COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 85 



communication on the tobacco question, by Mr. Solly, in 

 The Lancet of February 14tb, 1857: 



^^ The more I think of the tobacco question the more 

 it haunts me. I feel that I cannot do justice to its im- 

 portance, but I am anxious to add something to my last 

 communication. Every day the subject is forced upon 

 my mind. I scarcely meet a friend or patient who does 

 not bear his testimony to the mischief of which he has 

 been the witness, in his own case or that of some friend, 

 from tobacco. 



" The profession have no idea of the ignorance of the 

 public regarding the nature of tobacco. Even intelli- 

 gent, well-educated men, stare in astonishment, when 

 you tell them that tobacco is one of the most powerful 

 poisons we possess. Now, is this right? Has the 

 medical profession done its duty % Ought we not, as a 

 body, to have told the public that, of all our poisons, it 

 is the most insidious, uncertain, and, in full doses, the 

 most deadly. Why should they not know at once how 

 often it has proved fatal in the human subject, when 

 injected into the rectum in strangulated hernia. I 

 heard, only the other day, that a celebrated surgeon — 

 rather an obstinate one — since dead, lost five cases in 

 succession from the e£fect of tobacco injected into the 

 bowels. 



" It seems almost trifling with the subject, and yet 

 the extreme ignorance which prevails regarding this 

 frightful pest, rendering even trifles weighty in the 

 scale, induces me to remind all smokers, and those of 

 our brethren who madly encourage it, that the first effect 

 »f a cigar on any one, demonstrates that tobacco can 



