232 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



were 230 males and 131 females. Out of the 230 males, the number 

 who smoked was 13G ; the number who did not smoke was 94. Thus, 

 out of 230 consumptive males, the smokers showed an excess of 42. 

 In regard to chronic bronchitis, including asthma, there came under 

 notice cases to the total number of 475. Out of this total, there were 

 338 persons who did not smoke, and 137 persons who did smoke or 

 who had smoked. Thus, out of 470 persons suffering from chronic 

 bronchitis, those who did not smoke showed an excess of 201. Out 

 of the total of 475, there were 249 males, and 225 females. Out of 

 the 249 males, the number who smoked was 137, and the number who 

 did not smoke was 112. Thus, out of 249 males suffering from chron- 

 ic bronchitis, the smokers showed an excess of 25. He felt confident, 

 therefore, that neither consumption nor bronchitis in the chronic 

 form could be induced primarily by smoking ; for while it is true that, 

 among the men, those who smoked were the most numerous of the 

 sufferers from both diseases, we are bound to accept this circumstance 

 as coincidental merely. 



The statements to the effect that tobacco-smoke causes specific 

 diseases, such as insanity, epilepsy, St. Vitus dance, apoplexy, or- 

 ganic diseases of the heart, cancer and consumption, and chronic 

 bronchitis, have been made without any sufficient evidence or refer- 

 ence to facts ; all such statements are devoid of truth, and can never 

 accomplish the object which those who offer them have in view. 



That which smoking effects, either as a pleasure or a penalty, on a 

 man, it inllicts on any national representation of the same man ; and 

 taking it all in all, stripping from the argument the puerilities and ex- 

 aggerations of those who claim to be the professed antagonists of the 

 practice, it is fair to say that, in the main, smoking is a luxury which 

 any nation of natural habits would be better without. The luxury is 

 not directly fatal to life, but its use conveys to the mind of the man 

 who looks upon it calmly, the. unmistakable idea of physical degrada- 

 tion. I do not hesitate to say that, if a community of youths of both 

 sexes, whose progenitors were finely formed and powerful, were to 

 be trained to the "early practice of smoking, and if marriage were to 

 be confined to the smokers, an apparently new and a physically 

 inferior race of men and women would be bred up. Of course 

 such an experiment is impossible as we live ; for many of our 

 fathers do not smoke, and scarcely any of our mothers, and thus, 

 to the credit of our women chiefly, be it said, the integrity of the 

 race is fairy preserved. With increasing knowledge we may hope 

 that the same integrity will be further sustained ; but still, the fact 

 of what tobacco can do in its extreme action is not the less to be for- 

 gotten, for many evils are maintained because their full and worst 

 cifccts are hidden from the sight. The ground on which tobacco 

 holds so firm a footing is, that of nearly every luxury it is the least 

 injurious. It is innocuous as compared with alcohol, it does infinitely 

 less harm than opium ; it is in no sense worse than tea ; and by the side 

 of high living, altogether contrasts most favorably. A thorough 

 smoker may or may not be a hard drinker, but there is one thing he 

 never is, a glutton ; indeed, there is no cure for gluttony and all its 

 train of certain and fatal evils like tobacco. 



The poor savage from whom we derived tabac, found in the weed 



