64 TOBACCO. ITS USE AND ABUSE 



wards of forty years, was frequently afflicted with a 

 sudden suppression of breathing, occasioned by a para- 

 lytic state of the muscles which serve for respiration. 

 These aiTections grew more and more alarming, and 

 seriously threatened her life. The only relief she got in 

 such cases, was from a cup of cold water poured down 

 her throat. This became so necessary to her, that she 

 could never venture to attend even a place of worship, 

 without having a small vessel of water with her, and a 

 friend to administer it. At last she left off snuff; the 

 muscles re-acquired their proper tone, and, in a short 

 time after, she was entirely cured of a disorder, occa- 

 sioned solely by her attachment to the snuff-box, and to 

 which she had nearly fallen a victim." 



81, Anton, in his interesting " Retrospect of a Mili- 

 tary Life," relates the death of one of the sergeants of 

 the 42d Regiment from smoking tobacco, which appa- 

 rently had induced apoplexy. See page 154. On con- 

 versing with Mr. Anton, he states that the sergeant was 

 an excessive smoker of the weed. 



82. The Paris correspondent of the New Orleans Pica- 

 yune, in recording the death of the poet Berat, says: 

 " Berat was not forty-five years old. He, too, was slain 

 by that disease which is so fell a destroyer to our con- 

 temporaries, and especially to Frenchmen — the softening 

 of the spinal marrow. Trousseau attributes to the ex- 

 cessive use of tobacco the fatal effects on the nervous 

 system. Roger Collard, who died in the dawn of a 

 most brilliant career, some three years ago, of this ter- 

 rible disease, attributed his untimely end to his cigar. 

 Count D'Orsay was another Tictim of this disease, and 



