Morning journal and courier., 1886-07-13
The Effects of Tobacco.

The effects of tobacco differ widely ac- cording to individual, racial and climatic conditions, and according to the method of consumption and to circumstances of dosage and concentration. In proof of individual differences we have mass of everyday tes- timony. 1T could not work unless 1 smoked" :" says one; and another, 'fTobacco never agrees with me, though have tried it often.'' Only on the view that effects vary according to differences of count for the fact that some communities readily adopt the habit and defend it., while others find no pleasure in it and denounce it, as in the case of certain American States. Climatic variations are still more striking. In temperate and cold countries tobacco ere ates thirst and thereby encourages drinking habits; in tropical climes 1t has no such ef- feet on the smoker and the taste for alcohol rarely follows it's use in those attitudes. Very eminent observers have indeed attribu- ted the proverbial sobriety of eastern people to the use of tobacco. These important qualifications having reference to the smoker himself and his surroundings, and modify ing the effects of his indulgence in such manner as irresistibly to suggest the old pro verb "One mans food is another mans poi son. But further the effects vary according to the method of consumption; and here we
  upon several stimulant narcotics, and that is the question of chewing. All solid foods undergo this process in the mouth and of our chief products, tobacco, coco, opium and betel are also chewed The act of chewing powerfully affects the nerves of the mouth, they being branches of the fifth pair Of nerves and in close connection with the brain. While it has long been understood that certain nerves in the mouth excite, when stimulated by food the pleasurable sensations of taste, it is more recent dis covery that the chewing of solids produces through the fifth nerve certain stimulant inn pressions upon the nervous centers. One of the consequent effects is a quickened circula ton in the brain. What light this throws upon the habit of chewing the world overi The child, whose one anxiety is to get some- thing between it's teeth, may be exemplify- ing want and an instinct the same as prompts the Egyptian, Malay and Hindu from infancy to age to gnaw at the sugar cane. Again many persons seek to produce an analogous effect by storking the chin or nose when puzzled or absorbed in thought. In such cases doubtless the unconscious act has for it's purpose stimulation of the brain through the mediation of sensitive nerves. Both snuffing and chewing tobacco probably exert this local influence far more powerful ly than smoking. The constitutional effects in the three cases are nearly the same. Among our sailors chewing the quid' is ex- tremely common and seems to date rom time when smoking was prohibited from danger to the wooden walls" Methods of smoking exercise important influence on the effect produced. Smoked in the Euro pean fashion, according to which the fumes of the burning leaf are sucked directly into the mouth, the essential principles of the drug, including nicotine, find free entrance into the system. This is obviated by the Turks, Hindus, Chinese and others, who draw the smoke through layer of water in some form of water pipe, such the hookah and narghile. By this very wise method the narcotic effects are far more difficult to pro- duce and altogether less in extent. Hence it would be of great and undeniable advantage to introduce the water system into this coun- try