NAT. ORDER. LURID^. 127 



of a dog, in a very small quantity, will speedily destroy life. The 

 modus ope rail di of it is very obscure, but it appears to act in some 

 indirect way upon the nervous system. The chief activity of 

 Tobacco most probably depends on this essential oil, for, by long 

 boiling the decoction, it is rendered almost inert. 



The medicinal properties of Tobacco are narcotic, emetic, 

 purgative and errhine. When the leaves are swallowed, they 

 occasion nausea, violent vomiting, vertigo, and relaxation of the 

 bowels. Similar effects have followed the snuffing of a small 

 quantity up the nose. From its sedative powers arise all the fas- 

 cination of this plant. It gives that calm serenity always occa- 

 sioned by the abstraction of stimuli, and, like tea, opium, and the 

 beetle-nut, composes the mind, under the greatest distress. It is 

 necessary, however, to examine its effects in all the varieties of 

 its use. By chewing, it acts upon the stomach, producing all the 

 inconveniences of a narcotic pois6n — acidity, flatulence, indiges- 

 tion, depraved appetite, &c. The same symptoms follow taking 

 enuff^ as a portion of the tobacco generally falls through the pos- 

 terior fauces into the stomach. The advantages of each mode are 

 nearly the same, as the discharge of phlegm which they produce 

 relieves accumulations in the head, and all the diseases depending 

 on them. 



In smoking, the oil of the plant is separated, and rendered 

 empyreumatic by heat, and of course applied to the fauces and 

 lungs in its most active state. Musing over a pipe, assists, it is said, 

 reflection — its smoke accompanied Newton's "patient thinking," 

 and added to the wisdom of the politician ; but it is novvforbidden 

 in the drawing-room and parlor, and confined jJrincipally to the 

 ale-house, and other public drinking shops. Like other forms of 

 taking Tobacco, smoking occasions a tranquility, a freedom from 

 care, a slight and harmless intoxication, increasing, also, the dis- 

 charge of saliva. 



