TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 673 



having their heads rubbed with a tobacco ointment. Cases are 

 recorded of smugglers who died after having covered the bare 

 skin of their whole body with tobacco leaves which they were 

 trying to introduce fraudulently. Ferdinand Martin has related 

 the case of a lady afflicted with lumbago who applied flannels 

 dipped in a decoction of smoking tobacco to the ailing part. Her 

 pains were promptly subdued, but she soon felt all the phenomena 

 of intoxication by nicotine, and did not recover from it for three 

 days. Poisoning by tobacco generally occurs by accident or mis- 

 take. It is rarely tried criminally, probably because the toxic prop- 

 erties of the drug are not reliable enough. Assassins prefer the 

 alkaloid itself, the effects of which are much more prompt and more 

 terrible than those of the plant. By whatever method it is admin- 

 istered in experiments, the animal is slain. Two drops are enough 

 to kill a large dog ; eight drops will kill a horse in four minutes. 

 Under its effects he rages, prances, writhes, falls down, and dies 

 in convulsions. " This alkaloid," says Claude Bernard,* " is one 

 of the most virulent poisons known, and a few drops of it on the 

 cornea of an animal will kill it instantly. Nicotine, apparently 

 sympathetic in its effects, in its action is very much like prussic 

 acid." The action of this principle is so subtle that it can not be 

 analyzed unless the drug is administered in minute doses and 

 very dilute solutions. There is then observed the phenomenon 

 which goes far to explain the facility with which one is habitu- 

 ated to the use of tobacco of the rapid development of tolerance 

 of gradually increasing doses. This has been demonstrated by 

 Traube, who, with the twenty-fourth of a drop of nicotine subcu- 

 taneously injected, obtained very marked effects on the first day. 

 The next day, on the same animal, it took a whole drop to reach 

 the same result, and at the end of four days five drops were neces- 

 sary. A similar tolerance is observed in man for hypodermic in- 

 jections of morphine ; but one does not get accustomed to digita- 

 line or strychnine. 



When nicotine is administered in doses weak enough to per- 

 mit an analysis of its effects, almost the same phenomena are wit- 

 nessed as with the whole plant. In the cases of poisoning already 

 mentioned, there came on at the beginning extreme anguish and 

 agitation, with sensations of burning heat in the pit of the stom- 

 ach. Respiration was accelerated and the pulse was slackened ; 

 then came vomiting and purging, vertigo, and faintness. The 

 face grew pale, the skin was covered with a cold sweat, the head 

 was confused, and the patient fell into a deep stupor, with cries, 

 general trembling, and convulsions. This agitation gives place 



* Lecons sur les effets des substances toxiques et medicamenteuses. Paris, lSo?, p. 

 397. 



VOL. XLI. 49 



