Vanity, All Is Vanity | Page 2

the other.
19. The poison is transmitted to the unborn infant, many times
impairing its vital organs and causing a pre-mature death: and I once
heard a Physician of much learning and practic, Dr. NILES. Say that
there never was nor ever could be a HEALTHY CHILD born of parents
who were habitual tobacco users. And I apprehend that every doctor of
note in the land will witness the same thing.
TOBACCO EATERS! Is the most appropriate name for the users of
Tobacco; as much so as the vile disgusting loathsome green worm that
swallows the poison leaf into its stomach. For the poison of the quid
and the smoke is taken up by the blood vessels and absorbents of the
mouth, and carried into the circulation, even in a more virulent form
than if introduced by the stomach.
Every doctor will tell you that he is more afraid to give tobacco, even
as an enema, than any other poison in the Materia Medica: he never
gives it by the stomach. Sometimes, in violent spasmodic colic, or
strangulation of the bowels, or spasmodic croup, tobacco is used
externally as a poultice, and if you are not very careful, it will kill your
patient even in this form. Many a colt and calf has been killed by
rubbing them with tobacco juice to kill the lice. Tobacco is death to all
kinds of parasitical vermin; it will kill the most venomous reptiles very
quick. Many children have been killed by the application of tobacco for
lice titter sores &c. Dr. Mussey tells of a woman that rubbed a little
tobacco juice on a ring worm, not larger than a 25 cts. on her little girl's
face; and if a physician had not been quickly summoned the child
would have died. He tells of a father who killed his son by putting
tobacco spit on a sore on his head. You would do well to read what
various medical men have written on the subject. Every other poison
vegetable is content with one poison; but tobacco has two of the most
deadly poisons in the vegetable kingdom. This is no scare-crow put up
to frighten you Tobacco Eaters; if you don't believe me just examine a
vegetable chemistry, and to convince your self more thoroughly, just
drop one drop of nicotina or nicotianin on the tongue of a Cat or a Dog,

that you don't wish to kill by the tedious method or shooting or
drowning, and see what the effect will be. See if Strychnine will do its
work so quick.
Doctors: men whose profession is to play with poisons as with so many
deadly vipers, stand back and behold its poisoned fangs with horrow,
not daring to lay hold on it and use it as a medicine for his sick wife or
child. No he shuns it with a deathly horrow! Though himself may be a
SLAVE to the slower action of its devitalizing powers on mind and
body.
An over dose of tobacco is incureable because of its peculiar effect
upon the system. The effect is known by a deathly paleness and
sickness, then the air suddenly becomes too warm and oppressive, the
patient desires a cool situation, a drink of cold water and a fresh breeze,
the strangest of all is at the same time the patient is so stimulated the
action of the heart decreases, and to give a stimulant to increase it, it
increases its virulence in proportion to the increase of the suffocating
and sickening sensation: and to give the medicine to allay that, still
decreases the motion of the heart's action. Thus an antidote is instantly
transformed into fuel to feed the unquenchable flame that is already
devouring the human vitals.
It is no use in telling you by this time that I talk not about tobacco "like
a book," but like one who has been tobacconized. For I have been one
of those unfortunate boys who never had an opportunity of learning any
thing except from that cross old pedagogue Experience, who invariably
compelled me to work out my own problems, often have I in scalding
tears of bitter regret.
Tobacco like alcohol gives a temporary stimulus, and to slack off the
use of it, it will produce similar effects.
Nicotina and Nicotianin are the proper fathers to the following
diseases,--Dispepsia, Water-brash, Cancer, Ramollissement, Impotence,
Fatuity, Caries, Consumption, Laryngitis, Cardialgia, Angina Pectoris,
Neuralgia, Paralysis, Amaurosis, Deafness, Liver Complaint, Apoplexy,
Insanity, Hippochondriasis, "Horrors," "Blues," and so on through the

greater part of the Nosological family.
Because you are not killed outright you flatter your self that you are not
poisoned, but I tell you that you are, and you are dying by inches or by
sixteenths of inches if you please, how ever small the effect