The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-12-03
The True Danger of Tobacco.

the opponents OF tobacco, which has ragged at
intervals for the last three hundred years, is,
we suspect, very nearly at an end. The world
smokes Just the world eats, and as
little necessity for defending the one practice
as the other. 1t recognizes evils arising from
oversmoking just as 1t recognizes evils arising
from overeatipg; but is no more alarmed by
stories OF paralysis produced by cigars than by
reports OF spoplexy from roast goose. 1t sets
down the victims in either case as slightly
silly persons, and goes on its way with a
remark about the uses of moderation. But
that the governments of Europe have seizsd
with natural eagerness on a new and tempting
opportunity of taxation, and that there is but
one mode of smoking, the narghil6 which
looks graceful the women of the West would,
we believe, ere this have adopted the practice,
as their sisters in the East have done, ant
the victory of the weed would be com
plete. Mankind have discovered, in fact, a
new pleasure so great that it tempts them to
overcome an instructive disgust so genuine
that the first cigar makes everybody sick, do
not see any counterbaancing evil, and Will
not be lectured into giving the pleasure up.
Moralists indeed have pretty nearly abau-
doned their efforts in despair. A man like
Dean Close now and then says a harsh word
against an enjoyment which he regards as
purely sensual, and an economist occasionally
makes fuss about the waste of money it in
volves-a waste very curiously great, If We
assume that tobacco has no effect either for
good or evil; but as rule these austere
thinkers have concentrated most OF their at
tention upon alcohol, a much less dubious
subject for the eloquence of asceticsm. Th5
only serOus attacks now come from the fss-
tidious, who in some countries have contrived
to make it bad taste to smoke
in woman's presence; and from
physicians, who every now aud then
are startled by isolated facts into reviewing
the popular decision. Some such facts seem
recently to have come before a we'll known
physiologist, who in 81. PduL'S Magd.jne for
this month does little thinking aloud upon
the matter, arriving, of course, with some
hesitation upon one point to be noticed
directly, at the popular conclusion. 1t is, he
says, fallacy to argue that because nicotine
in the concentrated form or an overdose Of
ordinary tobacco is poisonous, therefore a
smaller dose must in its degree be poisonous
too. Quantity alters quality sometimes as We
see in the cases of alcohol, opium, and even
= flesh meat all of which can be made to yield
strong poison, but in reasonable doses are
innoxous or beneficial. The effect of the doses
is not cumulative when the smoker is - an
ordinary state of health, any more than
the effect of daily glasses of wine or cups OF
tea, either of which may be taken for seventy
years with as little consequence at the close
of life as at first. There are, no doubt, states
of health in which small dose may be highly
injurious or even poisonous, and the essayist
in st. PduPS gives, with characteristic clear
ness an explanation of this circumst stance, the
cause, as he thinks, of much of the pref ddice
against tobacco
..Tbe stomach is quite capable of absorbing
the poison, but it absorUs It slowly compare
with the apidity of the process by whtcn the
poison is excreted; and IN consequence OF this
greater rapidity OF eXcreti0n, although all the
poison may be absorbed, yet at no Que II OInent
is there tufficient quantity in the blood to pro.
duce Injury. Spread out the ihunder into It's
minutesJ tones, says schiller, and IL oecon es
lullaby for children spread out the deaullest
poison in minute doses, and IL becomes q iQ0ul-
cine-as we know from the daily use OF strycn
nine, prussic acid. and other energetic poisons
In medical practice. Now. when poison is
rapidly excreted by the skin, lungs and KID
neys, so that an accumulation in the blood Is
prevented all injury is avoided a succession
OF minute doses not being the same as one con-
centrated dose. But il from any cause tue
rapidity of eXcretion be arrested, an accumula
tion takes place, and thus small dose comes
to have the effect of a large dose. This is not
hypothesis IL has been proved by Hermann o.
Berlin VINO found that the dose of curart
which was quite lnnocuous when injected into
the stomach OF rabbit, became almDsG imme
diately fatal If the vessels of the Kidneys were
tied, thus preventing the excretion from TAX lnG
place through the Kidneys. Hermann alsC
Iound-what, indeed, Brown Sequard had lone
ago p1oved-that the dose of alcohol whicn was
fatal To an animal when left exposed to the cold
passed away without serious effects when tht
eating az d the cold retarding the eXcreIion from
The skin"
But in the great majority of cases small dose
OF tobacco as eEtlrely innocuous as smal
doses OF the very dangerous poison contained
in tea.
The experience of mankind, which, after all
is the best guide, is, We need not say, Il
exact accord with this view, and tobacc
might be pronounced harmless luxury bu
for one exceptional fact, which is noticed b.
the writer in st. PauL'S Magazine, but which
dismissed far too summarily. He admits
with freedom which will please the fey
resolute opponents of tobacco, that its use il
excess is very injurious, producing nervou
complaints, hysteria, mental weakness, an
sometimes paralysis, and very Justly sets tina
aside as an evil incident to almost every habi
of mankind. Alcohol coffee, and even ord
nary food may all be made dangerous by tai
ing too much, and "the argument frol
excess is an excess of argument"-the Onl
important point as to that matter being til
limit of moderation, which differs with ever
individual and with the state OF the digestio
on each separate day, or even hour, tobacC
before breakfast being injurious to many me
who can smoke after it with impunity. Bl
those who use tobacco want an answer, eitht
from the lay Psychologist of the 81. PauPS {
from the medical profession, 10 a much MOI
subtle question. Has not tobacco a propert
belonging to very few substances which max,
its use exceptionally dangerous, much mo-
dangerous, say, than that OF alcohol--tl
property, that is, when administered in 8
overdose, of effeotiDg s6me permanent chang
probably in the spinal cord, which renders u
victim for ever after liable TO injury from IL
minutest dose This writer does not prefer
to answer that question as it could be a
sWered in the Lancet, but be has had speci