304 The Soverane Herbe 



soothing and easing than a cigar or a pipe after a meal ? 

 Its very influence can be felt. As a digestive tobacco 

 has been known from the very first, and was so first 

 smoked by Drake and his men. Thomas Hobbes, 

 the philosopher of Malmesbury, held truly that as ' a 

 digesture ' tobacco was ' of sovereign vertue.' 



The assertion that tobacco shortens life and stunts 

 physique is equally groundless. The most ardent 

 smoker admits that tobacco is a luxury for men, and 

 should not be indulged in till maturity, though he is 

 curious to hear medical opinion on the infantile prac- 

 tice of smoking in the East. Statistics prove that 

 we live longer than our ancestors, who did not 

 smoke. Equally so do they show that physique is 

 improving. In individual cases centenarians almost 

 always acknowledge to a lifelong use of the weed. 

 It is extremely rare to hear of a teetotal and non- 

 smoking man of a hundred years. In other indi- 

 viduals, such as Hobbes, Parr, Tennyson, smoking 

 cannot be said to have shortened their lives or dulled 

 their mental powers. 



As a prophylactic tobacco is unequalled. It is 

 deadly in action on nearly all germs and bacteria. 

 In bacteriological laboratories smoking is forbidden 

 as destructive to the cultivation of bacilli. Smoke 

 retards the growth of many kinds of microbes, and 

 absolutely destroys many others, especially that of 

 Asiatic cholera. During the Great Plague in London 

 not a single person engaged in the tobacco trade was 

 seized, and its prophylactic virtues led to its general 

 use on medical grounds. In epidemics of diphtheria, 

 scarlet fever, typhus and typhoid even children should 



