82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ness and grayish tint of the ganglion. The pneurnogastnc portion 

 now descends, passing before the lingual nerve and the jugular vein 

 for a little distance, then behind, inclosed in the sheath of the carotid 

 artery and jugular, rather closer to the vein than to the artery, to 

 which it gives off filaments. The importance of this system will be 

 evident when it is stated that it is principally concerned in the coor- 

 dination of the functions of deglutition, articulation, respiration, cir- 

 culation, and digestion. The three great functions of animal life, nu- 

 trition, respiration, and circulation, are, in briefer terms, mainly co- 

 ordinated by the par vagum in its cervical, thoracic, and abdominal 

 tracts. With the former and its filaments, and to a considerable de- 

 gree with the thoracic, the specific influence of the tobacco has, in 

 smoking, a contact exceedingly direct and protracted ; and, if the gen- 

 eral reader will trouble himself to map out in his own imagination the 

 course, ramifications, and connections, of the pneumogastric system, 

 he will see clearly that the congeries of symptoms occasioned by the 

 initial cigar follows out, step by step, the complex relations of this 

 tract to the vital functions, and that the physical and psychological 

 exponents of the habit in its established stages are, similarly, the 

 natural results of narcotism of this system, and of the great vital 

 centre from which it springs. 



To these general facts of observation let me now append the de- 

 tails of a series of experiments : 



I had been an inveterate smoker for eight years, when, in the sum- 

 mer of 1872, certain symptoms resembling those of writer's cramp 

 attacked the right arm, and gradually, though to a less alarming 

 extent, enveloped the left. Physicians pronounced it a genuine case 

 of writer's cramp ; but, owing to the persistent absence of certain 

 symptoms, among them brittleness and want of color in the finger- 

 nails, I was slow to accept the conclusion. There was reason enough 

 why excessive scribbling should bring on the affection ; but I was, 

 nevertheless, doubtful, though I so far complied with the prescription 

 as to have recourse to the ordinary electrical appliances insisted upon 

 by Dr. Poore, in his admirable essays on the subject, which embody, 

 in brief form, the memoranda of an expert of some years' practice. 



As I half anticipated, the application was without material benefit. 

 Tonics and nervines proved equally inefficacious, and for a year, with 

 short intervals of relief, affairs did but get worse and worse. Blue 

 ink, elastic pen-holders, and broad-nibbed pens, were altogether inca- 

 pable of ameliorating the affection or mending the scrawling, irregular 

 handwriting that resulted from it ; and so essential is it that the hand 

 and mind should work together in a kind of rhythm, in order to form 

 a good style, or to preserve it when formed, that any affection of the 

 nerves of the arm that breaks up this rhythm is nearly as fatal to the 

 poet, essayist, and novelist, as to the artist or the pianist ; and I soon 

 found my sentences as cramped and dissonant as my manuscript. 



