COMMUNICATIONS AND EXT I. ACTS 111 



to any other cause than that which would render it neces- 

 sary for him to deprive himself of what he considers, 

 not merely a luxury, but an article actually necessary to 

 his existence." 



128. In the Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sci- 

 ences, vol. i., p. 73, there is an interesting collection of 

 cases of disease produced by tobacco. They show the 

 terrible effect of the plant on the digestive and nervous 

 systems. The first is that of a young American lawyer, 

 who " used (the weed) freely, by smoking, chewing, and 

 snuffing.'' He labored under " acidity, cardialgia, gas- 

 trodynia, palpitation of the heart, giddiness, vertigo, and 

 fulness of the head, with the most profound gloom; 

 keenly alive to evel-y feeling, he was in constant fear of 

 death, yet tempted to commit suicide to escape from a 

 life more intolerable than death itself. He had a firm 

 conviction in his mind, that he should die from apo- 

 plexy." He had frequent shocks in the epigastrium, 

 both during the day and during the night. When he 

 threw away tobacco for ever, all his dreadful feelings 

 '^ vanished as if by magic." He ultimately became " an 

 able and talented member of the bar, in the possession 

 of good health, spirits, and prosperity." 



129. His sister, thirty-nine years of age, a married 

 lady, mother of two children, had smoked and snuffed 

 tobacco for fifteen years — for eight years haa those 

 peculiar shocks at the epigastrium, resembling those 

 produced by electricity, with a sinking sensation at tho 

 pit of the stomach, cardialgia, acid eructations, a sense 

 of rushing of blood to the head, palpitations, sleeplesi^ 

 ness^ and startings when first falling into slumber. These 



