PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL VIEW. 55 



who were unconnected with any society, temper- 

 ate or total abstinent, and were therefore mere 

 recorders of facts, and propagators of truth." 



Dr. Harris, physician to the New York city dis- 

 pensary : " The properties and effects of tobacco 

 are of a curiously mixed character. Its power or 

 property of stimulation is strangely interwoven 

 with its more important and predominating one of 

 sedation or depression. This complex and double 

 action is peculiarly adapted to the work of fascin- 

 ating and misleading those who submit them- 

 selves to its influence. 



" It titillates the nerves and exhilarates the feel- 

 ings, while it obtunds and stupefies the sensibility, 

 and partially suspends the process of life. The 

 appetite which it creates is a never-ending gnaw- 

 ing that will not be denied ; and under the most 

 specious guise of absolute physical necessity, it 

 hides its insatiate and cruel demands. Its seda- 

 tive influence acts as a damper to the bustling 

 excitability which the nervous system acquires 

 from deficient or excessive action ; while at the 

 same time it affords fresh and fascinating excite- 

 ment that for a lon^ time makes one forgetful f 

 weariness, and promises to relieve the tedium of 

 life. There is no other substance known that can 

 induce such complex and various effects ; but the 

 idtimate residts are invariably the same. Its dis- 

 astrous influences upon the functions of the ner- 

 vous system and the action of the heart are felt 

 throughout every tissue of the body ; the blood 



