IXFLUEXCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 121 



appetite must be impaired, and his digestive 

 powers gradually weakened. When we contem- 

 plate our hardy race of sailors, whether Enghsh 

 or American, and consider their robust frames 

 and vigorous appetite — when we reflect that a 

 tolerably good digestive faculty is sometimes, or 

 has been often, necessary to assimilate their 

 "daily bread" — you may tell them indeed that 

 they must be endowed with dura ilia — but if 

 you tell them they are poisoned by the quid 

 or the plug, they will tell you to " tell it to the 

 marines." Who can tell what resultant is pro- 

 duced in the mouth of the chewer by the free 

 mixtura cum liquido of all the constituents of the 

 tobacco and the constituents of saliva, and the 

 whole heterogeneous mass, potash, lime, magnesia^ 

 iron-rust, &c. ; acid nitric, acid acetic, acid 

 citric, phosphoric, &c. ; rosin yellow, rosin green, 

 wax, or fat, nitrogenated matters, and cellulose, 

 with flint and sand — to all which add the natural 

 galvanism of the organ — who can tell, I say, 

 what resultant is produced by beneficent Nature 

 in the mouth of the chewer ? If we pause for a 

 reply, will the doctor's, will Mr. Solly's, shake of 

 the head, or letters in the ' Lancet/ answer the 



