1 2 ANTI- TOBA CCO. 



of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and Senior 

 Physician to the Metropolitan Free Hospital, says (" To- 

 bacco, and the Diseases it produces," London, 1880) : 

 " The species of tobacco are closely related to henbane 

 {hyoscyamus) , to atropa belladonna, and to stramonium — 

 poisonous plants used in medicine. Tobacco alone, of all 

 the four, is scarcely ever employed medicinally at the 

 present day, except, perhaps, occasionally, in combination 

 with stramonium, in spasmodic asthma. Its use as an in- 

 jection has been abandoned, as too dangerous to life. It is 

 largely used by some farmers for destroying vermin infest- 

 ing sheep, and commonly also by gardeners for kilHng the 

 insects upon their plants. Indeed, tobacco is one of the 

 most virulent of all vegetable poisons." He further says : 

 " The constituent part of tobacco, which makes it at once 

 so agreeable and so dangerous to health, is nicotine, C^g 

 Hj^ Ng, a liquid alkaloid discovered, so recently as 1809, 

 by a French chemist. So deadly a poison is nicotine, that 

 one tenth of a grain of it will kill a middle-sized dog in 

 three minutes ; and as the percentage of nicotine in dry 

 tobacco varies, from two per cent in Havana to about seven 

 per cent in Virginia tobacco, it has been calculated that in 

 a single cigar there is enough nicotine, if given pure, to kill 

 two men ; and in about a quarter of an ounce of tobacco, 

 there may be as much as two grains of this very dangerous 

 poison. A smuggler, mentioned by Namias to the Aca- 

 demic des Sciences, was dangerously poisoned by covering 

 his naked skin with tobacco leaves, in order to escape 

 paying duty. The great danger of chewing tobacco is 

 thus at once evident. Taylor (" On Poisons," p. 749) men- 

 tions that the volatile vapor of tobacco, given off in the 

 process of manufacture, has been shown to have an injuri- 



