90 TOBACCO: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 



irritable, ahd the person nervous; tlie pulse frequently 

 intermittent, and irregular in force and frequency. 



" In the course of my practice I have met with many 

 individuals who, like myself, have abandoned smoking, 

 because they thought it did not agree with them. Many 



•♦have done so at my suggestion. I have never found one 

 who does not assert, most positively, that he has been in 

 better health since, and that his intellectual activity has 

 been increased. 



" With regard to the arguments that have been ad- 

 duced in favor of its innocence, I will first advert to the 

 Turks. The mental condition of the Turks, as a nation, 

 would be one of the strongest arguments on my side, 

 were the question not complicated with opium. The 

 fact of their longevity as a race must be proved by sta- 

 tistics, to establish the opinion that smoking does not 

 shorten their lives ; but even then it would not prove 

 that smoking is innocuous to Englishmen. My asser- 

 tion, that it is especially injurious in England, applies 

 to the young men of this country, about whom I am 

 most anxious, because they all live up to fever-point. I 



» believe that the injury inflicted by a pipe of tobacco in 

 the mouth of a poor man, who lives below par rather 

 than above it, cannot be appreciated ; but not so a cigar 

 smoked by a man who lives high, and uses his brain 

 much. It matters little whether the mere animal, let 

 him be in the shape of a stock-broker's clerk or a coun- 

 try voluptuary, smokes more or less; but I am sure it is 

 incompatible with great and long-continued intellectual 

 activity, and that amount of high living which appears 



