1872.] The Physiological Position of Tobacco. 485 
or unaccustomed dose; the second, the accumulative con- 
sequences‘of doses, perhaps small, but continually repeated. 
The unpleasant experiences of the first pipe will enable 
most smokers to understand the nature of this acute poison- 
ing. Children have even been made ill by sucking at pipes, 
empty, but already coated with tobacco juice. Sometimes 
a very slight dose exercises a fatal effect upon systems in 
which tolerance has not been established. Thus a youth of 
14, having smoked 15c. worth of tobacco as a remedy for 
toothache, fell down senseless and died the same evening.* 
Blatin also tells us of a medical student, aged 22, who, after 
smoking a single pipe, fell into a frightful state—the heart 
became nearly motionless, the chest constricted, his breath- 
ing was extremely painful, the limbs contracted, the pupils 
insensible to light, one dilated, the other contracted. These 
symptoms gradually lessened, but did not disappear until 
four days after.t 
But it is chronic nicotism which has the greatest interest 
for us. The poisonous effects of tobacco in larger doses 
are too evident for denial, and need scarcely be insisted 
upon. Far more important is it to learn whether tobacco, 
in the quantities daily consumed by its habitual users, has 
a permanently injurious effect upon the human system. 
It is often only after a number of years that nicotic 
symptoms appear, as though the poison acted by a process 
of accumulation, until the system was charged to satiety. 
And thus anything which disturbs the equilibrium of the 
functions, and so diminishes the elimination of the poison, 
may give rise to morbid phenomena. 
There is a theory not unknown, even amongst medical 
men, that the toxic influences of tobacco are only transitory, 
and that all the poison is ultimately expelled from the 
system. But it is certain, from an experiment of M. Morin,f 
that the nicotine can be detected in the tissues of the lungs 
and liver after death. 
So little is the theory true which would have us believe 
that the tobacco poison is immediately excreted, that the 
very cannibals turn up their noses at the nicotised flesh of 
smokers !§ 
Blatin made experiments upon three dogs to determine 
the effects of chronic poisoning. From 15 to 30 c.grms. of 
tobacco were mixed with their food, and given twice or 
* DRUHEN, Pp. 44. 
+ BLaATIN, p. 76. 
t Year Book of Medicine (New Sydenham Society), 1861, p. 447, and BLATIN, 
P- 93- 
§ STREBEL, Pp. 30. 
