120 . TOBACCO ; ITS HISTORY. 



humming of the winds, the roar of the ocean 't 

 Did he not invent the bagpipes ? . . . And so, 

 throughout the catalogue of his senses, all is 

 tendency to expansion, exaggeration, — and then 

 a return, a retrogression to something which, 

 though buried in the bygone past of ages, he 

 will not " willingly let die," but reproduces to 

 enjoy again with new excitement. If this holds 

 good in his "educated" senses, possibly it i? 

 as certain in the rest ; and if, according to the 

 theory of development, man is but an advanced 

 mammal^ perhaps the chewing of tobacco is but 

 a " repetition " of the chewing of the cud in his 

 antecedent prototypes — the ruminants. 



Certainly the gustatory of the chewer has 

 good reason to be excited. Wiiilst it escapes 

 the poisonous oil which is produced by the burn- 

 ing of the leaf (by the smoker), it has the full 

 swing of the natural volatile oil and the nicotin 

 to contend with. How the resultant of these 

 forces is simply an unspeakable gratification,, 

 without the penalty of poison, is a matter which 

 the doctors must not pretend to explain by say- 

 ing that, from the quantity of those substances- 

 which he involuntarily swallows or absorbs, his^ 



