6 7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 



By M. JULES EOCHAED, 



OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF MEDICINE. 



THE use of tobacco prevails throughout the whole world. 

 Smokers alone are numbered by hundreds of millions. A 

 million and a quarter acres of the earth are devoted to the culti- 

 vation of the plant, and the taxes on it alone in France amount 

 to three hundred million francs (or sixty million dollars). A cus- 

 tom so general, a habit that has been maintained so long in the 

 face of constant attacks upon it, should be considered seriously. 

 It should be studied from every side, and the various elements 

 of the question should be subjected to a complete analysis by the 

 means of investigation now at our disposal, for it is a scientific 

 problem of the first order. "While it is of moral and philosophical 

 interest, and its social con sequences are within the province of 

 economists, it is for science, physiology, and hygiene to furnish 

 experimental data as the basis for their deductions. 



A proper study of the subject should be made with an inde- 

 pendence of prepossession which it is not easy to find. Persons 

 who have never smoked will talk of tobacco as the blind talk of 

 colors ; smokers have a fondness for their habit, while those who 

 have been obliged to give it up are prejudiced on the other side. 

 I am one of the reformed smokers. After having abused tobacco 

 for about fifty years, I was compelled to abjure it. I fought my 

 ground inch by inch, and yielded only to an absolute necessity. 

 Knowing what the reformation cost me, I have not tried to make 

 proselytes ; but I intend to say what I believe is true upon a ques- 

 tion which I have studied well, and on which I am not lacking in 

 personal experience. 



The tobacco plant belongs to the order Solanacece., and consti- 

 tutes a genus (Nicotiana) named after Jean Nicot. It is culti- 

 vated through the whole world, and succeeds equally in the tem- 

 perate zone and the intertropical regions. Two species are culti- 

 vated : common or large tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and small 

 tobacco (Nicotiana rustica). The first species is the most widely 

 diffused. It is a large and fine-looking annual plant, growing to 

 a height of about six feet. It bears large alternate leaves of a 

 glaucous-green color, and is tipped with a cluster of elegant flow- 

 ers having a pale-rose corolla and a persistent five-parted calyx. 

 Small tobacco does not exceed twenty inches or two feet in height. 

 Its leaves are thick, soft, dark-green, and viscously hairy. The 

 terminal inflorescence comprises clusters of flowers composed of 

 cymes. The pale-yellow corolla, a little greenish, is supported by 

 a campanulate calyx, covered with glandular hairs and terminat- 



