NAT. ORDER. LURIDiE. 
127 
of a dog, in a very small quantity, will speedily destroy life. The 
modus operandi of it is very obscure, but it appears to act in some 
indirect way upon the nervous system. The chief activity of 
Tobacco most probably depends on this essential oil, for, by long 
boiling the decoction, it is rendered almost inert. 
The medicinal properties of Tobacco are narcotic, emetic^ 
purgative and errhine. When the leaves are swallowed, they 
occasion nausea, violent vomiting, vertigo, and relaxation of the 
bowels. Similar effects have followed the snuffing of a small 
quantity up the nose. From its sedative powers arise all the fas- 
cination of this plant. It gives that calm serenity always occa- 
sioned by the abstraction of stimuli, and, like tea, opium, and the 
beetle-nut, composes the mind, under the greatest distress. It is 
neceit^y, however, to examine its effects in all the varieties of 
its use. By chewing, it acts upon the stomach, producing all the 
inconveniences of a narcotic poison — acidity, flatulence, indiges- 
tion, depraved appetite, &c. The same symptoms follow taking 
snuff^ as a portion of the tobacco generally falls through the pos- 
terior fauces into the stomach. The advantages of each mode are 
nearly the same, as the discharge of phlegm which they produce 
relieves accumulations in the head, and all the diseases depending 
on them. 
In smoking, the oil of the plant is separated, and rendered 
empyreumatic by heat, and of course applied to the fauces and 
lungs in its most active state. Musing over a pipe, assists, it is said, 
reflection — its smoke accompanied Newton's "patient thinking," 
and added to the wisdom of the politician ; but it is now forbidden 
in the drawing-room and parlor, and confined principally to the 
ale-house, and other public drinking shops. Like other forms of 
taking Tobacco, smoking occasions a tranquility, a freedom from 
care, a slight and harmless intoxication, increasing, also, the dis- 
charge of saliva. 
