58 TOBACCO. 



It is estimated by German physicians that of 

 the deaths occurring in that country among men 

 between eighteen and thirty-five years of age, one 

 half die from the effects of this drug. They 

 unequivocally assert that r tobacco burns out the 

 blood, the teeth, the eyes, and the brain." 



Dr. Wright : " I believe it to be the great antag- 

 onist of the nervous system, especially in its rela- 

 tions to the organs of sense, of reproduction, and 

 of digestion." 



Dr. Harris : K At the New York City dispen- 

 sary, more cases of constitutional, chronic, and 

 functional diseases are treated than at any other 

 institution in America, more than fifty thousand 

 patients being annually prescribed for. Of the 

 male adult patients affected by such diseases who 

 have come under my care at the dispensary, I 

 have found that nearly nine tenths of the whole 

 number were habitual tobacco-mongers. In no 

 small proportion of these it has been perfectly 

 evident that tobacco had an important influence 

 upon the cause and continuance of these maladies." 



Decaisne : " Tobacco-smoking often causes an 

 intermittent pulse. Out of eighty-one smokers 

 examined, twenty-three presented an intermittent 

 pulse, independent of any cardiac lesion. This 

 intermittency disappeared when smoking was 

 abandoned."' 



Blatin relates that "a young medical student, 

 after smoking a single pipe, fell into a frightful 

 state, the heart becoming nearly motionless, the 



