u 



the lowest place in the scale of stimulants. The fermented 

 liquors, such as wine, should stand next ahove tonics, as 

 the excitement they produce is greater, more rapid, and less 

 permanent than that of tonics. They are, therefore, best 

 suited to those cases in "which loss of tone or vital power has 

 taken place more rapidly, and requires to he excited, rather 

 than generated. The best example of the tonic action of 

 wine is observed in typhus fever, where the loss of vital tone 

 is very great, and in this disease it acts most decidedly as a 

 tonic, when given in small quantities at short intervals ; so 

 that a continued stimulant effect is kept up. The distilled 

 spirits, such as brandy, also ammonia and camphor, occupy 

 the highest place in the scale of stimulants. The excite- 

 ment they produce is the most rapid and powerful ; but, at 

 the same time, transitory and least tonic, owing to the great 

 and almost ininiediate depression which follows their 

 employment. They can only be of service when vital 

 depression is extreme, and the system requires to be power- 

 fully excited and sustained for a short time. 



TOBACCO. 



The active properties of this plant reside in an oleaginous 

 alkaloidal principle called nicotina, which is an extremely 

 powerful narcotico-acrid poison. It causes difficulty of 

 breathing, convulsions, vomiting, and purging ; and two 

 drops are sufficient to kill a cat. and a single drop will 

 kill a rabbit. The chief action of tobacco is exerted upon 

 the heart, the pulsations of which are rendered slow and 

 irregular. Its effects upon the brain are evinced by the 

 giddiness, the feeling like intoxication, the spasms, and 

 stupor which it produces. Instances are also by no means 

 rare in which it has caused fatal effects, both where it has 

 been incautiously used as a medicine, and where it has 

 been used to excess in the way of smoking. 



The sickening effect which it produces on those making 

 their first attempts to acquire the practice of smoking are 

 merely a slight degree of its poisonous- action. There is 

 first some transient general excitement of the system, 

 which is speedily followed by sudden giddiness, paleness of 

 the face, faintness, sickness and vomiting, and feeble slow 

 pulse. 



Though tobacco, when first employed, produces these 

 unpleasant symptoms, and always acts as a -sedative in 

 large quantities, yet, when indulged in after the constitution 

 has become habituated to it, the effect produced is soothing 

 and stimulating-. The excitement it causes is neither so 



