COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 97 



consideration to restrain every wise and good man from 

 contracting or continuing such a senseless and destruc- 

 tive habit of self-indulgence ? For old men, smoking 

 may be tolerated; bat for young men and boys, it can- 

 not be too severely reprobated." 



113. The following extract is from the article, " Is 

 Smoking Injurious?" in the Lancet of 31st January, 

 1857, by Dr. Johnson : 



" What is the testimony of facts ? Why, for one in- 

 veterate smoker who will bear testimony favorable to the 

 practice, ninety-nine such, of the candid of these, are 

 found to declare their belief that this practice is inju- 

 rious ; and I scarcely ever yet met with one habitual 

 smoker who did not, in his candid moments, regret his 

 commencement of the habit, 



"A few weeks since, I was summoned to attend a 

 gentleman in the country. On my arrival I found him 

 complaining of headache, nausea, languor, loss of appe- 

 tite and sleep, and inability to rise in the morning ; his 

 expression was anxious, haggard, and nervous; his com- 

 plexion sallow and jaundice-looking; his tongue highly 

 furred, and teeth incrusted with a dirty greenish-yellow 

 deposit; his breath, which was exceedingly oflfensive 

 from the odor of tobacco, revealed to my mind the na- 

 ture of the evil. On my inquiry, he informed me that 

 for many years he had indulged rather freely in the use 

 of tobacco, declaring, at the same time, that ever since 

 his apprenticeship to smoking, the pernicious habit had 

 gradually and insidiously crept upon him, till at length 

 it became confirmed. I persuaded him to desist from 

 its indulgence, and succeeded ; but he found the task a 

 a 



