me.  I feel that I cannot do justice to its im-
portance, but I am -anxious to add something to my last
communication.  Every day the subject is forced upon
my mind.  I scarcely meet a friend or patient who does
not bear his  testimony to the mischief of which he has
been the witness, in his own case or that of some friend,
from tobacco.
   " The profession have no idea of the ignorance of the
public regarding the nature of tobacco.  Even intelli-
gent, well-educated men,  stare in  astonishment, when
you tell them that tobacco is one of the most powerful
poisons we  possess.  Now, is  this  right?  Has  the
medical profession done its duty ?  Ought we not, as a
body, to have told the public that, of all our poisons, it
is the most  insidious, uncertain, and, in full doses, the
most deadly.  Why should  they not  know at once  how
often  it has proved fatal  in the  human subject, when
injected into the  rectum  in  strangulated  hernia.  I
heard, only the  other day, that a celebrated  surgeon —
rather an  obstinate  one — since dead, lost five cases in
succession from the effect of tobacco injected into the
bowels.
   " It seems almost trifling with the  subject, and yet
the extreme ignorance which prevails  regarding this
frightful  pest, rendering  even trifles  weighty in the
scale,  induces me to remind all smokers, and those of
our brethren who madly encourage it, that the first effect
of a cigar on any one, demonstrates that tobacco can 
86     TOBACCO:  ITS USE  AND  ABUSE.

poison by its smoke, and through the lungs, just as cer-
tainly as through the bowels.
  " It is true, that the all-perfect laws of Nature  point
out to careless man, that he is  taking in a poison, and
by the sickness, headache, and vomiting which follow,
stop  for  the time  the  poisonous dose,  and avert the
fatal end.
  " Look at the pale face, imperfect development, and
deficient muscular power of the inhabitants of unhealthy
malarious districts.   They live on, but with only half
the proper attributes of life.   So it is with the habitual
smoker:  his system is accustomed to the  poison; and so
the opium-eater  can take an ounce of  laudanum for his
morning's dram, and feel it not, when the  eighth part
of it would be fatal to the uninitiated.
  " What a blessing it would have been to mankind, if
all men had shrunk from this plague of the brain, as did
the first Napoleon.  One  inhalation was enough.  In
disgust he  exclaimed,  ' Oh, the swine!  My stomach
turns.  It is a habit only fit to amuse sluggards/
  " It is not, however, to be denied, that when the first
poisonous effect has passed  off, and the system begins to
tolerate it, that tobacco acts  as a slight stimulant to
many organs.  First to the brain, like  wine  and spirits
in small quantities, or  inflammation in its very earliest
and very  transitory  stage, it  excites  to  an unnatural
degree the natural function of the part.  I once knew a
young  clergyman,  who  could only  write his  sermons
under the stimulus of tobacco, and  there is  no question
that  these discourses were  brilliant, eloquent, and  most 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   87

interesting to listen to;  but the end of that man is not
yet come.
   " In the same way, tobacco is a stimulus to the gene-
rative system; but the stimulating effect is much earlier
followed by its  depressing action;  consequently it has
long been known, when used immoderately, to extinguish
the sexual appetite, and annihilate  the reproductive fa-
culty.  It is a prolific source of spermatorrhoea.  During
one week lately, I was  consulted by three young men
suffering from seminal weakness, in  all of whom I could
trace  this  drain to  the relaxing, enervating  effect of
smoking.   Happy  would it be for them if the  abandon-
ment of the vice would  at once restore them to health;
but no!  the  evil remains,  though the cause is removed
—I do not mean remains permanently, because all such
cases are ultimately, though sometimes slowly, curable.
These three cases are merely a few  out of many I have
seen of late years.
   " I have been asked to produce facts in proof of the
deleterious effects  of tobacco, and  facts in abundance
shall be forthcoming when I have had a record kept of
its effects in  my hospital cases;  but the facts which  I
have now by me being private cases, contain details the
relation of which would involve a breach of confidence
which nothing would justify.  No man likes to be held
up as a victim of  tobacco  smoke, though I could name
many whose health has  been decidedly injured by it.  I
have seen many cases of amaurosis, both in the  incipient
and advanced stage,  caused by smoking.
   " I know a valued  servant, in a family where  I attend,
whose memory was failing him, his  face getting yellow, 
88    tobacco:  its use and  abuse.

and his hand shaking;  so that those who did  not know
him attributed his condition to drinking. He abandoned
smoking, and in two years was an altered man.
  " For above ten years I smoked occasionally; and I
am well acquainted with all the soothing, calming, and,
for the time, agreeable effect of a cigar, or even  short
pipe.  I left it entirely off about nine years  since.   This
I did, because I believed it impaired my nervous energy;
and I have every reason to be satisfied with the change,
Since that  time my attention has been uninterruptedly
directed to the question — Is tobacco smoking positively
injurious ?   The  conclusion, therefore, which I  have
briefly given to the world through your pages, has not
been  hastily or capriciously  formed on a  few isolated
facts.  For the last twenty years I have been the medi-
cal  examiner  of various insurance offices — the Royal
Exchange, the Victoria, the Crown, and New Equitable.
The two  former I still hold.  In my examinations, I in-
quire whether the examinees are in the habit of smoking;
and I can now generally tell by the countenance whether
they are  or not habitual smokers.  If I have any doubt
on this point, an examination of the fauces decides it.
The fauces of the smoker are always more or less injected
and rough, presenting the appearance of a piece of dirty
red velvet, instead of the pale, pinkish, lilac hue of a
healthy throat. The tongue-, when smoking is not com-
bined with drinking spirits, as is seldom the case in the
upper and  middle classes, is usually furred and white,
but not otherwise unhealthy.*  This  condition of the
  * The author  has  had a representation made, illustrating these
effects. 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   89

fauces may be produced by, and always accompanies the
intemperate use of, intoxicating liquors; but then the
tongue is unnaturally  red; the  papillae  at the tip and
gustatory papillae prominent and angry.  The condition
of the fauces is well worthy the attention of the profes-
sion; let them notice it,  if possible, in almost every
patient that comes before  them, and they will soon be
struck with the correct index these  parts afford of the
habits of their possessors.  There  is  one  source of fal-
lacy which must, however,  be guarded against.   This is
a temporary  vascular  injection, induced  by the  long-
continued straining of some  people, when requested to
take a deep breath for the purpose of showing the fauces.
Where, however, the examiner is aware of this fact, he
will  find no difficulty in distinguishing  the  temporary
blush from the permanent  stain.   I may here add, by-
the-by, that I have  occasionally detected habits  of in-
temperance, which the statement of the examinee, and
the letters of his  referees, gave no  note of.   In truth,
there are many men who habitually drink more than is
consistent with  longevity,  but who never get  drunk.
Such men invariably declare that they are quite tempe-
rate.  This condition of the tongue and  fauces is not
limited to the mouth; it is not a mere local congestion;
it exists, more or  less, in the  stomach, and the  rest of
the alimentary canal; and hence, I  believe, in the other-
wise healthy subject, a cigar acts as  a moderate purga-
tive, but  in  typhus as  a  poison.   Can, however, any
medical man assert,  that it is natural or healthy to take
an aperient daily ?  In the habitual smoker the heart is 
90    tobacco:  its use and  abuse.

irritable, and the person nervous;  the  pulse frequently
intermittent, and irregular in force and frequency.
  " In the course of my practice I have met with many
individuals who, like myself, have  abandoned smoking,
because they thought it  did not agree with them.  Many
have done so at my suggestion.  I have never found one
who does not assert, most positively, that he has been in
better health since, and  that his intellectual activity has
been increased.
  " With regard to the  arguments  that have been  ad-
duced in favor of its innocence, I will first advert to the
Turks.  The mental condition of the Turks, as a nation,
would  be one of the  strongest arguments on my side,
were the question not  complicated with  opium.   The
fact of their longevity as a race must be proved by sta-
tistics, to establish the  opinion that smoking does not
shorten their lives; but even  then it would  not prove
that smoking  is innocuous  to Englishmen.   My asser-
tion, that it is especially injurious in  England, applies
to the young  men  of this country, about whom I  am
most anxious,  because they all live up to fever-point.   I
believe that the injury inflicted by a pipe of tobacco in
the mouth of a poor  man, who lives below par  rather
than above it, cannot be appreciated; but  not so a cigar
smoked  by a  man who  lives high, and uses his brain
much.  It matters  little whether the  mere animal, let
him be in the shape of  a stock-broker's clerk or a coun-
try voluptuary, smokes more or less;  but I am sure it is
incompatible with great  and long-continued intellectual
activity, and that amount of high living which appears 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.  91

almost necessary to  health in the imperfect atmosphere
of great towns.
  " The different mode of  living on the Continent and
here, renders  all arguments  drawn from the  effect of
smoking  on foreigners, in  favor of the habit, scarcely
applicable to the inhabitants of this island; though even
in Holland, according to the statement of that  interest-
ing writer, Dr. Carlyon, this  habit  is fatal.  It appears
to me, that it is our duty to discourage any habit that  is
not conducive to health, and  equally criminal to encou-
rage a habit which  is  liable to become a master and a
tyrant.
   " The gentry and aristocracy of this country must not
suppose that because the habit of smoking does not lead
in their case to drinking, that therefore it injures them
not.  Hundreds of gentlemen smoke without drinking
more than  they  believe is  conducive to health,  and
smoking does  not in their persons lead to intemperance.
But from this fact the habit is the more dangerously in-
sidious.  Its ill effects are less easily observed; the habit
advances in intensity without their perceiving any objec-
tion to it;  but the penalty is  paid  nevertheless, and an
untimely grave is often the result.
   " One of the best riders to hounds in England, who
never smokes, told me that he required much less sleep
than his friends, almost all of whom  smoke; and that
they often  remarked  with astonishment  how  fresh he
always was in  the morning, notwithstanding late hours,
champagne, &c.  That gallant  soldier, General  Mark-
ham, whose life was sacrificed to his hasty journey from
India, never smoked himself, nor would he allow any of 
92     TOBACCO:  ITS USE  AND ABUSE.

his personal staff to do so, so strong was his opinion of
its injurious tendency to the soldier's character.
  " I may be mistaken, but I believe  that all our great-
est men — I mean intellectually—statesmen,  lawyers,
warriors, physicians, and surgeons, have either not been
smokers, or if smokers, that they have died prematurely.
  " My friend, Mr. Whitfield, the resident medical officer
at St. Thomas's Hospital, speaks most strongly of the
injury he has witnessed from habitual smoking, his ex-
perience  extending over  above forty years, in a hospital
containing near 500 beds, and relieving some thousands
of out-patients  every year.  He has seen three  cases of
delirium tremens induced by tobacco smoke alone.   In
none of these cases had the patients indulged in drinking
intoxicating liquors, so that  there was no doubt of the
single cause of  the disease."
  109.  The following extract is from a paper on the
" Effects of Tobacco on Europeans in India," by James
Ranald  Martin, Esq., in  the Lancet of 28th February,
1857: —
  "My friend,  Mr. Solly, having  referred to what I
have stated in  the work on ' The Influence of  Tropical
Climates on European  Constitutions/ respecting  the
effects of the abuse of tobacco, and believing this sub-
ject to be one  seriously affecting the public health, I
beg leave to state, more particularly and more in detail,
some of the results of my observation on this question.
  " It is matter of constant  observation  amongst army
surgeons, ever since the  peace of 1815, that the habit
of cigar-smoking, introduced into this country from
Portugal, Spain, and France, by the officers of the British 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND  EXTRACTS.    93

army, has produced a greater amount of pale, sallow com-
plexions, amongst young  officers more  especially, than
had  ever before  been observed as resulting from any
other cause.  Had the morbid complexion been all, the
matter would have been of little importance; but here
it  generally means  loss of appetite, defective nutrition,
anaemia,  and disordered nervous and vascular functions,
all in the same individual.  My observations  lead me
altogether to the conclusions  of Van Praag, that the
operation of tobacco is at first stimulant, and at last de-
pressing, not only in the circulation and respiration, but
also on the nervous system ; accelerated circulation, in-
crease of respiratory movements, and excessive irritation
of the muscular  system, being the phenomena first ob-
served.   The concluding symptoms are  those of general
depression, both of animal and  organic life, with  occa-
sional instances of moral and physical impotency, accom-
panied by the most mournful results.  I am here speaking
of what I have witnessed.
   " The most ordinary results of excessive use  of to-
bacco are—the most severe forms of irritable dyspepsia,
giddiness, disturbed action of the heart, nervous tre-
mors, and cachexia, all amounting occasionally to palsy.
Young gentlemen who  are in the habit of  putting ' an
enemy into their  mouths to steal away  their brains/ do
not become aware of these facts until it sometimes be-
comes  too  late.  A highly scientific  and distinguished
captain of engineers of the Indian army told me__'All
the young fellows of my term who went out to  India,
having bad habits, are dead, excepting two.'  And what
has become of them ?   ' They were cashiered!'   Here
         18 
94     TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

the question of tobacco was not immediately in contem-
plation ; but I have no doubt whatever, from the results
of my observations in  India  and at home, that of the
habits which led  to this sad  end, the abuse of tobacco
was, amongst  these young officers,  the  most banefully
influential.
  " I dispute  the alleged  benefits of even moderate to-
bacco smoking as a  preventive of damp or of malaria;
and seriously anomalous symptoms I have seen to  arise,
in the progress of malarious  fevers, from the abuse of
it — such symptoms  as may lead to  the most grave mis-
takes in the treatment of fevers, if the medical  officer
be not careful to inquire into the habits of his patient.
Of this also I have  seen the most  emphatic examples.
Those  who  urge  the prophylactic benefits of tobacco,
carry the habit from the  swamps of Burmah into the
arid plains  of  Hindostan,  in defiance of geographical
differences.
   " I can state of my own observation, that the miseries,
mental  and bodily,  which I have  witnessed from the
abuse  of cigar-smoking, and  chiefly in young men, far
exceeded any thing  detailed  in  the  ' Confessions  of an
Opium Eater;' and I feel assured that the abuse  of to-
bacco, however employed, may be  classified amongst
those habits which produce chronic poisoning."
   110.  In the Lancet for 14th March, 1857, page 281,
there is  an appalling account of the death of a woman
who had become paralytic, apparently from excessive
smoking of  tobacco, and whose death was occasioned by
her clothes having taken fire from her pipe. 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   95

  111. In the Lancet for 28th February, 1857, Mr. Hig-
ginbottom, of Nottingham, says :
  "After fifty years of most  extensive and varied prac-
tice  in my profession, I have come to the decision, that
smoking is  a main cause  of ruining  our young men,
pauperizing  the working-men, and rendering compara-
tively useless the best efforts of ministers of religion."
The proverbial drunkenness of  our  countrymen  can
only be arrested by laying the axe at the root of its
superinducing  cause, the  thirst-creating  power of to-
bacco.   * Penury and crime/ says a medical temperance
reformer, ' are brought on by drinking, to  supply moist-
ure to the system, after it has been drained by spitting
away the flourishing saliva.   Hence drunkenness in the
masses."
  112. Extract from  an article by J. Pidduck, M. D., in
the Lancet of 14th February, 1856 :—
  "As physician to a dispensary in  St. Giles's during
sixteen years, I had extensive opportunities of observing
the  effects of  tobacco upon  the  health of a very large
number of habitual smokers.  The extraordinary fact is
this: that leeches were killed instantly by the blood of
the  smokers,  so  suddenly that they dropped off  dead
immediately they were applied; and that fleas and bugs,
whose bites on the children were as thick as  measles,
rarely if ever attacked the smoking parent.  It may be
said:  ' But why may not this poisonous  effect upon
leeches, fleas, and bugs, be  owing to  gin, and not to-
bacco V  The answer to this  objection is, that the Arabs
and Bedouins, who drink neither wine nor strong drink,
are  protected from the onslaught of the  insects, which 
96    TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.

swarm in their tents, by poisoning their blood with to-
bacco, whilst  the  wine and spirit-drinking  Europeans
are attacked without  mercy.  What is so fatal to insect
life, cannot be otherwise than most formidable to the life
of persons whose blood is thus poisoned.  If the evil
ended with the individual who, by the indulgence  of a
pernicious custom, injures his own health, and impairs
his faculties of mind  and body, he might be left to his
enjoyments—his 'Fools' Paradise'—unmolested.  This,
however, is not the case: in no instance is the sin of the
father more strikingly visited upon  his children,  than
the sin of tobacco smoking.  The enervation, the hypo-
chondriasis, the hysteria, the insanity, the dwarfish de-
formities, the consumption, the suffering lives and early
deaths of the children of inveterate smokers,  bear ample
testimony to the feebleness and unsoundness  of the con-
stitution transmitted by this pernicious habit.
   " How is it, then, that the Eastern nations have not,
ere this, become  exterminated by a practice which is
almost universal ?   The reply is, that by early marriage,
before the habit is fully formed, or its injurious effects
decidedly developed,  the evil to  the offspring is  pre-
vented;  but in this  country, where smoking  is  com-
menced early, and marriage is  contracted late in life,
the evil is  entailed  in full force upon the offspring.
Adulterations  of all  kinds  are bad enough, but  the
adulteration by a  narcotic — poisoning  the  life at  its
source, the breath; and,  in its  course,  the  blood — is
worse than all.  By these adulterations, the health  of
the community is injured; by this, a man injures his
own  health  and that  of his children.  Ought not this 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND  EXTRACTS.   97

consideration to restrain every wise and good  man from
contracting or continuing such a senseless and destruc-
tive  habit of self-indulgence ?   For old  men, smoking
may be tolerated; but for young men and boys, it can-
not be too severely reprobated."
   113. The following extract is from the article, "Is
Smoking Injurious?" in the  Lancet of 31st January,
1857, by Dr. Johnson :
   " What is the testimony of facts ?   Why, for one in-
veterate smoker who will bear testimony favorable to the
practice, ninety-nine  such, of the candid of these, are
found to declare their belief that this practice is inju-
rious ; and I scarcely ever yet  met with one habitual
smoker who did not, in  his candid moments, regret his
commencement of the habit.
   "A few weeks since, I  was  summoned to attend a
gentleman in the country.  On my arrival I found him
complaining of headache, nausea, languor, loss of appe-
tite and sleep, and inability to rise in the morning; his
expression was anxious, haggard, and nervous; his com-
plexion sallow and jaundice-looking; his tongue highly
furred, and teeth incrusted with a dirty greenish-yellow
deposit;  his  breath,  which was exceedingly offensive
from the odor of tobacco, revealed to my mind  the na-
ture of the evil.  On my inquiry, he informed me that
for many years he had indulged rather freely in  the use
of tobacco, declaring, at the same time,  that ever since
his apprenticeship to  smoking, the pernicious habit had
gradually and insidiously crept upon him, till at length
it became confirmed.   I persuaded  him to desist from
its indulgence, and  succeeded; but he found the task a
                          a 
98    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.

terrible one, so enslaving is the  habit.  After a short
time, however, he succeeded in conquering the appetite.
Many of the symptoms have  entirely disappeared, and
he is now considerably improved.  Is not this case, in
the experience of most medical men, the type of thou-
sands more ?
  " It is a certain fact, that devoted smokers are liable
to both constitutional and local disorders of very serious
characters.   Among the  former, we notice  giddiness,
sickness, vomiting, dyspepsia, diarrhoea, angina pectoris,
diseases  of the liver, pancreas, and heart, nervousness,
amaurosis, paralysis, apoplexy, atrophy,  deafness,  and
mania.   Amongst the  latter, ulceration of the lips  (not
unfrequently of a  syphilitic character, from the morbid
matter introduced  into the healthy subject, by smoking
cigars  or pipes which  have been used by diseased  per-
sons), ulceration of gums, cheeks, mucous membrane of
the mouth, tonsils, throat, etc.
  " Most of  these results I have selected from  authors
of some  locus standi—amongst  whom I may  mention
Drs. Prout,  Bright, Laycock,  Radcliffe and Ranking,
Pereira,  Orfila, Trousseau, Johnstone, Sir  B.  Brodie,
and  Professor Lizars.  Dr. Taylor,  in his valuable work
on Poisons, says: ' That a poisonous substance  like to-
bacco, whether in powder, juice,  or vapor, cannot be
brought in contact with an absorbing surface like mucous
membrane, without in many cases producing disorder of
the system, which the  consumer is probably quite ready
to attribute to any other  cause than that which would
render it necessary for him to deprive himself  of what 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.    99

he  considers not  merely as  a luxury, but  an article
actually necessary to his existence.' — p. 787.
  "The quantity of this  poisonous weed entered  for
'home consumption' in the eleven months ending No-
vember,  1856, was  29,776,082  lbs.  The deleterious
effects which this enormous amount of tobacco produced
upon its victims, both physically, mentally, and morally,
admits of no possible calculation."
  114. Dr. Pugh, in the Lancet of 21st February, 1857,
says:
  " I have read with interest the communications of Mr.
Solly which you have recently published; and having
been  favorably circumstanced,  during nearly  twenty
years' practice  in the Australian  colonies, for observing
the pathological conditions arising out of the habitual
use of tobacco, I beg to add a few facts to those already
before the profession.
  " The life of an Australian squatter, without the set-
tled districts,  is one of an  exceedingly monotonous cha-
racter.  He passes into  positions far removed from all
intercourse with intelligent companions;  he enjoys few
of the ameliorating  circumstances which  give  a charm
to social life.   His home is situated in the solitude of
the vast plain in which his flocks are fed, and  he is
visited only by those who  are in his employ.   For the
year together, no  opportunity occurs for interchange of
thought with educated minds.   Thus circumstanced, it
is not surprising that an occasional instance is  presented
of men becoming slaves to an agent by which they are
enabled to pass in dreamy stupor a portion of  the weary
time of their voluntary banishment. Unfortunately, the 
100    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

occasional pipe of tobacco  is soon  merged into a life,
where  no moment is  tolerable  in which  the narcotic
vapor is withheld.  His morning smoke is commenced
while in his bed; his day is passed in a cloud; and the
pipe accompanies him when retiring to  rest, to be laid
aside when overpowering sleep prevents its further use.
The first visible effects of such a life are a disregard for
cleanliness and personal appearance.  The features be-
come bloated, and the lips lose their healthy hue.   The
cheerful and active movement has given place to a heavy
listlessness.   The character of the  man has  undergone
a change.   When roused, he attends to business, but
rapidly returns  to a state  of  abstraction.   Dyspeptic
symptoms annoy  him, and soon the heart becomes  irri-
table, and the pulse is irregular.   Hypochondriasis in
its worse forms is presented, accompanied at  times with
a suicidal tendency;  and I have known individuals in
this  condition  rush to the town, dreading  the  conse-
quences of a longer continuance in their life of solitude.
The brain and ganglionic  system become involved, and
I have seen  softening, accompanied  by paralysis. Amau-
rosis  is not an  unfrequent  indicator of the existing
nervous prostration.  When under treatment, whether
from disease or accident, the inveterate tobacco-smoker
quickly presents  evidence  of the constitutional  opera-
tions of the narcotic.  Typhoid symptoms show them-
selves  at a  very  early stage, and smoking delirium  is
present, which  require to be combated by active tonic
remedies.
  "No alcoholic  beverage reaches the distant station.
Tea  and tobacco are the luxuries of  bush life; hence a 
      COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.   101

facility is afforded for connecting the physiological effects
with their exciting cause — tobacco!
  " If such be  the consequences of excessive and con-
tinued doses of narcotine, can we suppose  that no mis-
chief will accrue to the children of this country who are
to be daily seen recklessly enjoying the pipe or the cigar?
I fear a healthy nutrition is incompatible with the pro-
ceeding, and think, with Mr. Solly, that the future hap-
piness of the people of England may be jeopardized by
a practice, which intercourse with our continental neigh-
bors has rendered  so popular."
  115.  Mr. M'Donald, Surgeon  to the Garnkirk and
Heathfield works,  says:
  " Having paid some attention to the effects of tobacco-
smoking on the system, I have noted down a few obser-
vations made over  a wide field.
  " Sailors and navvies  smoke  more  than any  other
class.  The  sailor uses from 8 oz. to  16 oz. of tobacco
per month;  the navvy, 8 oz.  or 10  oz.; but part of this
is chewed.   Bad taste in the mouth, with sometimes an
angry, irritable point on  the  tongue, lips, or fauces,
which prevents him from smoking for a  few days, are
the only bad results I have observed.   It does not ap-
pear  to affect the nervous system of either of  these
classes.  The miner uses above 8 oz. per month.   Often
breathing an impure air, the tone of his system is low-
ered, and then  tobacco exerts  its baneful influence on
him.   He is subject to dyspeptic, bilious, and nervous
attacks, while those who  do not smoke are invariably the
healthiest.
  " Now, let the  sailor or navvy take  to  sedentary em- 
102    tobacco:  its  use and abuse.

ployment, and in a short time tobacco-smoking begins to
affect him as it does  the man of sedentary habits.   His
hand  begins to shake, his mouth  feels clammy and he
has a bad taste in it; he loses to a great extent his fine
gustatory sense; his appetite becomes capricious;  he
feels  languid and  indolent;  his memory becomes con-
fused'; he has cardiac disturbance; and spermatorrhoea,
with all its evil results, not unfrequently comes on from
smoking.   A strong  constitution may resist it for a few
years, but it ultimately gains the  victory.   It  is gene-
rally supposed, that  those who labor in the open air are
exempted from its bad effects.  This is only the case in
certain  conditions.   They must be  well fed.  On the
laborer with low wages, it exerts its baneful influence—
first, from its own effects; secondly, from squandering a
large portion of that which should go to nourish him,
whereby he is still further debilitated.
   " I may  mention a curious fact,  not generally known,
but which  requires  only to be tried  to .be  proved, viz.,
that no smoker can think steadily or continuously on any
subject while  smoking.  He cannot follow out a train
of ideas — to do so he must lay aside his pipe.
   " On woman it takes a sad hold.  She soon  becomes
lazy and indolent, of  dirty habits, and makes bad recove-
ries from her confinements;  her children  at the breast
are liable to erysipelatous and other skin diseases.
   " In  Scotland, in  addition  to the effects of tobacco,
may be added  those of its adulterations, viz., copperas,
salt of tartar, saltpetre, and sand.   The salts cause the
tobacco to feel intensely hot and acrid, irritating mostly
all the mucous membranes.   These adulterations are 
     communications and extracts.   103

added to give color, and by retaining a large amount of
water, to cheat both revenue and  consumer.   It gives
rise  to  that form of caries of the teeth which  com-
mences  by internal decay.  The  tooth  being unduly
stimulated by the oft-applied heat, a bony deposit takes
place on the fangs, the canals  are partially or wholly
obliterated, and the supply of nourishment being cut off,
some day, while perhaps eating a piece  of soft bread,
the crown  gives  way,  and the tooth  rapidly crumbles
down.   Sand is used to a very great extent, finely sifted;
it perhaps  is  harmless, but affords a good illustration
of how  openly adulteration can be carried on  in a free
country.
   " In  conclusion, I may state, that the  germs of pre-
mature  decay, which  abuse of  tobacco is  spreading
through the  country,  will ultimately, in my opinion,
prove more  overwhelming than even the serious abuse
of intoxicating liquors."
   116.  The following  is an  extract from a communica-
tion in  the Lancet, by Walter Tyrrell, M. R. C. S.
   " More especially would I direct attention  to the de-
pressing influence of tobacco on the sexual powers.   I
feel confident, that one of the most common, as well as
one of the worst, of its effects, is that of weakening, and
in extreme cases, of destroying the generative functions.
I can illustrate this by a case which came  under my
notice  recently, and one  which I believe to  be by no
means  rare.   My attention  has  just been directed to
the subject  by  Mr. Lizars' admirable  paper, when a
gentleman called to consult me, as he  found himself
impotent.  He was a  young man, in apparently good 
104   tobacco: its  use  and  abuse.

health, and his generative organs  showed no  signs of
disease or decay.   He stated that it was only during the
last few months that he  had found his desire for con-
nection  gradually decreasing, and  that  when  he  did
attempt it, his efforts were altogether futile, or  only con-
summated after  a long interval.   On  inquiry into  the
supposed  cause, amongst other matters, I found he had
latterly  become a  great smoker, sometimes  smoking  a
dozen cigars a day. Without  particularly directing his
attention to that point, I ordered him to confine himself
to one cigar  a day, at the same time ordering him  a
' placebo.'  At the end of a fortnight  he called again,
saying he was very much improved;  he had greater de-
sires, and more power of satisfying them.   I  now told
him he might resume his smoking, but continue  the
medicine, to which he  attributed all the  benefit, telling
him that  he  need not call  again unless he found him-
self worse.  In a  few days he returned with exactly the
same symptoms as at first.  I was now convinced of the
cause, and ordered him  entirely, though gradually, to
leave off the  habit.  He was at first unwilling to sub-
mit ; and  it was not until I had repeated  my former ex-
periment, with, if possible, more positive results, that
he consented.  He has, I am glad  to say, perfectly car-
ried out his good resolutions, and  with a perfectly suc-
cessful result.
  " This case, I think, satisfactorily proves that, in some
persons at least, tobacco is  not the harmless luxury many
would make it; and I am sure  this  case has many paral-
lels." 
     communications  and  extracts.  105

   117. Statistics  of France, from Lancet of 14th Feb-
ruary, 1857.
   " From 1851 to 1856, France, according to the last
census, has gained only 256,000 inhabitants  In the
same number of years, from  1841 to 1846, the increase
was 1,200,000.  The  difference  is enormous." — (See
The Times, January 29, 1857.)
   118. The following extract is from an account by Mr.
Erichsen, in the  Lancet of  21st February, 1857, of a
case of slow poisoning by snuff containing lead:
   "I was particularly struck with the  appearance of
the hands and arms, which were lying powerless on the
coverlid  of the bed.  There was marked  'wrist-drop'
of both arms — the hands  hanging flaccid  and  at right
angles with the forearms, without the patient being able
to extend or raise  them in  the smallest degree.   There
was, however, some slight power of extension left in the
fingers, especially  in those of the left hand.   Though
unable to extend the fingers, raise the hand, and scarcely
having power  to elevate the arm, Mr. A. B. could flex
the fingers pretty firmly, so  as to give a tolerably good
grasp to  whatever was put into his  hand.   The index
finger of  the right hand seemed to be the most affected,
and was permanently flexed.
   " There was a very marked degree of wasting of the
whole mass of the extensor muscles of the forearm,  so
that a longitudinal hollow corresponding  to the interos-
seous space was perceptible  down the whole length of
the forearm, and a very deep and marked depression  in
the interspace between the first and  second metacarpal 
106   tobacco: its  use and  abuse.

bones.  The hands were quite powerless, and the patient
was unable to render himself the slightest assistance.
  "The  tongue was pale and flabby; and, on exami-
ning the gums, I found a  deep blue-black or leaden-
colored line around  the teeth, more  marked about  the
molars.
  " Digestion was much impaired.  Appetite capricious,
with much flatulence, and occasional attacks of consti-
pation, with colicky pains.
  " On examining Mr. A. B., I was  at once struck by
the very  marked  ' wristdrop/ more complete than I had
ever seen before; the limitation of the paralysis to the
extensors, which were greatly wasted; the existence of
a blue line around the teeth; and the occurrence of oc-
casional attacks of constipation and colic, together with
flying pains in the fleshy parts of the  body, with absence
of all articular inflammation.  These symptoms led me
to the conclusion, that Mr. A. B.  was suffering from
saturnine paralysis, and that he had been slowly poi-
soned by lead.
  " In the course of my  inquiries, however,  I found
that he took snuff in considerable quantities.   I accord-
ingly emptied his box of its contents, and took them up
to town with  me, with  a  view to further examination.
The snuff was analyzed by Professor Williamson, who
immediately detected in it a considerable quantity of
lead; and  another supply  having  been procured from
the shop at which Mr. A. B. was  in the habit of pur-
chasing it, was subjected to analysis by Dr. Garrod, who
readily detected large quantities of the metal in it."
  119. When snuff is packed "in boxes lined with very 
     communications and extracts.  107

thin lead, which are much used by the Paris retailers, a
chemical action takes place, the result of  which is to
charge the  snuff with subacetate of lead.  Mayer of
Berlin traces  several deaths  and cases  of ' saturnine
paralysis' to  the  patients having taken  snuff  from
packets,  the inner envelope of which was thin sheet-
lead, in constant contact with the powdered weed." —
From the Athcnseum, 2d October, 1858.
  120. Dr. Bucknill, of the Devon County Asylum, in
his communication to the Lancet, 28th February, 1857,
argues that " the preponderance of lunatics of the fe-
male sex, is conclusive evidence against the theory that
tobacco either  causes or predisposes  to mental disease."
But the accuracy of  Dr. Bucknill's statistical argument
is  liable to many objections.   It may be differently ex-
plained;  and I have  tables furnished to me on the sub-
ject, which  I  could  adduce,  if necessary,  establishing
an  opposite conclusion.  At  all  events, Dr. Bucknill
seems to have  overlooked the many powerfully exciting
and predisposing  causes  rendering  females  liable to
attacks of insanity.
  121. A scientific physician,  on reading Dr. Bucknill's
communication in the Lancet, observed that " Dr. Buck-
nill blows hot and cold on the tobacco blast;" and on
Dr. Pretty's paper in the  same number of the Lancet,
that " Dr. Pretty adduces pretty proofs of contradiction
and absurd reasoning."
  122. In  the Asylum Journal of Mental  Science for
October, 1857, vol. iv. No. 23, edited  by Dr. Bucknill,
there  is  a  statistical account or memorial drawn up by
a Miss Dix, of the Hospitals for the Insane  in the 
108   tobacco:  its  use  and  abuse.

United States, from which I extract the following: " In
the Massachusetts  State Hospital, in 1843, there  were
eight cases of insanity produced by the abuse of to-
bacco."
  123. Dr. Kirkbride, in  his report of the Pennsylvania
Hospital for the Insane for 1849, states that " two cases
in men and  five in women were caused by the use  of
opium, and four in men by the use of tobacco."   " The
use  of tobacco," continues  he, "has, in many indivi-
duals, a most striking effect on the nervous system; and
its general use in the community is productive of more
serious effects than is commonly supposed."
   124.  The following interesting case has been sent me
by a medical friend, the  ordinary attendant on the pa-
tient.  A gentleman about thirty-five years of age, long
addicted to  drinking, smoking,  and chewing, became
quite fatuous, and  subject to fits  closely resembling epi-
lepsy.   He was removed  to a lunatic asylum, where the
ardent spirits were first given up; but no change for the
better for six months.  The smoking tobacco was then
reduced, when some little improvement took place; and
when both the smoking  and chewing tobacco were  re-
duced, a great amendment followed; and when totally
given up, the fits ceased, and he became perfectly sane.
It is upwards of two years since he became rational and
free from the fits;  and when interrogated, what was the
cause of his mental alienation and fits ? he unhesitatingly
ascribes them to the use of tobacco.
   125.  The next case corroborates the effects of tobacco
on the nervous system.  A strong, brawny carter, thirty
years of age, states that  five years  ago he was struck 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND EXTRACTS.  109

speechless, and paralytic  of his left  side, which he
ascribed to smoking  tobacco, generally half-an-ounce
daily, since" he was a boy.   He  lay powerless for some
weeks  among  his friends, being unable to earn his live-
lihood.   In twelve months, he so far recovered as to lead
a horse, and has since slowly recovered.   Still, he cannot
grasp with his left as with his right hand.   He " threw
away tobacco forever," from the day of his paralytic attack.
October 9th, 1858.
  126.  Dr. Carlyon, in his " Early Years and Late Re-
flections," writes as follows:
  " What can be more deleterious than tobacco.  Many
an  honest Deutscher have I seen  smoking himself into
the grave!
            '  Rauch — Rauch — immer Rauch!'
the countenance pale and haggard; the frame emaciated;
the propensity to smoke irresistible !
        'A pipe!  a pipe!  My heart's blood for a pipe!'
Neither  is there need of much physiological acuteness
to account for the bad  effects of this pernicious habit on
the health.  Tobacco is a very powerful narcotic poison.
If  the  saliva, the  secretion of which it  provokes, be
impregnated with its essential oil, and so swallowed, the
deleterious influence is communicated directly with the
stomach; or if, as more frequently happens, it is ejected,
then  the  blandest  fluid  of  the human  frame — that
which, as a solvent and  diluent, performs an  office in
digestion secondary only to the gastric juice itself—is
lost.   Even  snuff,  my old  friend Abernethy  used  to
say, fuddles  the nose;  but  the  fumes of tobacco pos-
         19 
110    tobacco:  ITS USE and abuse.

sess  a  power of  stupefying  all the senses and all tha
faculties, by slow but enduring intoxication,  into dull
obliviousness.
  "I recollect reading  the  address  of a professor, in
some American University,  to his  pupils, on the bad
effects of tobacco.  This address, sensible and spirited,
seemed to  come from  the professor's very heart.  He
deprecated, in the most forcible manner,  the practice
of smoking, which  had  been  recently taken up, and
said, ' That prior to the  period when pipes were to be
seen in the mouth  of every student, the youth of the
University were as different in their looks from the indi-
viduals with whom he was  then surrounded,  as health
from disease.'"
   He  gives the following translation of an epigram, by
Petrus Scriverinus, on a tobacco-pipe :
         " Old men and young, beware ! beware!
           A pipe of tobacco is Satan's snare;
           Not surer the net for birds is spread,
           By the pipe's sweet note to capture led,
           Than the whiffs which the lovers of smoking take,
           Are sure to lead to the  Stygian lake."

   127. Dr. Taylor, who, as an accurate analyst, and an
enlightened medical jurist, has deservedly earned a name
of the highest authority in all medico-legal questions, in
his work on Poisons, says :
   "A poisonous  substance  like  tobacco, whether  in
powder,  juice, or vapor, cannot be brought  in  contact
with an absorbing surface, like  mucous membrane, with-
out  in many cases  producing  disorder of the system,
which the consumer is probably quite ready to attribute 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.  Ill

to any other cause than that which would render it neces-
sary for him to deprive himself of what he  considers,
not merely a luxury, but an article actually necessary to
his existence."
  128. In the Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sci-
ences, vol. i., p. 73, there  is an interesting collection of
eases of disease produced by tobacco.   They show the
terrible effect of the plant on the digestive and nervous
systems.   The first is that of a young American lawyer,
who " used (the weed) freely, by smoking, chewing, and
snuffing."   He  labored under " acidity, cardialgia, gas-
trodynia, palpitation of the heart, giddiness, vertigo, and
fulness of the head, with  the most profound gloom;
keenly alive to every feeling, he was in constant fear of
death, yet  tempted to commit suicide to escape from a
life more  intolerable than death itself.   He had a firm
conviction  in his mind, that he should  die  from apo-
plexy."  He had  frequent shocks in the  epigastrium,
both during the day and  during  the  night.   When  he
threw  away tobacco for ever, all  his dreadful feelings
"vanished as if by magic."   He ultimately became " an
able and  talented  member of the bar, in the possession
of good health,  spirits, and prosperity."
   129.  His  sister,  thirty-nine  years  of  age,  a married
lady, mother of two children, had  smoked and snuffed
tobacco for  fifteen years — for eight years  had  those
peculiar  shocks at  the epigastrium, resembling  those
produced  by electricity, with a sinking sensation at the
pit of the  stomach, cardialgia, acid eructations, a sense
of rushing of blood to the  head, palpitations, sleepless-
ness, and startings when first falling into slumber. These 
112   tobacco: ITS  USE  and  ABUSE.

increased, and  then  tenderness  of  the spine  along  its
whole length, rigidity of the limbs, costiveness, derange-
ment of the catamenia, &c.   Seeing the good effect  of
abandoning the use of tobacco in her brother,  she made
the same experiment in part herself, and with the same
marked relief from many of the symptoms — she ulti-
mately recovered a comfortable state of health.   She has
frequently ventured upon a moderate use of tobacco, but
after using it a while, she experiences her old feelings,
and then quickly abandons it.
   130.  Dr. Laycock, Professor of the Practice  of Physic
in the University of Edinburgh, a physician not less dis-
tinguished for great  erudition than for his practical  ex-
perience, and  skill, and tact, in the detection and treat-
ment of disease, published, in the Medical Gazette  for
October 2d, 1846, a paper, so corroborative of my views
regarding tobacco, as to render an apology for publishing
the following extract from it wholly unnecessary.   He
remarks:—
   " It is only by personal observations made during the
last two or three years, that I have become fully aware
of the great changes induced in the system by the abuse
of tobacco, and of the varied and  obscure form  of  dis-
ease to which especially excessive smoking gives origin;
and I now propose to state some of the results at which
I have arrived.
   " The consequences of smoking tobacco are manifested
 in the buccal and pharyngeal  mucous membrane  and
 their  diverticula; on the stomach, the lungs, and  the
 heart,  and  on the  brain  and  nervous  system.   With
 regard to these consequences, it may be generally stated 
      COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.  113

 here, that they vary according to the quantity of to-
 bacco  smoked, and according to the pathological condi-
 tions and peculiarities of the individual himself.   Some
 persons will smoke a very large quantity before  certain
 symptoms arise, while others experience these  with  a
 very small quantity.  The amount consumed by habitual
 smokers varies from half an ounce to twelve ounces per
 week.   The usual quantity is from two to three  ounces.
 Inveterate cigar smokers will  consume from four to five
 dozen per week of the lighter kind of  cigars, as Manil-
 las, Bengal cheroots, etc.
   "The first  and simplest morbid result of excessive
 smoking, is an inflammatory  condition of the  mucous
 membrane of  the  lip and tongue,  and this sometimes
 ends in  a separation of the epithelium.  Then the ton-
 sils and pharynx suffer, the mucous membrane becoming
 dry and  congested.  If the throat be examined, it will
 be observed to be slightly swollen,  with congested veins
 meandering over the surface, and here and there a streak
 of mucus.  The inflammatory action also extends  up-
 wards into the posterior nares, and the smoker feels from
 time to time a discharge of mucus from the upper part
 of the pharynx, in consequence of the secretion from
 the  mucous membrane of the nares collecting  within
 them.   Sometimes the anterior nares suffer, but in this
 case the  irritation  is not marked by increased secretion
so much as by tickling and  itching within them.  The
irritation will  also extend to the conjunctiva (and I am
inclined to think from the nares, and not by the direct
application of  smoke to the eye),  and  the results are,
heat, slight redness, lachrymation, and  a  peculiar spas-
                         H 
114   TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND ABUSE.

modic action of the orbicularis muscle of the eye, expe-
rienced, together with  intolerance of light, on awaking
from sleep in the morning.
  " I think the frontal sinuses do not escape; for I find
that one of the symptoms, very constantly experienced
after excessive smoking, is a heavy, dull ache, precisely
in the region of these  sinuses.  But descending along
the alimentary canal, we come to the stomach, and here
we find the results  to be, in extreme cases, the symptoms
of gastritis.   There is pain and tenderness on pressure
of the epigastrium, anorexia, nausea on  taking  food,
and  a constant sensation of  sickliness,  and  desire to
expectorate.
  " The  action of the  heart, and lungs is impaired by
the influence of the narcotic on the nervous system, but
a morbid state of the larynx, trachea, and lungs, results
from the direct action  of  the  smoke.   The voice is  ob-
served to be rendered hoarser, and with a deeper tone;
sometimes a  short cough  results; and in one case that
came under my notice, ulceration of the cartilages of
the larynx was, I  felt  quite  certain, a consequence of
excessive use of tobacco.   This individual had originally
contracted the habit of smoking when a sailor, and it
had  become  so inveterate, that he  literally was never
without a pipe  in his mouth except when eating or
sleeping.  If he awoke  in  the night he lighted his pipe;
the moment  he finished a meal  he did the same.  It is
only in extreme cases like this that the inference can be
fairly made as to the morbid results of the habit, because
there are so many  other causes of disease to be estimated
at the same  time.  This  particular  instance has, how- 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.  115

ever, during my experience, been corroborated by others
of a like kind; and I have come to the conclusion  that
inflammation and ulceration of the larynx in men are
almost exclusively  peculiar to the slaves  of excessive
tobacco smoking.
   "Haemoptoe is another morbid condition distinctly
traceable to this habit. The patient experiences a slight
tickling low down in the pharynx or trachea, and hawks
up rather than  coughs up a dark grumous-looking blood.
I have not been able to ascertain whence this comes.  I
have known it  to flow out of the patient's mouth during
the night, or to be effused shortly after lying down.   It
is a symptom worthy especial notice, however, because
it gives  great  alarm, and may be readily mistaken for
pulmonary haemoptysis, or an  expectoration of blood.
   " The action of tobacco  smoking on the heart, so far
as I have observed, is depressing.   The individual who,
from some peculiarity of constitution, feels it in this
organ rather than elsewhere, usually complains of a pe-
culiar uneasy sensation about the left nipple—a distress-
ing feeling—not amounting to faintness, but allied to it.
In such an example no  morbid sound can be detected,
but the action of the heart is  observed to be feeble, and
slightly irregular in rhythm;  yet  not  always  so in the
same person.  An uneasy feeling is also experienced in
or beneath the pectoral muscles; but oftener,  I think,
on the right side than on the left.
   " On the brain the action of tobacco smoking is  seda-
tive.  It appears to diminish the rapidity of  cerebral
action, and check  the flow of ideas through the mind.
This, I think, is a certain result; and it is in consequence 
116   tobacco: ITS  USE  and  abuse.

of this action, that smoking is so habitual with studious
men, or men of contemplative minds.  The phrases, ' a
quiet  pipe/ or ' a comfortable cigar/ are significant of
this sedative action.
  " There are a few facts which I would now state gene-
rally, and which appear as secondary results of smoking.
Constipation and haemorrhoids are often experienced by
inveterate smokers.  Acne of the face I have observed
to be excited and kept up by the habit, and to disappear
with the discontinuance of the latter. Blackness of the
teeth and gum-boils are not uncommon results.  There
is also a sallow paleness of the complexion, an irreso-
luteness  of disposition, a want of life and energy, to be
observed occasionally  in  inveterate smokers, who  are
content with smoking; that is to say, who do not drink.
I have  suspected  also that it has induced pulmonary
phthisis.
  " The nervous  system, as I have said, has peculiarly
suffered; and thence have arisen obtuseness in the func-
tions  of the several senses, irritability, indecision,  and
loss of courage, or of  determination of action, weakness
of the muscles of voluntary motion, and depravity of
the secretions.  Particularly have I observed the buccal
membrane (in smokers) to become vascular, swollen, irri-
table, and prone to haemorrhage.   I have never observed
an exception to the fact, that in smokers the voice  has
deepened in tone (I suppose from relaxation), or become
hoarse or oppressed through excessive mucous secretion.
Many an irritable nervous cough, without increased  se-
cretion from the tracheo-bronchial membrane, and many
a cough dependent upon  increased secretion, have I 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.  117

known to follow the frequent use of tobacco in smoking.
I believe it to be a great antagonist of the functions of
the nervous  system,  especially in  its relations to the
organs of sense,  of reproduction,  and of digestion.  I
think I have known it to produce perfect atony, with all
its train of consequences.  I have known many instances
in which I was unable to  prove that the ordinary use
of tobacco did any harm; I have known  many more  in
which I could prove  that it did  do harm; and I have
not known any good from  it that  might  not have been
obtained from less objectionable means.
   " It will be seen that Dr. Wright corroborates my ob-
servations in  several particulars; and  although I am not
at all desirous that this communication should be consi-
dered as a ' counter-blaste' to tobacco, I think the inve-
terate habit of smoking, snuffing, or chewing that  drug,
is worthy the special notice of physicians and practi-
tioners in medicine  in general, as a very frequent but
unconsidered and unthought-of cause of disease.   I am
quite certain, indeed, that if the practitioner habitually
direct his attention to the subject, he will find that  many
obstinate and difficult cases may be elucidated, by apply-
ing and extending the views  detailed as well by Dr.
Wright as myself.
   "Gastric  disorders, coughs, and inflammatory  affec-
tions of the larynx and the pharynx, haemoptbe, diseases
of the heart, and lowness of sprits, are the principal dis-
eases in which the pathological results of the habit are
to be looked  for.   The color of the teeth, a pearly blue-
ness of the  lips,  a slight trembling of the hands,  and a
quiet, passive expression of  countenance, are the  most 
118    TOBACCO:  ITS USE AND ABUSE.

usual marks of the habit itself, and when present in any
obstinate or anomalous disease, whether of the respira-
tory, circulating, alimentary, or  nervous system, would
warrant a special inquiry as to the habits of the patient
in the use of tobacco.  In all cases, the quantity of snuff
used, or tobacco smoked, per diem or per week, should
be ascertained, as patients are apt to say they only smoke
a little; meaning, if pressed, that they smoke from half
an ounce to an ounce of tobacco per diem—and the same
with snuff."
   131. The following paper, published by the  British
Anti-Tobacco Society, was written by a physician of high
standing and extensive practice in London: —
   " The habit of smoking tobacco has given rise to the
following ill effects, which  have  come under my obser-
vation in numerous instances, and that of all the medical
men with whom I am  acquainted.   I shall state the
bad  effects of this poison  categorically, premising that
chewing tobacco is the most injurious, smoking not much
less  so, and snuffing least,  although also most decidedly
injurious.  As smoking holds a middle position of these
three injurious habits, or vices, especially when adopted
by the young, I shall therefore  make it represent the
others.
   " 1.  Smoking weakens the digestive and assimilating
fanctions, impairs  the due  elaboration of the chyle and
of the blood,  and prevents a healthy nutrition of the
several structures of the body.  Hence result, especially
in young persons, an arrest of the growth of the body;
low stature; a pallid and sallow hue of  the surface; an
insufficient  and  an unhealthy supply of blood; weak 
COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.
119
bodily powers; and, in many instances, complete  emas-
culation, or inability of procreation.   In persons more
advanced  in  life,  these  effects,  although longer  in
making their appearance, supervene at last, and with a
celerity in  proportion  to the  extent to which this vile
habit is carried.
   "2. Smoking generates thirst and  vital depression;
and  to remove these,  the use of stimulating liquors is
resorted to, and often carried to a most injurious extent.
Thus two of the most debasing habits and vices to which
human  nature  can be degraded, are indulged in to the
injury of the individual thus addicted,  to the shortening
of his life, and to the injury and ruin of his offspring,
if, indeed, he still retain his procreative powers—a very
doubtful result—and the more doubtful when both vices
are united  in one person.
   "3. Smoking tobacco weakens the  nervous powers;
favors a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state of ex-
istence ;  produces indolence and incapability of manly
or continued exertion;  and  sinks its votary into a state
of careless or maudlin inactivity and selfish enjoyment
of his vice.   He ultimately becomes partially, but gene-
rally paralyzed in mind and body—he is  subject to
tremors and numerous nervous  ailments, and has re-
course to stimulants for their relief.  These  his vices
cannot abate, however indulged  in, and he  ultimately
dies  a drivelling idiot, an imbecile paralytic, or a suf-
ferer from  internal organic disease, at an age many years
short of the average duration of life.   These results are
not always  prevented by relinquishing  the habit, after a
long continuance or a very early adoption of it.  These 
120    TOBACCO:  ITS USE AND ABUSE.

injurious effects often do not  appear until very late in
life.
  " 4. The tobacco smoker, especially if he commences
the habit early in life, and carries it to excess, loses his
procreative powers.  If he  marry he deceives his wife,
and  disposes her  to infidelity, and exposes himself to
ignominy and scorn.   If, however, he  should have off-
spring, they generally either are cut off in infancy, or
never  reach the period of puberty.  His wife is  often
incapable of having  a living  child,  or she suffers re-
peated miscarriages, owing to the impotence of her hus-
band.   If he  have children, they are generally stunted
in growth or deformed in shape: are  incapable of strug-
gling through  the diseases  incidental  to  children, and
die prematurely.   And thus the vices of the parent are
visited upon the  children,  even before they reach the
second or third generation.   I  have constantly observed,
that the children of habitual smokers are,  with very few
exceptions, imperfectly developed in form  and size, very
ill or plain-looking, and delicate in constitution.  These
imperfections  are most manifest in the female offspring,
for the procreative inability being chiefly in the hus-
band, and  less in  the wife, unless from  disgust  at his
habits, and the female generally deriving the chief char-
acteristics  of form, feature,  and constitution, from the
male parent, the female child is more or less the victim
of his vices and debased habits.  If,  therefore,  ladies
sufficiently value their own  happiness, and the health
and  happiness of their families, or desire what all  desire
" who  love their  lords," they ought not to  marry
smokers; nor should they trust the promises of reforma- 
     COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS.  121

tion which he may make, as they are very seldom kept.
Persons who feel that smoking is injurious  to them in
any way whatever,  or  who  are desirous of having  in-
structions to enable them to relinquish the habit, should
have recourse to the best medical advice to enable them
to recover from existing injurious effects, and to pre-
vent the  accession  of  others  which  may supervene at
some future period, even although the habit has been
relinquished."
  132.  Professor Siebert, of Jena, in his " Treatise  on
Diseases of the Belly,"  1855, gives the following striking
case: —
  "Advocate T----, in B----, a robust, muscular, and
athletic man, was under an affection of the spine from
1840  to 1845.  He had peculiar sensations in  differ-
ent parts  of the spinal cord, which, according to  the
changing central seat, produced radiating effects through-
out the system.   When this central point mounted  up
to about the  seventh  vertebra of the  neck, he  expe-
rienced a numbness in the forearms  and hands, with a
sense  of pressure in  the breast, and a short, broken
cough.  If the pain was in the upper part of the  spine,
then there were other eccentric symptoms, such as pal-
pitation of the heart.   If lower down in the spine, then
pain in the stomach,  want of appetite, and vomiting.
These  gastric symptoms  disappeared when the pain
went down  towards the cauda equina, and  then there
was disturbance  in the sacral  regions, cramp  in  the
sphincter  ani, nightly pollutions, sickly appearance,  and
hypochondriacal  voice.  When  the  entire  spine  was
affected, there were disturbances  in the lower extremi- 
122    tobacco:  its  use and abuse.

ties; not properly palsy, but  devious movements, and
difficulty in standing steadily or moving directly, so that
he could not easily get over a stone — an  effort causing
him anxiety; and he was  obliged often to hold by the
wall  through  giddiness.  Sometimes,  when the  pain
went into the  left hemisphere of the brain,  the patient
saw objects double.  Various  remedies were tried, pre-
parations of iron, etc.,  but without effect.  The patient
was a smoker; and Professor Siebert discovered that he
was uniformly worse after smoking cigars.  With much
difficulty the doctor got him to abstain from this  prac-
tice for a short time, as a trial; and the consequence
was a relief from the symptoms of which he had so long
complained.   He got gradually  better, and ultimately
regained his  health.   Subsequently, the  professor met
his patient in the  inn called the Three  Crowns-, in
B----; when, in the  midst  of their enjoyment and
conversation, the latter, with somewhat of a pitiful look,
inquired of his doctor if he might once again enjoy the
luxury of a cigar.   The doctor forbade; but the  advo-
cate  insisted, and took his own way.  After  the second
cigar, he became pale,  speechless, and hollow-eyed, left
his seat and went out.  The  doctor followed him, and
heard him confess that he felt  come upon  him the whole
symptoms of his former disease.   He was again treated
with medicine; and, having recourse to no more cigars,
he was again  restored  to  health — a clear proof, as the
professor says, that  the tobacco was the cause  of his
ailment."
   133. I was  consulted lately by the father of a young
barrister, who was ruining his  prospects by smoking to- 
     communications and extracts.  123

bacco.   The  father writes that his  son is smoking to-
bacco night and day, converting day into night, and
having no  appetite : as for his legal studies, they have
fled for ever.
  134. Mr. Turton, in an interesting communication on
the evil effects of  tobacco smoking, as read before the
Royal Medical Society, on 20th February, 1857, says :
  " I will  adduce  another  instance of the evil effects
of excessive smoking on the nervous system, as affecting
the procreative powers—I allude to the case of an emi-
nent author in the  literary world, of the highest graphic
historical writing,  who from his  earliest  manhood  has
daily handled the  quill, and between whose lips cigar
has followed  cigar in endless succession.   He  married
when young; and  although not yet sixty years  of age,
and of rather abstemious habits, it  is well known that,
for upwards of the last twenty years — such have been
the effects of mental excitement from intense study, and
of cerebral  affection and influence on the sensorial nerves
from excessive and persistent tobacco smoking—all mari-
tal  connection  between  his wife and him has been  sus-
pended ;  that the poor woman  might have been, during
that period, as well banished or divorced,  she has been
so wholly deprived of her lawful pleasures."
   " Professor Millar," says Mr. Turton, " mentioned on
Wednesday,  18th February, 1857, to the gentlemen of
his class, an interesting case of a gentleman about thirty-
five  years  of age,  who is  suffering from paraplegia,
caused by tobacco  smoking.  When this gentleman dis-
continued  smoking for a few days, a marked improve-
ment of the symptoms supervened; but the moment he 
124   tobacco:  its use and abuse.

resumes his evil habit, the attack comes on as severe as
ever."
  Will  he be able  to do so always ?   Will not organic
disease ultimately follow such attacks of functional dis-
order ?
  135.  I am  informed by a gentleman, whose  name I
am  not  at liberty to mention, that a popular writer of
the present day married a lady, and that immediately
after his marriage he proposed separate beds, which was
agreed to.  But on the young bride telling her situation
to her mother, the  latter investigated the condition of
the two  partners, and learned that the husband was im-
potent; he, in short, had long been an inveterate smoker.
A separation and divorce were  immediately obtained,
and the  lady was married to Mr. J. M.   After the ordi-
nary time she became a mother.
  136.  Extracts from Dr. Budgett's  instructive paper,
on " The Tobacco Question, Morally, Socially, and Phy-
sically Considered:" 1857. Dr. Budgett remarks: " Two
hundred and  sixty years ago, tobacco smoking  was de-
scribed  as 'a  branch of the sin  of drunkenness;' but
during the last ten  or fifteen years, the consumption of
the weed  has so  increased, especially amongst young
people, that we cannot even yet comprehend its influ-
ence or result.
  " Still, the  habits and manners of a country stamp its
identity; and if a New Zealander, or any manly repre-
sentative of any of our many conquered countries, which
we  call  colonies, could place  himself in London, Man-
chester, or any of  our large cities, and ask to be shown
the youth of our present time, the fathers of the  next 
      COMMUNICATIONS  and extracts.  125

generation, he would look  in vain for the strength of
limb, the Saxon energy, the mens sana in corpore sano
which has carried us successfully in every land.
   " If some  old  warrior read  this, perchance  he may
smile with contempt; but, before he  does  so,  I would
recommend him to take his stand at nine in the morn-
ing in any thoroughfare leading to London; scan care-
fully the thin, pale faces on every omnibus;  measure in
his mind's eye the. narrow shoulders, the shuffling walk
of the great  majority of pedestrians; and then let him
tell me if he can recognize any of the  manly elements
which were, in his early day, the pride and glory of his
country.   No!   Tobacco meets us at  every corner: it
smokes on every omnibus,  like  the reeking  of  a dung-
hill; puppies, in  the guise of  officers  and disguise of
gentlemen, puff their impertinence  into  ladies' faces,
who may be unprotected in the streets;  tailors' clerks
and shopboys, taking advantage (query!) of the  early
closing movement, light their  cigars  as they draw on
their  gloves  for an evening's ramble; and  little boys,
from  the costermonger to  the crossing-sweeper,  form
smoking-clubs of  from three  to  twelve,  passing  their
one pipe from mouth to mouth, in the  secluded nooks
of every alley, from the railway  arch to  the mythical
arcana of the  Adelphi.  It is here that vice grows strong
in company,  and here the little  boy receives his first
practical instruction in larceny from his more advanced
confederates; around the pipe,  young  pickpockets hold
their parliament.
    That this is so, no one  can  deny.  It is a grave and
       20 
f
126  tobacco: its  use  and  abuse.

important subject for any legislature to consider, which
looks beyond the accepted rule of expediency.
  " The medical profession in France bear similar testi-
mony; for the (Dictionnaire des Sciences M^dicales'—
a work of which it would be  high treason in Paris  to
doubt the authenticity — after  detailing at length the
effects of tobacco amongst the workmen employed in the
government  factories (for in France it is a monopoly of
the State), goes on to say: " The abuse of tobacco is the
same as of all other pleasures  of excitement, whether
excesses of various kinds, strong liquors, and so forth
(comme de celui de toutes les jouissances par irritation,
comme de la masturbation, de  I'abus des femmes, des
liqueurs fortes, &c), and that it  is astonishing that more
numerous  evils are not the result.'  Again:  l Parents
cannot too much oppose the fearful custom of using to-
bacco; often they allow it to  begin with a  culpable
facility, and they do not appear to foresee all the evils  to
which they deliver the youth whom they permit to con-
tract this baneful habit; often thoughtlessly recommended
for some trifling ailment, the use of it is continued for
the remainder of his days.'
  " The Queen's Tobacco Pipe.—We have seen pipes
of all sorts and sizes in our time.  In Germany, where
the finest cnaster  is but  twenty pence a pound, and ex-
cellent leaf tobacco only five pence, we have seen pipes
that resembled  actual furnaces,  compared  with the
general race of pipes, and have known a man smoke out
half a pound of cnaster, and drink a gallon of beer at a
sitting.   But this is  perfectly  pigmy work when com-
pared with  the  royal  pipe and consumptive tobacco 
communications and  extracts.  127
power of Victoria of England.  The Queen's pipe is,
beyond all controversy—for we have seen it—equal to
any other thousand pipes that can be produced from the
pipial stores of this smoking world.   She has not only
an attendant to present it whenever she  may call for it,
but his orders are  to have it always in the most admi-
rable smoking state — always lighted, without regard to
the quantity of tobacco it may consume; and, accord-
ingly, her  pipe is  constantly kept  smoking,  day and
night, without a moment's intermission; and there are,
besides the grand  pipe-master, a number of attendants
incessantly  employed in seeking the most suitable to-
bacco, and bringing it to the grand-master.  There is no
species of tobacco which the Queen has not in her store
room.    Shag,  Pigtail,  Cavendish, Manilla,  Havana,
Cigars, Cheroots, Negrohead, every possible species of
 nicotian she gives a trial to, by way of variety.  A single
 cigar she holds in as much contempt as a lion would a
 fly by way of mouthful.  We have seen her grand-master
 drop whole handfuls of Havanas at once  into her pipe,
 and after them as many Cubas.
   " It may abate the wonder of the reader at this stu-
 pendous smoking power of the Queen,  when we admit,
 as must indeed have become apparent  in the course of
 our remarks, that the Queen performs  her smoking  as
 she does many of  her other royal acts,  by the hands of
 her servants.   In truth, to  speak  candidly, the Queen
 never smokes at all, except through her servants.   And
 this will appear very likely, when we describe the actual
 size of her royal pipe.  It is, indeed, of most imperial
 dimensions.  The head alone is so large, that while its 
128    TOBACCO:  ITS USE AND  ABUSE

heel rests on the floor of her cellar, its top reaches out
of the roof.  We speak a literal fact, as  any one who
procures an order for the purpose may convince himself
by actual inspection.  We are sure that the quantity of
tobacco which is required to supply it must amount to
some tons in the year.  Nay, so considerable is it, that
ships  are employed specially to bring over this tobacco,
and these ships have a dock of one acre in  extent at the
port of London,  entirely for their exclusive reception.
In a word, the Queen's  tobacco-pipe, its  dimensions, its
attendance, its supply, and consumption of tobacco, are
without any parallel in any age or nation."
  Dr. Budgett adds :  " The  great Tobacco Warehouse is
called the Queen's Warehouse, because it  is rented by
Government for £14,000 a year.   This  warehouse has
no equal in any other part of the world.  It is five acres
in extent."
  137.  The following extract  is from an  article which
appeared in the 178th number of  " Cassell's Illustrated
Family Paper," page 163.   The statistics may be relied
on, seeing  that they are derived from various authentic
sources, such as the writings of Husson, De Wateville,
Soy, and other contributions by able authors, which will
be found in the "Annuaire de l'Economie Politique," as
well as obtained from official documents.   If the report
respecting  the  Emperor be true, his example affords
another of the many melancholy  proofs, which history
supplies, of the  prostration  of power and  trust, to the
fallacious machinations of expediency—expediency which
upsets that righteous administration for upholding which
Kings are ordained to rule, and Princes to decree justice. 
COMMUNICATIONS  AND  EXTRACTS. 129
It confirms the unexceptional truth of the maxim, " that
the love of money is  the  root of all evil."   The advice
of the sordid father to his son is not confined to private
life, but extends to all ranks—the prince and the peasant
alike__and is found  in every age and country.   "Make
money, make  money, my son, honestly  if you can; but
above all, be sure to make money,  be  the consequences
what they may."  Where the greater  power of doing
mischief  is vested, there  is the  greater need to demand
responsible action.  The prostitution of a nation's morals
and health, for  the  sake of revenue,  is an outrage to
humanity — a curse  to the progress of civilization.  It
is the destroying bane against which every philanthropic
 observer  is called upon to impress " on the powers that
 be," that it is both their duty and  interest to provide a
 compulsory antidote, as all other temporizing measures
 must fail.
    " In the year 1854, Paris chewed, snuffed, and smoked
 3 800,000 pounds of  tobacco, for which it paid 17,725,263
 francs.   This poor justice must be done to the Parisians
 and to  the French in  general, that  few of them  are
 guilty of  the  peculiarly disgusting American form of
 tobacco  vice.   The  quantity of the weed masticated is
  to that snuffed and smoked, as one to sixty-two, and has
  not increased per annum  since 1839.   The  habit  of
  takino- snuff is on the decrease; that of smoking, on the
  contrary, has been  of late  years, and  still  is, in course
  of wonderful development.   Formerly it was deemed an
  essentially vulgar practice, and was mainly confined to
  the estaminets; from them it spread  to students  rooms
  and artists' attics, then reached the clubs, at last invaded
                            I 
130    tobacco:  its  use and abuse.

families, and ' the totality of the street/ and is now d la
mode with all classes.   As you are aware, the Emperor
and Empress  both smoke.  If they had  not a taste for
tobacco, they might  still indulge in, or  rather subject
themselves to  its  use, by way of setting an example,
which his majesty has strong politico-economical reasons
for wishing to  see generally  imitated.   Between  1839
and 1854,  the  consumption of  tobacco  in all France
nearly  doubled in  quantity.   Whatever may be  the
vicious effect of the noxious weed on the popular health,
this increased consumption helps to  plump up the gov-
ernment finances curiously.  The manufacture and sale
of tobacco is, as my readers are aware, a State monopoly;
but they  are,  perhaps,  not aware of what M. Husson
assures us is the fact, that it produces  a clear yearly
profit (benefice  net,) of  more  than  100,000,000  of
francs, or one-fifteenth of all  the receipts of the public
treasury."
   138. In the Lancet for 14th March, 1857, page 250,
Mr. Higginbottom quotes  Sir David  Brewster's memoir
of Sir Isaac Newton, wherein he states:
   " He was frugal in his diet, and in all his habits tem-
perate.   When he was  asked to take  snuff or tobacco,
he declined, remarking ' that he would make no necessi-
ties to himself — a remark," says  Mr.  Higginbottom,
" truly worthy of that great philosopher and Christian."
My reasons for introducing the above are, that in many
of the letters in the Lancet, on the tobacco controversy,
the name of Sir Isaac Newton has been brought forward
unwarrantably, by the advocates  of the innocence  of to-
bacco, to prove that  that great mind was uninjured by 
     communications and extracts.  131

tobacco—a fact true only in this  respect, that he never
subjected himself to its influence.
  139. Two additional cases, with illustrations, showing
the effects  of tobacco smoking upon the palate, tonsils,
and  tongue.  These cases have lately occurred in the
course of my own private practice.
  T---- R----,  twenty-six  years  of age,  a strong,
brawny carter, who had smoked  half-an-ounce or more
of tobacco  daily, for five years, complained of dyspep-
sia, hypochondriasis, and impotency.   The velum palati
and  tonsils exhibit the dark  livid red and velvety ap-
pearance so characteristically  described by Mr. Solly in
the Lancet of 14th February,  1857, an extract of which
will  be found at page 85.  The tongue is loaded with a
greenish-white  fur.  It is to this condition of the palate
and tongue which  Mr. Solly directs the attention of me-
dical examiners of insurance offices.
   140. Case of colloid  cancer on the tongue, drawn up
by Mr. Turton.
   «W---- R----, get. thirty-two, a printer by trade,
residing in ----, says he did not  begin to smoke or
drink till he was twenty years  old. Whenever he drank,
he always smoked a very great  deal; in fact, he  says,
the  pipe was seldom or never  out of  his mouth.  About
twelve months ago, he  first  noticed an  ulcer  on  his
 tongue,  near its centre; notwithstanding, he kept on
 smoking and drinking to a very great extent—the  ulcer
 continuing rapidly to spread at that time.  He was then
 seen by some medical gentlemen, who touched the  ulcer
 with caustic.   A band of matter resembling curd  came
 out, and  left  a hole.   The  patient, though this  ulcer 
132   TOBACCO: ITS  USE  AND  ABUSE.

greatly annoyed  him,  and was gradually extending, was
not deterred from smoking and drinking, till two months
ago, when he was obliged  to  desist, in consequence of
the pain becoming excruciating when he put a pipe be-
tween his lips.   He then began to notice notches, as he
says, on either side of his tongue.  Such was his  state
when I saw him on Sunday week.  His  articulation, as
you may imagine, was not very distinct.   The mucous
membrane of the cheeks and  fauces are in accordance
with the description  of Mr. Solly, who says  ' he can
always detect a smoker by examining his fauces; for
they assume  a velvety-red  appearance, and by the con-
gested state of the mucous membrane.'   The pain from
the tongue causes him* many a sleepless night, and his
headaches are excruciating; the pain  in his throat, he
says,  is greatest.  While lying in bed, he  sometimes
feels as if he was suffocating."
   141. The following extracts from the article Tobacco,
contained in the " Dictionnaire des Sciences M^dicales,"
pp. 190,  191-195, 196, are so confirmatory of the opi-
nion which I had formed respecting the injurious effects
of tobacco on the animal organs and  functions, that  I
cannot refrain to append them.  That voluminous and
valuable  work* was compiled  by the most learned and
experienced physicians and surgeons in France.
   "La preparation des tabacs exige un grand nombre
d'ouvriers, et les emanations de cette plante sont si fortes
et si malfaisantes qu'elles causent beaucoup d'incommo-
dites a ceux qui  s'occupent de ce travail; ils sont en
  * Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, par un SociSte' de MSdicina
et de Chirurgiens.  Paris, 1821. 
COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.  133
general maigres, d6color6s, jaunes, asthmatiques, sujets
aux coliques, au devoiement, au flux de sang, mais sur-
tout au vertige, k la cephalalgie, au tremblement muscu-
laire, a, un veritable narcotism e, et aux maladies plus ou
moins aigues de la poitrine, comme  j'ai eu l'occasion de
l'observer, sois dans les hopitaux de Paris, ou ces ouv-
riers  se voient frequemment, soit  dans les manufactures
de tabac.  Je possede dans mon recueil  d'observations
cliniques, plusieurs faits curieux en ce genre que j'aurais
consigned ici sans la crainte d'etre tros long.  Ainsi, une
 substance aussi inutile cause  des maux sans nombre, et
 la mort mgme b ceux charges de preparer aux autres la
 plus insignificante des jouissances."
    "Les ouvriers, occup&s ordinairement au tabac, dit
 Ramazzini, y gagnent des douleurs de t§te violentes, des
 vertiges, des nauseas, et des eternuemens continuels.   II
 s'eleve en effet dans cette operation une si grand* quan-
 tity  de parties subtiles, surtout en 6t6, que tous les voi-
•sins  en sont incommodes, et se plaignent  d'envies de
 vomir.  Les  chevaux, occupes & tourner la meule (qui
 rape  la  tabac),  temoignent 1'a.crete  nuisible de cette
 poussiere qui voltige, en  agitant frequemment la tete, en
  toussant et soufflant par les naseaux.  Les ouvriers  en
  tabac, ajoute-t-il plus loin, sont  en general sans appetit.
  f Ramazzini Mai des Artisans, traduction de Fourcroy,
  t) 189^)   Ce passage indique la necessity de transporter
  L ateliers ou l'on fabrique le tabac hors des villes k
   cause des incommodites dont ils peuvent etre 1 engine:
   c'est ce qui a lieu je crois, partout en France mainte-
   Z- nous  devons pourtant ajouter que l'on finit smon
   pl^'habituer . ces emanations nuisibles, du moms par 
134   TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND  ABUSE.

y etre moins  impressionables, car les ouvriers  un peu
anciens n'en sont presque plus tourment6s ?   Fourcroy,
dans une note  de la traduction citee, indique les ouvriers
de la ferme  de Cette en Languedoc pour ne s'en trouver
aucunement incommodes."
  "II  en est de  l'abus de tabac comme de celui  de
toutes  les jouissances  par irritation, comme de  la  mas-
turbation, de l'abus des femmes, des liqueurs fortes, etc.
Et l'on doit encore e"tre 6tonne" de  ne pas lui voir causer
des accidens plus nombreux."
  "Les  parens ne sauraient done trop s'opposer a la
funeste habitude  d'user de tabac: souvent on la  laisse
prendre  avec un facility blamable, et l'on semble ne pas
prevoir tous les maux, tous  les chagrins auxquels  on
livre la jeunesse a qui on laisse contracter cette coutume
vicieuse: conseille" souvent avec legerete" pour un coryza
ou des douleurs passageres  de tete, on  continue ensuite
d'en prendre le restant de ses jours."
  " Les  inconveniens  et les dangers attaches h 1'usage*
du tabac ont  e^e" si evidens des l'origine de Pintroduc-
tion  de cette plante en Europe, que  des souverains ont
cherche'  k s'opposer k  son emploi.  Amurat, empereur
des Turcs, le grand-due de Moscovie, le roi de Perse,  en
deTendirent  l'usage  a leurs sujets sous peine de la vie ou
d'avoir le nez  coupe\   Jaques Stuart, roi d'Angleterre,
a fait  un traite"  sur les inconveniens du tabac.  II y a
un bulle d'Urbain  VIII. par laquelle  il  excommunie
ceux qui prennent du tabac dans  les  eglises; enfin les
savans diviserent beaucoup  au sujet de ce vegetal et  en
blstmerent 1'emploi."
  142.  I have received several communications from 
COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.  135
professional friends, strongly indicating the strength and
extent of medical testimony against the use of the poi-
sonous weed, and out  of these I have selected one sent
to me by a  physician,  who has  long enjoyed extensive
opportunities of  witnessing the very prejudicial  effects
which tobacco smoking exercises on the digestive organs.
" In the course of my professional experience," he writes
me  " two or three  cases  of  decided carcinoma of the
under-lip, all of  which terminated fatally,  have come
under my care, and which could be unmistakeably traced
to a sore, occasioned by a burn from a hot  cutty-pipe.
But I  have had ample opportunities of observing the
 evil  effects which  tobacco-smoking  produces  on the
 health of the  working-classes, and particularly how it
 operates by disordering the organs of digestion, in occa-
 sioning very bad forms of dyspepsia.  Several inveterate
 smokers have been committed  to  my charge, on whom
  every species of persuasion,  from remonstrance on the
  part of their relations, to admonition on that of their
  clergymen, had  been used  in vain, to induce them to
  relinquish the habit of smoking, to which they had been
  long unhappily addicted.  They had the sallow, sickly
  look of individuals  in bad  health, were attenuated m
  body, and labored under anorexia, painful digestion, and
  an irritable state  of the nervous system,  harassing to
  their own feelings, and most distressing to those of their
  family   Although they had resisted every argument
  and  advice tendered by unprofessional parties, I have
  never failed to succeed  in  making  the  most obstinate
  smoker a convert to my opinion, upon reasoning with
   him upon the subject, and  showing the modus operandi 
136    tobacco: its use and abuse.

of tobacco, in affecting his health and happiness, by its
baneful influence on the process of digestion.  And I
can revert with  much  satisfaction to the grateful ex-
pressions I have  received from many such  patients on
restoration to health, after following my recommendation
' to give up the use of tobacco/ as you  have expressed
it, ' for ever.' "
   143. The following observations of the learned author
of the Zoonomia, accord with the medical opinions which
I have adduced regarding the injurious effects of tobacco
on the digestive organs : —
   Darwin, in his Zoonomia, vol. ii., page 701, thus ob-
serves : " The unwise custom of chewing and smoking
tobacco for  many hours in  a day, not only injures the
salivary glands, producing dryness in the mouth when
this  drug is used, but I suspect  that it also produces
scirrhus  in  the pancreas.   The use of tobacco in this
immoderate degree injures  the powers of digestion, by
occasioning the  patient to spit out that saliva which he
ought  to  swallow; and hence produces that  flatulency
which the vulgar unfortunately take it to prevent."
   At page  80 of the same  volume,  he says: " I saw
what I conjectured  to be a tumor of  the pancreas with
indigestion, and  which terminated in the death of the
patient.   He had been for many years a great consumer
of tobacco, in so much, that he chewed that noxious drug
all the morning,  and smoked it all the afternoon."
   144. The following extract is from  the Medical Times
and  Gazette of 11th December, 1858  : —
   "To the Editor of the Medical Times and Gazette —
Sir,  I enclose a copy of a circular, which I have found 
     COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS.   137

it  necessary to issue, as a caution to the officers of this
department.   I have seen several, and  heard of  more
such cases occurring among the general public, few of
whom are aware of the (causa tanti mall'

   "' Caution. — The Medical Officer cautions the men
against the practice of smoking short pipes — more par-
ticularly those,  however, under  the  name of 'Meer-
schaum-washed pipes.'  Several cases of diseases of the
throat, gums, and stomach have recently occurred, trace-
able to this cause.   The Meerschaum-washed pipes are
frequently, if not always, prepared with powerful mine-
ral acids; and the narcotic oils  inhaled through them,
exert a more than ordinarily  pernicious  influence on the
health.'            Waller Lewis, M. B. Cantab.,
        " Medical Officer to Her Majesty's Post Office.
   "4^ December, 1858."

   145. I have brought forward, I trust, evidence suffi-
cient to convince the most skeptical, that tobacco is a
most deleterious  drug,  whether used  in  the form of
smoke, snuff, or quid—all of which modes of administra-
tion, the public, and what is more surprising, the medical
profession,  seem  hitherto to have regarded with most
unaccountable nonchalance.
   The authorities which  I  have adduced, condemning
 tobacco smoking, must be allowed, by every unprejudiced
 mind, greatly to outweigh, in real value, all those brought
 forward in favor of it, not a few of the  latter writings
 having been got up from more than questionable motives. 
138    TOBACCO:  ITS  USE AND ABUSE.

  Since the publication of my third edition, I have re-
ceived accounts of not a few cases, and have had under
my own treatment, several examples of ulceration of the
lips,  tongue, soft and hard palate, and  of the mucous
membrane of the cheek — some of these  being purely
carcinomatous and incurable:  and all of which occurred
in individuals greatly addicted to smoking tobacco.  The
number of patients frequenting my surgery in the morn-
ings  is  upwards of  2000 annually, and these afford me
an extensive field of surgical  observation  in every de-
partment.   It would appear that the cigar, or pipe, first
produces a small blister of the mucous membrane of the
mouth, which, being daily irritated by the pungent weed,
progressively ulcerates  and becomes cancerous.   I am
decidedly of opinion, that  a cigar or pipe, impregnated
with this cancerous  fluid, is a ready medium to commu-
nicate the disease to another person who uses the same
cigar or pipe.
THE  END. 
 
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
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