TOBACCO BENEFITS. 105 



Hastiness consequent upon indulgence in the vile 

 habit." 



The remainder of the extracts from letters on 

 this point are by physicians, not dentists. 



Dr. Heitzman, of New York : " Being a hearty 

 smoker myself, I can assure you that tobacco 

 smoke has no beneficial effect upon the teeth. In 

 my case, it did not work as a disinfectant." Dr. 

 H. is candid enough to pronounce smoking 

 "a vicious though delightful habit.'' 



Dr. T. F. Allen, of New York: " The state- 

 ment that tobacco is antiseptic, is I think, simply 

 ridiculous. There is no doubt that creosote, or 

 rather the products of combustion in smoking, have 

 an antiseptic effect ; but the same effect would be 

 produced by burning paper, cabbage-leaves, or 

 anything else of the sort." 



Dr. Cate, of Lakewood : " No authority on sanita- 

 tion or disinfection, whether medical or non-medi- 

 cal, classes tobacco among disinfectants, or anti- 

 septics, or protectives in any mode or degree ; and 

 those who have written most, and most vigorously, 

 against the use of tobacco, are physicians. To- 

 bacco is, confessedly on all hands, not only a drug, 

 but a very powerful narcotic. And there is a 

 universal law that the use of any drug in health is 

 always mischievous. 



"It is the doctrine of the day that ferments are 

 not only accompanied but caused by minute 

 organisms, and that any agent killing these, or their 

 spores, will remove or prevent fermentation. As 



