74 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



the same thoroughness. The communicable diseases, as 

 scarlet-fever, measles, diphtheria, yellow-fever, &c., we 

 know by their manifestations ; but no one has yet made 

 us fully acquainted with the methods by which they invade 

 the human system. Some may have undertaken to ex- 

 plain their mysteries, but nothing more has been accom- 

 plished than to show how the body may at times be 

 prepared for the invasions of disease, as the ground is pre- 

 pared by ploughing and harrowing for the reception of 

 the seed. We do not yet know whether a given disease 

 is developed from germs, from invisible and indefinable 

 miasma, or through tendencies inherent in the individual, 

 or whether it is partly or wholly due to long- continued 



habits of abuse. . 



Impressed with the ideas that a very large proportion of 

 the'suffering in the world has been brought about by igno- 

 rance, not only among the wholly uneducated, but also 

 among those possessing — or at any rate claiming the 

 possession of -a higher degree of cultivation, a larger 

 amount of knowledge, and that many diseases, the origin 

 of which is regarded as obscure and mysterious, are really 

 often due to the bad habits of the individual, we propose 

 in the following pages to discuss the effects of one habit 

 which we consider a bad one, i.e, the use of tobacco and 

 its influence on health. 



It is well known that tobacco is used in every conceiv- 

 able dose, from the most heroic to the infinitesimal; m 

 every nation and in all ranks of society its sway is estab- 

 lished ; the gray-haired patriarch is not too old, nor is the 

 boy of ten too young to be its willing subject ; alike m the 

 filthiest slums and byways, and in the promenades and 

 avenues where the highest fashion and the most polite 



