Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-10-02
Gales aud Sketthfs.
Plug Tobacco a Powerful Poison.
from DR.. Dio Lewis Nuggets" ~

from DR.. Dio Lewis "Nuggets."l
Tobacco is playing an important part
in the morbid development of our nervous
systems. wish to discuss this question
| frankly. | used tobacco several years.
In college smoked short, black pipe,
and was proud of its color. Having tested
the weed, will tell you in plain. friend
| " way what now think Of it.
| Tobacco in the state of the ordinary
plug is powerful poison. do not now
speak of certain extract from tobacco,
single drop of which put upon the tongue
of a cat would kill her in two minutes,
three drops of which on the tongue of a
dog will kill him so quickly he will hard
| ly get out OF your arms in his struggles,
and ten drops of " hich will kill cow in
| side of ten minutes. am not speaking OF
this extract, though it is fouud in tobacco.
| but am speaking of the common plug.
Let US make an experiment Here is
boy ten years old, who has never used to-
bacco.
Charles. will you help US make an ex-
periment?"
IL will, SIR
Here is a piece of plug tobacco as
large as pea. Put it in your mouth,
chew it Don't let one drop go down
your throat, but spit every drop of the
Juice into that spittoon. Keep on chew
ing, splitting, chewing. splitting. chewing"
Before he is done with that little piece
of tobacco, simply squeezing the juice out
of it without swallowing drop, he will
lie here on the platform in cold. death
like perspiration Put your fingers upon
his wrist. There is no pulse. He will
seem for two or three hours to be dying.
Again. steep plug of tobacco in Il
quart of water and battle the neck and
back of a calf troubled with vermin, You
will kill the vermin, but if not very care
full you will kill the calf too. These ex-
pertinent show that tobacco in its ordinary
state is an extremely powerful poison.
Gentlemen, go to your drug stores be-
gin with the upper shelves and take down
every bottle Then open every drawer,
and you cannot find single poison Eek
cept some very rare one) which, taken in
to the mouth of that ten-year-Old boy and
not swallowed, will produce such deadly
effects
There are several modes in which tobac-
co is used.
First, Chawing. Some people call it
chewing. Chaw is the word. If you
don't know how it is done ask some clean
housekeeper. She will be eloquent on the
subject.
Second, Smoking. Somebody has de-
scribed smoking as small roll of tobacco
with little fire at one end and big fool
at the other.
Third. Shutting. Snuff-taking is very
funny to look at, and particularly tascin-
ating to its devotees but it is rulnous to
the voice, and leads to form of indiges-
ton which ought to be classified as the
snuff takers dyspepsia.
Snuff-rubbing snuff chewing and smoke
swallowing, are modes prevailing in va
rious parts of the world, but not known
among US, and need only be mentioned.
Let US next consider the influence on
health of some of these modes.
First, Chewing. Look into chewer's
mouth. How red it is. The doctor no
longer appeals to it to determine the con-
diton of the stomach. He can learn
nothing by examining his patient tongue.
The congestion which produces that
strange redness extends little further
down than you can see. and affects the
speech. DR.. Cole and Professor Water
house affirm that they can always tell
whether public speaker be chewer of
tobacco or not, so peculiar is the influence
upon the voice.
Second. Smoking Injuries the teeth. 1t
is not remarkable that the heat of tobacco
smoke and its acrid poison should affect
! the teeth.
| But that is nothing compared with its
influence upon the lungs. Put yonr hand
over Your eye, fill your mouth with smoke
and blow the smoke up under your hand.
! Look in the glass. How red the eve is.
Tears run down the cheek. What is the
matter? There has been a powerful
poison in the eve, and yet young men
whose parents died of consumption do not
scruple to sit in smoking-room till it is
all blue. and take this poison into the de-
llcate structure of the lungs. | believe
said Professor Warehouse, of Harvard
that if young men should abandon cigars
consumption would be confined exclusive
ly to women. believe the great Liebig,
when he saws that of the German males
who lie between fifteen and fifty large
number die of smoking tobacco.
The cigarette mania is becoming seri-
Gus. The millions consumed by the young
men and boys of the country pass all be-
lief. The statements about the opium and
other drugs introduced into these cigar
rettes may or not be true, but the tobacco
in them is tobacco. Need we argue that
the use of tobacco in this form is especial
~ to be deprecated, since it is the vice of
boys whose brains are in very suscepti-
BILE condition? The boy who INDUCES in
cigarettes may win the admiration OF 9TH
er youngsters. but he will not increase the
respect of his best friends. and will inc
vitality lessen his chances of success n
life.
How Lincoln Stopped Criticisms.