TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 57 



The temperament of each individual or of a race is an 

 important factor in a judicious consideration of the subject ; 

 it opens out a field of inquiry of no ordinary interest, more 

 particularly as regards eastern nations. By temperament 

 physiologists mean certain physical and mental character- 

 istics arising from the predominant humours of the body. 

 Galen in the second century was perhaps the first to employ 

 the term to designate, according to the teachings of the old 

 school, the condition of the four elements of the body — the 

 blood, choler, phlegm, gall — and the varying combinations 

 of these, recognised to-day as the sanguine, lymphatic, 

 nervous, or bilious temperaments. Interest in this aspect 

 of the subject is heightened when we consider the marvel- 

 lous effect the consumption of tobacco has had on races 

 inhabiting Western Asia. Speaking on this curious point 

 in the Indian Section of the Imperial Institute in February, 

 1896, Sir George Birdwood called attention to the change 

 wrought in the character of the Turks by its use. He 

 remarked that 



in ancient times the Scythians were a ceaseless scourge to 

 the neighbouring nations ; that they were referred to by the 

 prophet Jeremiah as a ' seething caldron,' ever boiling over 

 in fierce and cruel eruptions from the North. Where are they 

 now ? They have become the modern Turks ; and the magic 

 which changed them from restless, destructive nomads into the 

 quiet and only too conservative sedentary Turks, Von Moltke 

 tells us in his Letters from Turkey was none other than the 

 acquired American habit of smoking tobacco. 



Coming from so profound an observer of men as the great 

 German strategist, this testimony to the influence of the 

 Indian weed on human character is to be accepted as a 

 valuable contribution to our knowledge. And yet, viewed 

 in the light of recent events in Turkey, the marvellous 



