10 1 1 TOBACCO. 



Medical Testimony The senior physician to the Metro- 

 politan Free Hospital, in London, writes as follows: u I can testify, 

 from long observation, that the chronic use of tobacco in any form 

 is a very prevalent cause of debility and manifold diseases. Take, 

 first of all, the sense of sight : one of the most celebrated London 

 ophthalmic surgeons tells me that he is constantly consulted by 

 young gentlemen for weakness of vision, caused by smoking; and I 

 myself nave in many cases seen the prolonged use of tobacco, espec- 

 ially when it is chewed, cause the total loss of sight. Then take 

 the circulatory system, and we find smokers subject to palpitation 

 of the heart and far less able to bear up against the extremes of 

 heat and cold than they were before making use of tobacco. The 

 use of tobacco is apt to cause a relaxation of the muscles of the back 

 of the mouth and dusky discoloration of the fauces, with hoarseness 

 from congestion of the vocal cords. The overwhelming majority 

 of cases of cancer of the lip are found in men who smoke, and can- 

 cer of the tongue has often been said to be caused by the irritation 

 of the fumes of the pipe or cigar. Great smokers lose, to some 

 extent, their vivacity; ^. 0., they are less vital than they used to be, 

 and less easily moved by a slight 'stimulus' which might be 

 pleasurable to non-smokers. They are notoriously dyspeptic. I 

 need hardly refer, indeed, to such a well known fact. They are 

 subject to constipation and ' malaise;' and when deprived of their 

 stimulus are more miserable, perhaps, than even drinkers. I must 

 take the liberty to protest against a custom which has been 

 inveighed against by Brodie, Copland, Critchett, Guerrin, Mante- 

 gazza, Cacopardo, and numerous heads of my profession in all 

 countries." 



Mental Effects Mr. Solly, an eminent writer on the brain, 

 said once in a clinical lecture on that frightful and formidable 

 malady, softening of the brain, " I would caution you as students 

 against the use of tobacco, and I would advise you to disabuse your 

 patients' minds of the idea that it is harmless. I have had a long 

 experience in brain-diseases, and I am satisfied now that smoking 

 is a most noxious habit. I know of no other cause or agent which 

 tends so much to bring on functional disease, and through this in 

 the end, to lead to organic diseases of the brain, as the excessive use 

 of tobacco." 



The influence of tobacco on the human system is quite as much 

 to be dreaded as the use of alcoholic drinks. Drunkards invariably 

 are tobacco-users. Not one young man in a hundred would ever 

 think of using intoxicating liquors did he not first learn to use 

 tobacco in some form. Daughters of drunken fathers do not inherit 

 a hankering after spirituous liquors; neither would the sons, did 

 they but abstain from the use of tobacco. And yet ministers of 

 the gospel and many of the deacons of our churches, good men, so- 

 called, who preach temperance and cleanliness to the youths of the 

 lanO unceasingly, keep their mouths filled with the vile stuff or 



