yearly returns made by the Government CustomHouse; but its physical, moral, and mental deteriorations, admit of no such tangible analysis. These, although certain, are slow and imperceptible 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 consumption 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. prevalence of Smoking has been of late greatly on the increase, and the use of the narcotic cornmences 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. EDINBURGH, SOUTH CHARLOTTE STREET, 1859. The JCHN LIZARS. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TOBACCO. The Introduction of Tobacco into Europe-The question of its inten- 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 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 Médicales, 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- THE USE AND ABUSE OF ТОВАССО. CHAPTER I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF 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 religious 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 (18) 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, Raphelengi, who, having accustomed himself to it in Virginia, introduced 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. |