192 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



very mortal *, they have found methods of curing It, which they 

 cannot practice fuccefsfully in warmer regions ; though, I am per- 

 fuaded, that, let it be ever fo well cured, it will leave behind it a 

 weaknefs that muft go to the race. But, in the hot countries, where 

 it is feldom mortal, it is never cured, but goes on from generation to 

 generation, and fpreads fo, even among the lower fort of people, that, 

 1 am told, in Italy, Spain and Portugal, you can hardly find a woman 

 to whom you can f\fely give a child to be nurfed : And the confe- 

 quence is, that the ftature of the men in thofe countries, particularly 

 of the better fort, is very much diminifhed, much more than among us. 



Befides thofe vices and difeafes I have mentioned, there is in the Eaft 

 the ufe of Opium and of Betle. Of the firfl of thefe we have fome ex- 

 perience in Europe ; and we know that its effeds are as pernicious 

 as thofe of fpirits. As to betle, it is one bad thing, and, perhaps, the 

 bad thing, that we have not imported from foreign countries. 

 It is the leaf of a plant like a vine, compounded with the kernel 

 of a nut, w4iich the people of India and its iflands chew, not un- 

 wholefome in itfelf, I believe, except by the exceffive ufe of it : But 

 they chew it conflantly, and through their w^hole lives from their 

 infancy ; and, as they mix it with quicklime, to give it a hot and 

 pungent tafte, and fometimes with opium, it muft be exceedingly per- 

 nicious, when fo immoderately ufed. 



In thofe countries they all fmoak tobacco ; and the rich and luxu- 

 rious among them mix opium wnth it ; all which, joined with the 

 immoderate ufe of women, weakens them fo, that they grow foon 

 old, and very few of them reach to the age of fixty. 



Tobacco 



» When it firfl came into Europe even Kings died of it ; and, among others, 

 Francis the Firft of France> the mofl heroic King of modern times, to whom Harry 

 Stephen has very properly applied the eulogium made by Homer upon Agamemon, 



Iliad, r. V. 179. 



