32 TOBACCO. 



so that he can take it with seeming impunity ; yet 

 it is none the less a poison, slowly, it may be, but 

 surely, impairing the organism and inducing 

 diseases which strike at the life forces. And the 

 victim may be quite sure that nature will, in the 

 end, reassert herself, and exact a bitter atonement 

 for all such infractions of her wholesome laws. 



" The effect of tobacco on the glandular system 

 is not less evil than on the nervous. If there is 

 any tuberculous tendency, this enemy searches it 

 out, excites it, and sends its victim to the grave by 

 rapid stages. Whatever weak spot there is in the 

 constitution, this insidious thief creeps into, mining 

 and sapping about it until the fabric crumbles into 

 dust. In some stages of its action, it excites the 

 passions abnormally, and later they are deadened 

 as unnaturally." 



A promising young man of fine constitution and 

 correct habits, with the single exception of smok- 

 ing, was found dead in his bed. Examination 

 showed the blood in one lung completely black 

 from the disintegrating effects of tobacco. Accord- 

 ing to the doctors it was this which killed him. 



Such are the characteristics of tobacco, making 

 its prescription permissible only in the extremest 

 cases, and with the utmost caution. Yet this 

 most powerful, most fatal of all drugs it is which 

 has come to be regarded by thousands as a daily 

 necessity — more to them than meat, or drink, or 

 any earthly good. 



Writes Dr. Solly, for many years the medical 



