1853] 



THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 



31 



equally with him who is rich in a happy home and the felicity 

 of sympathising friends ! Is there any one so sunk in happiness 

 himself, as to wonder that millions of the world-chafed should flee 

 to it for solace 1 Yet the question still remains which is to 

 bring out the peculiar characteristic of tobacco. We may take 

 for granted that it acts in some way upon the nervous system ; 

 but what is the special effect of tobacco on the brain and nerves, 

 to which the pleasing reverie it produces is to be ascribed ? " The 

 pleasure of the reverie consequent on the indulgence of the pipe 

 consists," according to Dr. Madden, " in a temporary annihilation 

 of thought. People really cease to think when they have been 

 long smoking. I have asked Turks repeatedly what they have 

 been thinking of during their long smoking reveries, and they re- 

 plied, ' Of nothing.' I could not remind them of a single idea 

 having occupied their minds; and in the consideration of the 

 Turkish character there is no more curious circumstance connec- 

 ted with their moral condition. The opinion of Locke, that the 

 soul of a waking man is never without thought, because it is the 

 condition of being awake, is, in my mind, contradicted by the 

 waking somnambulism, if I may so express myself, of a 

 Moslem."* 



We conceive that Dr. Madden might find in England, in Ger- 

 many, and in Holland, many good smokers, who would make 

 excellent Moslems in his sense, and who at the close of long to- 

 bacco reveries are utterly unconscious and innocent of a single 

 thought. Yet we restrict our faith in his opinion to the simple 

 belief, that tobacco with the haze such as its smoke creates, tends 

 to soften down and assuage the intensity of all inner thoughts or 

 external impressions which affect the feelings, and thus to create 

 a still and peaceful repose — such a quiet rest as one fancies might 

 be found in the hazy distance of Turner's landscapes. We deny 

 that, in Europeans in general, smoking puts an end to intellectual 

 exertion. In moderation, our own experience is, that it sharpens 

 and strengthens it ; and we doubt very much if those learned 

 Teutonic Professors, who smoke all day, whose studies are perpet- 

 ually obscured by the fumes of the weed, and who are even said 

 to smoke during sleep, would willingly, or with good temper, 

 concede that the heavy tomes which in yearly thousands appear 

 at the Leipsic book fair, have all been written after their authors 

 had " really ceased to think." Still it is probably true, and may 

 be received as the characteristic of tobacco among narcotics, that 

 its major and first effect is to assuage, and allay, and soothe the 

 system in general ; its minor, and second, or after effect, to excite 

 aud invigorate, and, at the same time, give steadiness and fixity 

 to the powers of thought. 



The active substances, or chemical ingredients of tobacco, or 

 tobacco smoke, by whieh these effects upon the system are pro- 

 duced, are three in number. The first is a volatile oil, of which 

 about two grains can be obtained from a pound of leaves, by dis- 

 tilling them with water. This oil, or fat, " is solid, has the odour 

 of tobacco, and a bitter taste. It excites in the tongue and throat 

 a sensation similar to that of tobacco smoke ; and, when swallowed, 

 gives rise to giddiness, nausea, and an inclination to vomit." 

 Small as the quantity is, therefore, which is present in the leaf, 

 this substance must be regarded as one of the ingredients upon 

 which the effects of tobacco depend. 



The second is a volatile alkali, as it is called by chemists, 

 which is also obtained by a form of distillation. The substance is 

 liquid, has the odour of tobacco, an acrid, burning taste, and is 

 possessed of narcotic and hig-hly poisonous qualities. In this lat- 

 ter quality it is scarcely inferior to Prussic acid. The proportion 

 of this substance contained in the leaf varies from 3 to 8 per cent., 

 so that he who smokes a hundred grains of tobacco may draw into 



•Madden, Travels in Turkey, vol. i. p. 16. 



his mouth from three to eight grains of one of the most subtle of 

 all known poisons. It will not be doubted, therefore, that some 

 of the effects of tobacco are to be ascribed to this peculiar sub- 

 stance. 



The third is an oil— =an empyreumatic oil it is called — which 

 does not exist ready formed in the natural leaf, but is produced 

 along with other substances during the burning. This is sup- 

 posed to be " the juice of cursed hebenon," described by Shake- 

 speare as a distilment. It is acrid, disagreeable to the taste, nar- 

 cotic, and so poisonous that a single drop on the tongue of a cat 

 causes immediate convulsions, and in two minutes death. 



Of these three active ingredients contained in tobacco smoke, 

 the Turkish and Indian pipes, in which the smoke is made to 

 pass slowly through water, arrest a large proportion, and there- 

 fore convey the air to the mouth in a milder form. The reser- 

 voir of the German meerschaums retains the grosser portions of 

 the oils, <fec, produced by burning ; and the long stem of the 

 Russian pipe has a similar effect. The Dutch and English pipes 

 retain less; while the cigar, especially when smoked to the end, 

 discharges everything into the mouth of the smoker, and, when 

 he retains the saliva, gives him the benefit of the united action of 

 all the three narcotic substances together. It is not surprising, 

 therefore, that those who have been accustomed to smoke cigars, 

 especially such as are made of strong tobacco, should find any 

 other pipe both tame and tasteless, except the short black nitty, 

 which has lately come into favour again among inveterate 

 smokers. 



The chewer of tobacco, it will be understood from the above 

 description of its active ingredients, is not exposed to the effects 

 of the oil which is produced during the burning. The natural 

 oil and the volatile alkali are the substances which act upon him. 

 The taker of snuff is in the same condition. But his drug is 

 still milder than that of the chewer, inasmuch as the artificial dry- 

 ing or roasting to which the tobacco is subjected in the prepa- 

 ration of snuftj drives off a portion of the natural volatile oil, and 

 a large part of the volatile alkali, and thus renders it considerably 

 less active than the natural leaf. 



In all the properties by which tobacco is characterised, the 

 produce of different countries and districts is found to exhibit 

 very sensible differences. At least eight or ten species, and nu- 

 merous varieties, of the plant are cultivated ; and the leaf of each 

 of these, even where they are all grown in the same locality, is 

 found to exhibit sensible peculiarities. To these, climate and soil 

 add each its special effects ; while the periods of growth at which 

 the leaves are gathered, and the way in which they are dried or 

 cured, exercise a well-known influence on the quality of the crop. 

 To these causes of diversity is owing, for the most part, the un- 

 like estimation in which Virginian, Cuban, Brazilian, Peruvian, 

 East Indian, Persian and Turkish tobaccos are held in the 

 market. 



The chemist explains all the known and well-marked diversi- 

 ties of quality and flavour in the unadulterated leaf, by showing 

 that each recognised variety of tobacco contains the active in- 

 gredients of the leaf in a peculiar form or proportion; and it is 

 interesting to find science in his hands first rendering satisfactory 

 reasons for the decisions of taste. Thus, he has shown that the 

 natural volatile oil does not exist in the green leaf, but is formed 

 during the drying, and hence the reason why the mode of curing 

 affects the strength and quality of the dried leaf. He has also 

 shown that the proportion of the poisonous alkali (nicotin) is 

 smallest (2 per cent.) in the best Havannah, and largest (7 per 

 cent.) in the Virginian tobacco, and hence a natural and sound 

 reason for the preference given to the former by the smokers of 



