490 The Physiological Position of Tobacco. (October, 
denying; indeed it has been remarked that no habitual 
smoker can be truly said to have a day’s perfect health. 
It is scarcely requisite that we should add that tobacco is 
in no sense a necessary of life. 
Even in our days, notwithstanding the vast consumption 
of tobacco, it is a habit of the minority only. The female 
sex, to their honour be it said, with very rare exceptions, 
abstain from this indulgence. If the claims of the apolo- 
gists of tobacco are corre¢t, why is it that an entire sex 
avoids it? The frailer body and more mobile mind of 
woman seem to stand in greater need of ‘‘ soothing” and 
*‘ refreshing” than the coarser frame of man. 
It is not necessary; for all men do not smoke, and the 
abstainers are not subject to any inconvenience or disad- 
vantage, but the reverse. 
Homer sang his deathless song, Raphael painted his 
glorious Madonnas, Luther preached, Guttenberg printed, 
Columbus discovered a New World before tobacco was heard 
of. No rations of tobacco were served out to the heroes of 
Thermopylz, no cigar strung up the nerves of Socrates. 
Empires rose and fell, men lived and loved and died during 
long ages, without tobacco. History was for the most part 
written before its appearance. ‘‘It is the solace, the aider, 
the familiar spirit of the thinker,” cries the apologist; yet 
Plato the Divine thought without its aid. Augustine described 
the glories of God’s city, Dante sang his majestic melan- 
choly song, Savonarola reasoned and died, Alfred ruled well 
and wisely, without it. Tyrtzus sang his patriotic song, 
Roger Bacon dived deep into Nature’s secrets, the wise 
Stagirite sounded the depths of human wisdom, equally un- 
aided by it. Harmodius and Aristogeiton twined the myrtle 
round their swords, and slew the tyrant of their fatherland, 
without its inspiration. In a word, kings ruled, poets sung, 
artists painted, patriots bled, martyrs suffered, thinkers 
reasoned, before it was known or dreamed of. Who of us 
can realise Moses with a “‘ churchwarden ” in his mouth, or 
St. Paul smoking a prime Havannah ? 
Think of ancient Greece, of her glory in arts and arms 
and song, of her poets, sculptors, architects, after whom the 
moderns toil in vain. We do but follow in their tracks with 
halting steps and slow, and yet they lived their lives, and 
thought their deathless thoughts, and gave immortal beauty 
to the silent stone, without tobacco. 
What shall we say, then, to this habit? It is in no case 
necessary or beneficial; it is a social nuisance; it is devoid 
of all esthetic beauty; it is an unmanly leaning on a solace 
