A MORAL MODIFICATOR. 153 



" If this plant has its drawbacks, it has, therefore, its 

 sweets also. To many a man it is the remedy of that 

 disease of civiUsation which we call eimui. 



*' Even the very illusions and the erroneous ideas that 

 men entertain concerning it deserve to be respected by 

 the physician. One man attributes to tobacco the facility 

 of his intellectual labour ; another cannot digest his food 

 without smoking. Oh, you may smile ! But consider. 

 The craving for tobacco is the last appetite which leaves 

 those who are in a state of disease, and who have been 

 accustomed to tobacco under one form or another ; the 

 renewal of that appetite is a favourable prognostic of 

 recovery.* 



" What we must blame and proscribe is the abuse — 



* This striking illustration thus suggested to the medical 

 profession is in wonderful contrast with the sapient obser- 

 vation of Mr. Lizars, who says, — " A remarkable change 

 occurs to the excessive smoker when he labours under in- 

 fluenza or fever, as he then not only loses all relish for the 

 cigar or pipe, but even actually loathes them. Does not 

 this important fact satisfactorily show that the furor tabaci 

 depends on the morbid condition produced on the salivary 

 secretion and organ of taste by the deleterious drug, and at 

 the same time illustrate the pathological law that two morbid 

 states seldom or never co-exist in the same individual ? The 

 sudden removal of all desire to smoke affords the best refu- 

 tation to the delusive repi*esentation which the unhappy 

 tobacco victim urges for continuing," &c. So, by parity of 

 reason, the very common loathing for the most favourite 

 and wholesome food on those occasions, shows that natural 

 hunger depends upon the morbid condition produced on the 

 salivary secretion and organ of taste by the deleterious food, 

 &c. ! And this writer actually assumes the motto, " Quera 

 Deus vult perdere prius dementat." Nothing could be more 

 appropriate. 



