COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 83 



grumble loudly at being obliged to take a pill every 

 evening to produce the same effect. If a general order 

 were issued, rendering smoking compulsory, how the 

 fathers of youthful heroes would protest against so very 

 expensive a habit* being imposed upon their sons ; what 

 an outcry there would be amongst the married ladies for 

 having such an intolerable nuisance forced upon their 

 domestic economy ! How the surgeons would be perse- 

 cuted with applications for certificates, recommending 

 exemption from the rule, on the score of their consti- 

 tutions being too delicate to admit of smoking being 

 practised with impunity. Strange infatuation ! Great 

 smokers blow away money enough during their career 

 in India to purchase them a moderate annuity; they 

 waste more good health than their pensions can redeem ; 

 and shorten the period of their lives several years by this 

 filthy habit." 



106. The following are the sentiments of the great 

 Camden : — 



Camden, in his Annals rer. Anglicar, page 415, thus 

 expresses himself on the smoking of tobacco : " In con- 

 sequence of this use of it, the bodies of Englishmen, 

 who are so highly delighted with this plant (tobacco), 

 seem to have degenerated into the nature of the harha- 

 rians, seeing that they are delighted with the same thing 

 which the barbarians use." 



107. The following extract, from the leading article 

 of the Lancet of April 4, 1857, contains a brief and 

 conclusive summing up of the evidence adduced by the 

 numerous correspondents of that journal on the tobacco 

 controversy, as to the injurious effects of excessive 



