, 1872-02-22
SMOKING.


u -
smoking tobacco. in the Food Journal,
DIR. E. B. Gray asks:
SIS smoking injnrious?" This is an
every day question apt to be put by pa
tients to the doctors Like most broad
questions of the kind, it involves far too
many considerations to admit of being
answered in plain yes or no. A med
ical man who has long been a moderate
smoker, and watched the effect of the
habit on himself and others, here offers
what he believes to he the true ansver
to the question: 1 VI - - =
First of all there must be an under
standing about the quality Of the tobac-
co to be smoked. Bad. e.. rank,
quickly intoxicating and prostrating
tobacco, Certain kinds of shag and
cavendish, for instance), must always
be injurious. Few can smoke them at
all-none habitnally at least, with i'm
punity. So too, with regard to quantity;
even good tobacco smoked to excess
will to a certainty be injurious to the
smoker, sooner or later, in some way o.
another. Of all the various evil effects
of excessive more will be said present
ly.
Next as to the smokers. They are
people to whom any tobacco, however
smoked, is simply poison. causing even
in small doses, vomiting, pallor and
alarming prostration. Such people
never get seasoned to its effects even
after repeated trials; and if they are wise
they will forever leave it alone. They
will display still further wisdom by not
presum ing to make laws for others
who have not the same idiosyncrasy.
No one can enjoy smoking. or smoke
with impuuity when out of health. The
phrase .'out of health" though it may
sound vague, is defrite enough to frame
a general rule.
Tobacco should be used as supple
mentary to food, not as substitute for
it. The season. therefore. for healthy
smoking is after meal. Tobacco
should no. be taken on an empty
stomach (unless to starve off hunger
any more than alcohol. Smo-ing
merely to kill time or to color a pipe
% is childish use of tobacco,
Against moderate smoking in healthy
person who enjoys it, not single argu-
ment of any weight has been advanced.
Perhaps the most plausible of them is
this: That every smoker daily iinbibes
small quantity of tobacco oil and
nicotine: and as these substances taken
by themselvee in the pure concentrated
state, and in large doses, are poisonous,
therefore every habitual smoker is pois-
oning himself. Just as reasonable is it
to condemn all alcoholic drinks, such
as wine, beer, etc., as pernicious be-
cause It draft of pure alcohol will nearly
or quite kill man; or to condemn tea
and coffee as dangerous drinks, because
their native principles, theme. and CT f.
feline, taken alone, and in large doses
are poisonous. One of the best estab-
lished truths in medical science is that
the same physiological agent, according
to the dose given, may produce effects
which differ not merely in degree but
kind. The idea of small doses of tobac-
co of any such agent, slowly accumula-
ting in the system, and at length pro-
ducing the effect of a single large dose
is priori absurd, and also contradicted
by experience.
So much, and often so much nonsense
is prated about the evil of tobacco that
its virtues rarely get a hearing, and yet
the latter are many and great. To quiet
nervous unrest, to soothe ruffied tenn
per; to favor calm and impartial thought;
to steady and clear (not cloud) con-
fused over-worked brain; to counteract
the effects of physical exhaustion; these
are Just the things which tobacco does,
and if it can effect these ends safely and
pleasantly, who shall deny it place
among Gods good gifts to men?
-<)