An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health | Page 6

to show, that tobacco is one of the most
active and deadly vegetable poisons known; it acts directly upon the
nervous power, enfeebling, deranging, or extinguishing the actions of
life. Is it possible, that the habitual use of an article of so actively
poisonous properties can promote health, or indeed fail to exert an
injurious influence upon health? It will readily be admitted, that the
daily use of any article, which causes an exhaustion of the nervous
power, beyond what is necessarily occasioned by unstimulating food
and drink, and the ordinary physical agents, as heat, cold, light,
together with mental and corporeal exertion, &c., is not only useless
but hurtful, tending directly to produce disease and premature decay.
Such is tobacco. Ample evidence of this is furnished by a departure,
more or less obvious, from healthy action, in the organic, vital
movements of a large majority of tobacco consumers.
From the habitual use of tobacco, in either of its forms of snuff, cud, or
cigar, the following symptoms may arise; a sense of weakness, sinking,
or pain at the pit of the stomach; dizziness or pain in the head;
occasional dimness or temporary loss of sight; paleness and sallowness
of the countenance, and sometimes swelling of the feet; an enfeebled
state of the voluntary muscles, manifesting itself sometimes by tremors
of the hands, sometimes by weakness, tremulousness, squeaking or
hoarseness of the voice, rarely a loss of the voice; disturbed sleep,
starting from the early slumbers with a sense of suffocation or the
feeling of alarm; incubus, or nightmare; epileptic
or convulsion fits;
confusion or weakness of the mental faculties; peevishness and
irritability of temper; instability of purpose; seasons of great
depression of the spirits; long fits of unbroken melancholy and

despondency, and, in some cases, entire and permanent mental
derangement.[2]
[Footnote 2: I have recently seen two cases; one caused by the
excessive use of snuff, the other by the chewing of tobacco and
swallowing the saliva.]
The animal machine, by regular and persevering reiteration or habit, is
capable of accommodating itself to impressions made by poisonous
substances, so far as not to show signs of injury under a superficial
observation, provided they are slight at first, and gradually increased,
but it does not hence follow that such impressions are not hurtful. It is a
great mistake, into which thousands are led, to suppose that every
unfavorable effect or influence of an article of food, or drink, or luxury,
must be felt immediately after it is taken. Physicians often have the
opportunity of witnessing this among their patients.
The confirmed dyspeptic consults his physician for pain or wind in the
stomach, accompanied with headache or dizziness, occasional pains of
the limbs, or numbness or tremors in the hands and feet, and sometimes
with difficult breathing, disturbed sleep, and a dry cough, and
huskiness of the voice in the morning. The physician suggests the
propriety of his laying aside animal food for a time; but the patient
objects, alleging that he never feels so well as when he has swallowed a
good dinner. He is then advised to avoid spirit, wine, cider, beer, &c.;
the reply is, "it is impossible, that the little I take can do me hurt; so far
from that, it always does me good; I always feel the better for it. I do
not need any one to tell me about that." He is asked if he uses tobacco.
"Yes, I smoke a little, chew a little, and snuff a little." You had better
leave it off altogether, Sir. "Leave it off? I assure you, Doctor, you
know but little about it. If I were to leave off smoking, I should throw
up half my dinner." That might do you no harm, Sir. "I see you do not
understand my case, Doctor; I have taken all these good things, for
many years, and have enjoyed good health. They never injured me.
How could they have done so without my perceiving it? Do you
suppose I have lived so long in the world without knowing what does
me good, and what does not?" It would appear so, Sir, and you are in a

fair way to die, without acquiring this important knowledge.
The poor man goes away, in a struggle between the convictions of truth
and the overwhelming force of confirmed habit. Under the sustaining
power of a good constitution, and in the activity of business, he never
dreamed of injury from the moderate indulgence, as he regarded it, in
the use of stimulants, as spirit, wine, tobacco, &c., till the work was
done. His is the case of hundreds of thousands.
The vital principle, in the human body, can so far resist the influences
of a variety of poisons, slowly introduced into it, that their effects shall
be