94 TOBACCO ; ITS HISTORY. 



" To what special action of its chemical constituents on 

 the brain and nerves the soothing action and the pleasing 

 reverie so generally spoken of is to be ascribed, we can 

 only guess. According to Dr. Madden, * the pleasure of 

 the reverie consequent on the indulgence of the pipe con- 

 sists in a temporary annihilation of thought. (!) Peoijle 

 really cease to think when they have been long smoking. (!) 

 I have asked Turks repeatedly what they have been think- 

 ing of during their long reveries, and they replied, " Of 

 nothing." I could not remind them of a single idea hav- 

 ing occupied their minds ; and in the consideration of the 

 Turkish character there is no more curious circumstance 

 connected with their moral condition.' * 



" Is it really a peculiarity of the Turkish or Moslem 

 temperament that tobacco soothes the mind to sleep while 

 the body is alive and awake ? That such is not its gene- 

 ral action in Europe, the study of almost every German 

 writer can testify. With the constant pipe diffusing its 

 beloved aroma around him, the German philosopher works 

 out the profoundest of his results of thought. He thinks 

 and dreams, and dreams and thinks, alternately ; but 

 while his body is soothed and stilled, his mind is ever 

 awake. From what I have heard such men say, I could 

 almost fancy they had in this practice discovered a way 

 of liberating the mind from the trammels of the body, 

 and thus giving it a freer range and more undisturbed 

 liberty of action. I regret that I have never found it act 

 so upon myself." t 



' * Madden's * Travels in Turkey,' i. 16. 



t Johnston, ' Chemistry of Life.' The same writer says, 

 "But extensively as it is consumed, it is remarkable how 

 very few persons can state distinctly the effects which tobacco 

 produces upon them, the kind of pleasure which the daily 



