CHAPTER V 

 TOBACCO 



81. Narcotics. Besides eating his natural food, man 

 often forms a habit of eating things which harm him, and 

 yet he uses them because he learns to enjoy their taste or 

 the feelings which they produce. Most of these things 

 belong to a class called narcotics ; they benumb pain and 

 weaken both the brain and the body. At first, both these 

 substances themselves and also the feelings which they 

 produce are unpleasant. Men learn to like their benumb- 

 ing effects, and soon get into the habit of their use because 

 they take away pain and calm a person when he is nervous 

 or worried. The most commonly used narcotic is tobacco. 



82. Tobacco. Tobacco is the leaf of a tall plant. It 

 requires a richer soil and more care than any other crop. 

 Soil which raises tobacco is kept from raising a great 

 quantity of real food. A few crops of tobacco take so 

 much richness from the soil that only small crops of any- 

 thing else will grow afterwards. 



The leaves of tobacco contain a narcotic poison called 

 nicotine. Nicotine gives the tobacco most of its smell and 

 taste, and if it is taken out, the tobacco is spoiled. It is 

 easily turned into a vapor, and is found in the smoke when 

 tobacco is burned. It is so poisonous that the smoke of 

 two or three pipefuls of tobacco contains enough to kill a 

 man if it should stay in his body. A single drop of it can 

 kill a strong person. Tobacco is sometimes made into a 



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