An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health

An Essay on the Influence of
Tobacco upon
by R. D. Mussey

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Title: An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health
Author: R. D. Mussey
Release Date: October 30, 2006 [EBook #19667]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO UPON LIFE AND HEALTH ***

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AN ESSAY ON THE INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO UPON LIFE
AND HEALTH.
BY R. D. MUSSEY, M. D.
Price ten cents.

AN ESSAY ON THE INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO UPON LIFE
AND HEALTH.
BY R. D. MUSSEY, M. D.
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the Medical Institution of New
Hampshire, at Dartmouth College; Professor of Surgery and Obstetrics
in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the Western District of the
State of New York; President of the New Hampshire Medical Society;
Fellow of the American Academy of Sciences; and Associate of the
College of Physicians at Philadelphia.
BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY PERKINS & MARVIN.
PHILADELPHIA: HENRY PERKINS.
1836.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, By PERKINS
& MARVIN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of
Massachusetts.

ESSAY ON TOBACCO.
In the great kingdom of living nature, man is the only animal that seeks
to poison or destroy his own instincts, to turn topsy-turvy the laws of
his being, and to make himself as unlike, as possible, that which he was
obviously designed to be.

No satisfactory solution of this extraordinary propensity has been given,
short of a reference to that--
"first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal
taste Brought death into the world and all our wo, With loss of Eden."
While the myriads of sentient beings, spread over the earth, adhere,
with unyielding fidelity, to the laws of their several existences, man
exerts his superior intellect in attempting to outwit nature, and to show
that she has made an important mistake, in his own case. Not satisfied
with the symmetry and elegance of form given him by his Creator, he
transforms himself into a hideous monster, or copies upon his own
person, the proportions of some disgusting creature, far down in the
scale of animal being. Not content with loving one thing and loathing
another, he perseveres in his attempts to make bitter sweet, and sweet
bitter, till nothing but the shadow is left, of his primitive relishes and
aversions. This is strikingly exemplified in the habitual use of the
narcotic or poisonous vegetables.
History.
Tobacco is generally regarded as having originated in America. Its
name appears to have been derived from Tabaco, a province of Yucatan,
in Mexico, from which place it is said to have been first sent to Spain;
or, as some assert, though with less probability, from an instrument
named Tabaco, employed in Hispaniola in smoking this article.
Cortez sent a specimen of it to the king of Spain in 1519. Sir Francis
Drake is said to have introduced it into England about the year 1560,
and, not far front the same time, John Nicot carried it to France; and
Italy is indebted to the Cardinal Santa Croce for its first appearance in
that country.
Traces of an ancient custom of smoking dried herbs having been
observed, it has been suggested that tobacco might have been in use in
Asia, long before the discovery of America. The fact, however, that this
plant retains, under slight modifications, the name of tobacco, in a large
number of Asiatic as well as European dialects, renders almost certain

the commonly received opinion, that it emanated from this country, and
from this single origin has found its way into every region of the earth,
where it is at present known. If this be the fact, the Western hemisphere
has relieved itself of a part of the obligation due to the Eastern, for the
discovery and diffusion of distilled spirit.
Early in the history of our country, the cultivation and use of tobacco
were by no means confined to central America. In Hawkins' voyage of
1655, the use of this article in Florida is thus described: "The Floridians,
when they travele, have a kind of herbe dryed, which, with a cane and
an earthen cup in the end, with fire and the dryed herbes put