INTRODUCTION. 5 



necessaries of life ? Shall we seek and ulti- 

 mately find an explanation in the undoubted 

 existence of countless millions of microscopic 

 animalculcB which surround and penetrate us on 

 all sides — agents of disease, whose more visible 

 congeners we so easily exterminate for a time by 

 the aid of fuming narcotics, especially tobacco ? * 

 And shall we not be able ultimately to prove 

 that such narcotism is a prophylactic against 

 numberless miasmata perpetually coming into 

 existence in the universal economy of nature, 



* No insect except the house-fly survives the fumes of 

 tobacco ; and the exemption of the fly is a very striking fact, 

 worthy of consideration as to the subject of the text. The 

 fly itself is a prophylactic to man ; an aerial scavenger, in- 

 cessantly urging through his delicate organs (which he fills 

 with copious draughts of water) every vestige of decompos- 

 ing matter, and, by the incessant rapidity of his beautiful 

 gyrations, agitating and thus renewing the stagnant atmos- 

 phere of ill-ventilated apartments. Kill him by thousands, 

 and thousands take his place ; for nature is more provident 

 of your welfare than you are yourself ; nay, the very annoy- 

 ance he gives you provokes circulation in the blood, rendered 

 languid by the impure air which you breathe. He tells you, 

 ou the part of nature, by his increased multitudes, that 

 pestilence is around you, or upon you. His importunity is 

 unquestionably the best " medical advice " you can take as 

 to putting your house within the rules of health. And it 

 was destined that tobacco-smoke should not interfere with 

 his important function ! 



