70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dilatation and contraction. The stimulation of the third pair of nerves 

 causes a contraction of the pupil ; a larger dose of nicotine destroys 

 its susceptibility and dilatation follows, the upper lid falls, strabismus 

 ensues, the eyeball becomes fixed in short, the motor power of the eye 

 is paralyzed. M. Blatin considers that the muscular fibre of the eye is 

 not at all affected by the poison. 



Blatin proposes to divide tobacco-poisoning into two classes, acute 

 and chronic. The first is the result of a large or unaccustomed dose ; 

 the second, the accumulative consequences of doses, perhaps small, but 

 continually repeated. 



The unpleasant experiences of the first pipe will enable most 

 smokers to understand the nature of this acute poisoning. Children 

 have even been made ill by sucking at pipes, empty, but already 

 coated with tobacco-juice. Sometimes a very slight dose exercises a 

 fatal effect upon systems in which tolerance has not been established. 

 Thus a youth of fourteen, having smoked fifteen cents' worth of to- 

 bacco as a remedy for toothache, fell down senseless and died the 

 same evening. 1 Blatin also tells us of a medical student, aged twenty- 

 two, who, after smoking a single pipe, fell into a frightful state the 

 heart became nearly motionless, the chest constricted, his breathing 

 was extremely painful, the limbs contracted, the pupils insensible to 

 light, one dilated, the other contracted. These symptoms gradually 

 lessened, but did not disappear until four days after. 2 



But it is chronic nicotism which has the greatest interest for us. 

 The poisonous effects of tobacco in larger doses are too evident for 

 denial, and need scarcely be insisted upon. Far more important is it 

 to learn whether tobacco, in the quantities daily consumed by its ha- 

 bitual users, has a permanently injurious effect upon the human system. 



It is often only after a number of years that nicotic symptoms ap- 

 pear, as though the poison acted by a process of accumulation, until 

 the system was charged to satiety. And thus any thing which dis- 

 turbs the equilibrium of the functions, and so diminishes the elimina- 

 tion of the poison, may give rise to morbid phenomena. 



There is a theory not unknown, even among medical men. that 

 the toxic influences of tobacco are only transitory, and that all the 

 poison is ultimately expelled from the system. But it is certain, from 

 an experiment of M. Morin, 3 that the nicotine can be detected in the 

 tissues of the lungs and liver after death. 



M. Blatin regards the various local affections as trifling, when 

 compared with the gradual saturation of the system with nicotine, 

 which, accumulating in the tissues, waits for the opportunity, varying, 

 according to individual habits and constitution, of declaring its poi- 

 sonous nature. 



The trembling, which is one of the usual symptoms of acute, is 



' Druhen, p. 44. * Blatin, p. 76. 



3 Year Book of Medicine (New Sydenham Society), 1861, p. 447, and Blatin, p. 93. 



