12-4 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 



when danger is sighted ahead, tobacco seems to have a directly- 

 contrary influence. It is the common testimony of smokers 

 that after a day of severe labor or intense excitement or exer- 

 tion of any kind, when the mind is chaotic, uncontrolled, and 

 repose is impossible, — in such an event, the cigar or the pipe 

 has a soothing, calming effect. Nicotine seems to act as a 

 stimulant to the inhibiting centers of the nervous mechanism. 

 In view of this well known action of tobacco, it can be seen 

 why in cases of fatigue when the mind cannot be held in check 

 and energy is being wasted despite efforts at conservation, — in 

 such a situation tobacco must be regarded as a conserver of 

 force. It aids the organism to get hold of itself, to become con- 

 trolled. This is especially true when, as smokers so frequently 

 testify, tobacco skillfully wooes Morpheus when nothing else 

 will entice him to one's bedside. 



But this does not of necessity imply that tobacco is a valua- 

 ble auxiliary to the student's dietary. It is not too much to 

 suppose that under normal and healthful conditions a student 

 will rarely reach the point where he will need any other seda- 

 tive agent than that furnished by an abundance of nutritious 

 food, vigorous exercise, and refreshing sleep. As a matter of 

 fact, though, our young men taken as a whole do not smoke 

 because they feel the need of the soothing influence which it 

 affords; they smoke because custom dictates it. This is evi- 

 denced by the irrational way in which they do it; and it is 

 suggestive, too, that practically all of the law students who re- 

 plied to our questionnaire smoke, while about 55 per cent, of 

 the "Hill" students are "abstainers." To smoke immediately 

 after breakfast is as foolish as it is useless ; for at such a time 

 tobacco rather hinders than helps the organism to accomplish 

 the tasks before it; except possibly in those instances when the 

 system has become so permeated with nicotine that it is, in com- 

 mon with the well-known effects of opium, creating an abnor- 

 mal desire which is unrelenting every hour and minute of wak- 

 ing life. As Richardson well says in his Diseases of Modern 

 Life: 1 When mental labor is about to be undertaken a pipe 



'P. 316. 



