THE CONFESSION OF A REFORMED SMOKER. 77 



My own case is possibly an extreme one, though not, I am inclined 

 to think, to the extent of vitiating its application to the majority. My 

 father used tobacco. My grandfather on my mother's side, a physician 

 by profession, whose physical and mental traits I inherit to a consid- 

 erable extent, was a moderate smoker ; whether my paternal grand- 

 father used the weed I have no means of ascertaining. I may add, 

 however, that its use is pretty common among the collateral limbs 

 radiating from the family trunk, and that there is hence no reason 

 for regarding the phenomena in my case as the results of constitu- 

 tional antagonism to the narcotic. 



I have been a smoker, or had been up to July, 1874, for thirteen 

 years, having commenced at the age of twenty-two. During the first 

 three years I was somewhat irregular in my habits, sometimes smok- 

 ing a pipe, sometimes consuming cigars at the rate of from three to 

 five per day, and sometimes refraining altogether for from three days 

 to a week. 



I am of cerebro-muscular temperament; of slender physique, though 

 broad-shouldered; Avith great physical endurance conjoined to peculiar 

 sensitiveness of nervous organization, am yet not liable to the nervous 

 excitability generally associated with sensitiveness. Opium and its 

 preparations take their normal narcotic effect in very minute doses, 

 inducing languor and drowsiness within a few minutes after adminis- 

 tration. No tendency to talk precedes narcotism, nor is the slightest 

 tendency to fantasy developed by the drug. Hasheesh acts in a man- 

 ner analogous to morphia, bringing on stupor at the moderate dose, 

 but engendering none of those deliciously intangible sensations which 

 are so generally attributed to its action by Bayard Taylor and others 

 who profess to have experimented with it. 



Alcoholic stimulants act limitedly as excitants, but powerfully and 

 rapidly as sedatives. I soon fall asleep under the action of whiskey and 

 brandy. Wines, also, are generally sedative ; but ale acts as a stimu- 

 lant to the brain and nerve-centres with unerring certainty of effect, 

 while its sedative action is long postponed and extremely unreliable. 

 Have never used stimulants habitually, or even with ordinary fre- 

 quency. Have taken morphine in quarter-grain doses, or the equiva- 

 lent in laudanum, a dozen times, possibly, in the course of as many 

 years. Am, regular in my habits, temperate, and accustomed to pro- 

 tracted intellectual effort ; inherit a narcotic tendency from my father, 

 which exhibits itself in peculiar psychical phenomena whenever de- 

 fective nutrition or protracted nervous tension is permitted. 



One idiosyncrasy is worth noting at this stage of the narrative. 

 Although I have smoked habitually for ten years, I have never been 

 able to take tobacco in my mouth without violent nausea, or even to 

 retain a cigar between my teeth ; and have always been compelled to 

 remove my cigar frequently from my lips and to carry it between my 

 fingers, when not in actual use. In short, the slightest and most mo- 



