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TOBACCO:

S HISTORY, CULTIVATION, MANUFACTUKE,
AND ADULTERATIONS.

USE CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO ITS INFLUENCE
ON THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION.

ANDEEW STEINMETZ, Esq.,

OF T1*E MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

LONDON:
iOHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

1857.

Price Two Shillings.

WILLIAM CLOWES AUD SOKS, 8XAMF0UD STIiEET.

■' Qjio" regio in terris nostri non plena vaporis?"

Gods would have reveWd at their feasts of MirtJi
With this pure distillation of the Earth —
The Marrow of the World, Starre of the West,
The Pearle whereby this lozuer Or be is blest —
The Joy of Mortals, Umpire of all Strife,
Delight of Nature, Mithridate of Life —
The daintiest dish of a delicious Feast,
By taking which Man differs from a Beast."

TOBACCO:

ITS HISTORY, CULTIVATION, MANUFACTURE,
AND ADULTERATIONS.

ITS USE CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO ITS INFLUENCE
ON THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION.

BY

ANDEEW STEINMETZ, Esq.,

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, B ARRISTER-AT-LAW.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

1857.

The right qf Translation is reserved.

" A custom loathsome to tbe eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to
the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume
thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit
that is bottomlesse." — The Most High and Mightie PKI^•CE James,
BY THE Grace of God Kikg of Great Britain. Anno Domini, 1616.

'Thy quiet spirit lulls the lab'ring brain,

Lures back to thought the flights of vacant mirth,
Consoles the Mourner, soothes the couch of Pain,

And breathes Contentment roinid the humble hearth ;
While savage Warriors, softcn'd by thy breath.
Unbind the Captive hate had doom'd to death."

The Rev. Walter Cotton.

" Bread or Tobacco may be neglected, but reason at first recommends
their trial, and custom makes them pleasant."— Locke.

LONIK>X: TKINTED BY V<'. CLO-R-ES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND charing cross.

PREFACE.

" Have you not set mine honour at tlie stake,
And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts
That tyrannous heart can think ? "

Twelfth Night, iii. 1.

In the ' Times ' paper of Friday, Feb. 9th inst.,
the following notice appeared in the column of
minor facts and memoranda : —

" Is SMOKING INJURIOUS TO HEALTH ? — An interesting
discussion is now going on in 'The Lancet' upon the
effects of smoking. The use of tobacco has, during the
last half-century, greatly increased in England, and has
now become an almost universal practice. This question,
in which the leading members of the medical profession
are taking part, must not only greatly interest the public,
but may very materially affect the revenue of this country,
when it is known that the income derived from the con-
sumption of tobacco was last year upwards of 32,192,943?.
— the duty on which was more than 5,220,000?. This
return is independent of cigars, which was about 150,000?.
An able article on the tobacco question appears in ' The
Lancet' of the present week by Mr. Solly, F.ll.S., of St.
Thomas's Hospital, which will be read with interest by all
inveterate smokers."

a 2

IV PREFACE.

Having vigorously and robustly lived in this
category — an inveterate smoker — for the last
twenty years of my life, the question concerned
me nearly. That the tide of this " interesting
discussion " was running against " inveterate
smokers, " indeed against the gentle weed, was
but too apparent from the notice. I had lately
read a ridiculous pamphlet, by a Mr. Lizars,
against tobacco. Could that pamphlet have
originated the " discussion " ? I thought not ;
for it had seemed to me, perhaps erroneously, to
belong to that class of publications by which
credulous men are entrapped into the hands of
those who pretend to know infallibly the cause
of their secret and other ailments, and ultimately
find themselves in a position which few like to
disclose for the benefit of the public. But per-
haps some " new discovery " had been made by
these men of the lancet? Perhaps this Mr.
Solly, populi contemner e voces soHtus, has at last
been enabled to establish an overwhelming
Bevtare against the universe in the matter of
smoking!

I procured the ' Lancet,' read Mr. Solly's

PREFACE. V

" able article," and found it in substance a mere
reproduction of Mr. Lizars in his pamphlet ; the
same old charges which, two hundred years ago,
were found frivolous and unsupported by fact.

" Veterem ranaj cecinere querelam ! "

I know not whether Mr. P. B. St. John be
still in the land of the living ; if it be not con-
trary to his wishes I hope he is, were it only to
grin sardonically at the fulfilment of a prophecy
which he made some thirteen years ago, as the
*' Old Smoker," vates sacer, in 'Bentley's Mis-
cellany.'

" How many times," he exclaimed, " in the swamps of
the Far West have I escaped malaria, yellow fever, ague,
perhaps death, by the unsparing use of the weed ! and yet,
doubtless, ere long some new Father Matheiu will open a
crusade against the article ! We opine, however, that the
vapourings of the anti-tobaccoites would turn out a lottle
of smoke J" *

Mr. Solly, F.R.S., has constituted himself the
Father Mathew of this crusade, and the field of
his operations is — the universe.

Vain, unprofitable waste of words and nervous

* See 'Bentley's Miscellany,' March, 1844.

VI PREFACE.

energy, if it does not put money in the till of the
' Lancet ' ! He may reproduce the contents of
the hundred volumes which have been written
against tobacco ; he can add nothing which was
not said before ; the weed defies him, will bear
the brunt of his battle, will conquer him and reign
on for ages, until a superior to it shall take its
place as a social and moral modificator.

Parliament may fearlessly proceed to cut down
the D Schedule of the income-tax without
dreading a diminution in the patriotic aid of
Nicotiana. And,* if of two countries, with an
equal amount of population, the wealthiest and
most highly civilised will consume the greatest
weight of soaj:) ; if it be no exaggeration to say
that we may fairly judge of the commercial
prosperity of a country from the amount of sul-
phuric add it consumes ; we may most assuredly
add, that the consumption of tobacco will always
advance with the increase of populaticm, in spite
of medical or any other humbug.t

* Liebig, ' Letters on Chemistry,' Letter IlL
t It appears that our population-increase of last year was
at the rate of a thousand a-day. The doctors in the ' Lancet'

PREFACE. VII

" That most extraordinary plant tobacco," says Dr.
Paris, " notwithstanding its powers of fascination, has
suffered romantic vicissitudes in its fame and character.
It has been successively opposed and condemned by phy-
sicians— condemned and eulogised by priests and kings —
proscribed and protected by governments ; whilst at length
this once insignificant production of a little island, or an
obscure district, has succeeded in diffusing itself through
every climate, and in subjecting the inhabitants of every
country to its dominion. The Arab cultivates it in the
burning desert — the Laplander and Esquimaux risk their
lives to procure a refreshment so delicious in their wintry
solitude — the seaman, grant him but this luxur^^, and he
will endure with cheerfulness every other privation, and
defy the fury of the raging elements ; and in the higher
walks of civilised society, at the shrine of fashion, in the
palace, and in the cottage, the fascinating influence of this
singular plant commands an equal tribute of devotion and
attachment." *

Were Dr. Paris alive I opine he would think
this movement of Mr. Solly and his confraternity

face this fact with a newspaper report of a great diminution
in the normal increase of the population of France, and
actually ascribe it to the use of tobacco ! But sauce for a
goose is sauce for a gander, and our thousand a-day is a tole-
rably rich one, in spite of tobacco-juice. If the doctors and
others would like to get some wholsesome knowledge on the
important subject of population-increase, I beg to refer them
to Dr. Levy's 'Traite' d'Hygiene Publique et Privee, ii. 736
et seq., just published at Paris. Many a smoker with a large
and increasing family would, perhaps, be glad if the fumes
of tobacco could diminish his superabundant energies.
* Pharmacologia, p. 8L

VIU PREFACE.

a " rash fierce blaze " of honesty indeed ! For*
the time is unfortunate for medical opinion. At
the late great trial at the Old Bailey medical
opinion cut a very sorry figure. The public was
astounded to hear one doctor swear his belief that
the death was caused by "epileptic convulsions
with tetanic complications ;" another, that it was
the natural result of " angina pectoris ;" a third,
yea and a fourth, that they did not know the cause
of the death ! Is this a way to convince the public
mind that medical opinion may be respectfully
received and gratefully complied with ? . . .

Mr. Solly has flagrantly transgressed tlie
bounds of propriety. I caimot refrain from here
quoting, with much disgust, two items of his in-
comprehensible excitement. He says, —

" I may be told that a certain exalted personage, whose
kindness of disposition is only equalled by his moral and
physical courage in the discharge of all his duties, smokes
habitually without detriment. I can only say, God grant
that it may not shorten his valuable life and impair his
nervous system."

Again, even still more painful to read —

" I once knew a young clergyman who could only write
his sermons under the stimulus of tobacco, and there is no

PREFACE. IX

question that these discourses were brilliant, eloquent, and
most interesting to listen to ; hut the end of that man is
not yet come,""

This may be merely bad taste, senile weak-
ness, blatant imbecility; but it is nevertheless
very unkind to try and frighten a man, especially
when a doctor is the ogre. I know not who the
*' certain exalted personage " happens to be, but
the mawkish sentiraentalism, the twaddle of thia
insidious prophet, must meet with its merited con-
tempt from the exalted personage, since he can
point to the late Duke of Sussex, who was an
inveterate smoker to the last, and died comfort-
ably in a good old age. And with regard to the
still more Spurgeonite " turn or burn " warning
given to the clergyman, the latter may think of
the celebrated Dr. Parr — not the doctor of the
life-pills — but the liberal-minded clergyman who
died in 1825, beyond the scriptural age, namely,
in his seventy-eighth year, of whom his medical
friend and biographer says, that he "had fallen
ripe and in due season ;" and this friend, Dr.
John Johnston, F.R.S , and Fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians of London, re-

X PREFACE.

marks as follows on Dr. Parr's habit of smok-

" Mr. Pioderick now laments that he ever introduced the
pipe, from the excess in which Parr indulged in tobacco.
... I am not convinced that this habit was productive of
bad consequence to his health, though it Avas often incon-
venient to his friends. Tobacco has been called the
anodyne of poverty, and the opium of the Western world.
To Parr, whose nerves were extremely irritable, and sensi-
bility immoderate, perhaps it was a necessary anodyne.
It calmed his spirits ; it assisted his private ruminations ;
it was his companion in anxiety ; it was his helpmate in
composition. Have not all seen him darkening the air
with its clouds, when his mind was labouring with
thought.?"*

Now, Dr. Parr must have been rather more
than an inveterate smoker. Wolf states that
Dr. Parr used frequently to smoke as much as
twenty pipes of an evening : " er soil es manch-
raall an einem Abend, bis zu 20 pfeifen gebracht
haben." Dr. Johnston says that five pipes would
be nearer the mark ; but the worthy old divine is
represented in his portrait with an uncommonly
big clay-pipe in his hand — one of those pipes
yclept aldermen^ from their ventral capacity ; and

* Memoirs of Dr. Parr, p. 815.

PREFACE. XI

every smoker knows how soon a pound of tobacco
vanishes into thin air when he tunes his thoughts
on such a capacious avena, however sweet it may-
be ex magno tollere ccervo.

IMoreover, Mr. Holly accredits the assumption
of his friend Mr. Lizars, in holding forth the
dread of impending mania to the unfortunate
smoker !

This is a solemn matter. Let these men, and
the whole confraternity now scribbling in the
* Lancet,' beware of the terrible responsibilities they
incur in thus suddenly and with set purpose doing
their utmost to frighten the nation — to involve it
in terrors like that of a "nocturnal fear" and
" a noon-day devil " — from which no man can flee
in his utter bewilderment ! It is sometimes a
fearful thing to impart even an idea to certain
minds — nay, any unusual exhibition may often
involve serious mental results to a spectator.
Esquirol assures us that " a lady, being present
at a phantasmagoria, instantly imagined herself
surrounded with goblins ; a young man, assisting
at an experiment, believes himself in subjection
to the electric action which causes his imaginary

Xll PKEFACE.

tortures ; a lady hears people talk of magnetism,
and she attributes her restless nights, her suffer-
ings, to the mesmerists ! " * I refer these doctors
to the same author for a summary respecting
these "dominant ideas" — idees dominantes — flung
suddenly upon the minds of nations, and again I
tell them to beware lest they actually produce
psychologically what has never been produced
physically by the sole and proper use of tobacco.
One word more on this tobacco-phohia of the
doctors. Do they really expect to persuade the
public to believe that they, the doctors, feel inte-
rested in the continued liealth of nations ? If we
paid them, like the Chinese, for keeping us icdl^
the case would be altered : but our health would
be their starvation ! And, if the immense majority
of our habitual ailments originate in corroding
cares and anxiety, the use of the soothing weed
is clearly the very arch-enemy of the doctors : —

" ^\\.Q 'pa^&ions of the mind" says Dr. Elliotson, *'are a
frightful source of disease, — much more so than is com-
monly imagined. An immense number of cases of disease

* Esquirol, ' Des Maladies Mentales,' i. 43.

PREFACE. Xlll

of the heart, and disease within the abdomen, as well as
of the brain itself, arise, 1 am certain, from unpleasant
passions of the mind." *

To meet this state of life's necessary evils
Mr. Solly favours us with a question. He asks —

" Would it not be far more manly, far nobler, far
more in accordance with the precepts of Christianity, if,
instead of smoking away our griefs, and stifling in the
pipe our angry passions, w^e met our difficulties with a
manly front, and conquered our evil tempers by the
force of our better nature ? Are not all troubles sent,"
&c.

Unquestionably, Mr. Solly ! But remember
the words of Job : —

" Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his
belly with the east wind? Should he reason with un-
profitable talk ? or with speeches wherewith he can do no
good?" — Joh XV. 2.

It took you ten years, as you say in your first
letter, before you gave up smoking, and found
yourself "more manly, nobler, and more in
accordance with the precepts of Christianity."
Perhaps all of us will thus, in time, rise to your

* Practice of Medicine, p. 36.

XIV PREFACE.

grand eminence, aided by those wise reflections
suggested by Nicotiana in our griefs and troubles
— a consummation most devoutly to be wished ;
and we congratulate you, Mr. Solly, on the
thought of having already attained it.

I am quite sure that Dean Swift or Hamlet
would "smell a rat" on this occasion in the dark
chamber of the medical mind.

" I declare mj conscientious opinion," says Dr. James
Johnson, " founded on long observation and reflection, that,
if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary,
man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the
earth, there would be less sickness and less mortahty than
now prevail." *

Perhaps this opinion may be shared by others
in and out of the profession ; whilst, if I frankly
admit my misgivings of the medical body in
general, I cannot but feel and express high es-
teem of many amongst them, who in all times
have deserved well of mankind by their labours.
Instructed at an early age for the healing art, I
learnt to venerate the function — as high as any

* Quoted from ' Medical Confessions of Medical Murder,'
published by the " British College of Health," the dissenting
branch of the Faculty.

PREFACE. XV

allotted to man. Since then I have been always
familiar with the leading authors on their time-
honoured shelves ; but 1 cannot, for that very
reason, close my eyes and obscure my under-
standing to the rampant fact of medical fallacies,
medical mistakes, medical obtuseness, and, I may
add, medical special 'pleading^ and worse, with
whicli we have all become painfully acquainted.

In this matter of tobacco I behold a frivolous
discussion arising from a very trivial cause — the
expression of an opinion against smoking by Mr.
Solly, in one of his lectures delivered to his pupils.
This was sharply noticed and commented on by
some anonymous writer — then others replied, as
usual — swelling crescendo the subject upon the
public ear with " /s smoking injurious? ^^ — then
" The tobacco question " — and at last " The GREAT
tobacco question " — with ' Lancet '-editions rave-
nously exhausted, out of print, at a 'premium,
&c. &c. &c.

Should the following pages tend to impart sound
knowledge of the subject, my pleasant labour,
though severely hurried to meet the case, is
freely tendered ; and it will be some " returns "

XVI TREFACE.

of consolation to the weed of the world's admira-
tion, that she has been defended by one whom she
has befriended — that the doctors have been de-
tected by one whom she has disinfected — and,
finally, that it is no dishonour to dote upon her —

** For 'tis a cause that liatli no mean dependence
Upon our joint and several dignities."

Andrew Steinmetz.
London, Feb. 16, 1857.

TOBACCO

ITS HISTOKY, CULTIVATION, MANUFACTURE,
AND ADULTERATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

The late Mr. Johnston, in his admirable work
* The Chemistry of Life,' traced the instinctive
advances of man through three successive stages
in ministering to his natural wants and cravings :
First, his provision of bread and beef; secondly,
fermented or alcoholic liquors, " to assuage the
cares of his mind, and to banish uneasy reflec-
tions;" thirdly, "he strives to multiply his
enjoyments, intellectual and animal, and, for
the time, to exalt them " by the use of nar-
cotics.

It is evident that this is merely the popular
view of the subject with regard to alcoholic
liquors and narcotics. As enlightened science
has demonstrated a much more important func-

B

2 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

tion in the use of alcoholic liquors in the animal
system, perhaps the time will come when the
use of narcotics also will he rationally explained.
The substances which are adapted to the forma-
tion of blood renew the organised tissues of the
body ; whilst another class of substances, in the
normal state of health, serve to support the pro-
cess of respiration. " Tlie former may be called
the plastic elements of nutrition; the latter,
elements of respiration^ Amongst the latter
Liebig classes zt-z/ze, heer, and spirits. "In all
chronic diseases death is produced by the chemical
action of the atmosphere. When those substances
are wanting whose function in the organism is
to support the process of respiration — namely,
fat, starch, gum, sugar of all kinds, wine, beer,
spirits ; — when the diseased organs are incapable
of performing their proper function o^ producing
these substances ; — when they have lost the power
of transforming the food into that shape in which
it may, by entering into combination with the
oxygen of the air, protect the system from its in-
fluence—then the substance of the organs them-
selves, the fat of the body, the substance of the

INTRODUCTION. 3

muscles, the nerves, and the brain, are unavoid-
ably consumed. The true cause of death in
these cases is the respiratory process, that is, the
action of the atmosphere. . . . The flame is extin-
guished because the oil is consumed ; and it is
the oxygen of the air which has consumed it." *
In effect, life is but the battle of the animal or-
ganism with oxygen : death is the victory of the
latter ; and it now appears that the forces with
which nature enables us to fisrht this everlasting:
enemy are merely fat, starch, gum, the various
kinds of sugar, wine, beer, and spirits ! Respi-
ration is but the natural broad-sword encounter
of animality with oxygen — stroke for stroke it
gives and takes, and every respiration proclaims
a victory in the well-appointed system.

If it be then conclusively proved that alcoholic
liquors are amongst the necessaries of life, after
having been so long considered merely adapta-
tions to assuage the cares of the mind and banish
uneasy reflections, may we not confidently expect

* See Liebig's admirable ' Letters on Chemistry,' first
series, Letters x. and vii. If the reader has not read the
work he had better do so without delay.

B 2

4 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

that the appointed function of tobacco, as fami-
liarly used by universal man, will some day be
as rationally explained and established ? Every
country or tribe of human beings has had from
time immemorial its own peculiar narcotic, either
aboriginal or imported. The universal instinct
of the human race has led, somehow or other, to
the universal supply of this want or craving.
Tobacco in North America and the islands ; the
thorn-apple, coca, tobacco, and hemp in South
America; hops and tobacco in Europe; hemp
in Africa; amanita, betel-nut, and tobacco in
Asia — nay, Mr. Johnston has mapped out the
universe, according to its latitude and longitude,
exhibiting the various narcotics in vogue amongst
its civilised or savage inhabitants.* ' A Map of
the Distribution of Narcotics over the Globe ! '
Such is the title ; and we may ask how it came
to pass that the human instincts discovered the
uses to which those products of the earth might
be applied— tried them, and, finding them good,
have ever classed them effectually amongst the

* Johnston's * Chemistry of Life,' No. vii.

INTRODUCTION. 5

necessaries of life ? Shall we seek and ulti-
mately find an explanation in the undoubted
existence of countless millions of microscopic
animalculcB which surround and penetrate us on
all sides — agents of disease, whose more visible
congeners we so easily exterminate for a time by
the aid of fuming narcotics, especially tobacco ? *
And shall we not be able ultimately to prove
that such narcotism is a prophylactic against
numberless miasmata perpetually coming into
existence in the universal economy of nature,

* No insect except the house-fly survives the fumes of
tobacco ; and the exemption of the fly is a very striking fact,
worthy of consideration as to the subject of the text. The
fly itself is a prophylactic to man ; an aerial scavenger, in-
cessantly urging through his delicate organs (which he fills
with copious draughts of water) every vestige of decompos-
ing matter, and, by the incessant rapidity of his beautiful
gyrations, agitating and thus renewing the stagnant atmos-
phere of ill-ventilated apartments. Kill him by thousands,
and thousands take his place ; for nature is more provident
of your welfare than you are yourself ; nay, the very annoy-
ance he gives you provokes circulation in the blood, rendered
languid by the impure air which you breathe. He tells you,
ou the part of nature, by his increased multitudes, that
pestilence is around you, or upon you. His importunity is
unquestionably the best " medical advice " you can take as
to putting your house within the rules of health. And it
was destined that tobacco-smoke should not interfere with
his important function !

6 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

whose mighty advance takes but a small, though
adequate, cognizance of mere animal suffering
in her great inscrutable developments? For
my own part, I cannot believe that so universal
a habit — tending, as is proved, to increase with
the increase of populations — has been and is a
mere whim or fancy of self-indulging man ; but
rather is one of those mysterious means by
which we are compelled, in spite of ourselves, or
with free-will and pleasure, to subserve the great
behests of Providence. Possibly indeed the de-
tractors of tobacco may have been saved from
many a malady by the conjoint indulgence of a
world of smokers. The very strength of the pro-
pensity assumes, it seems, considerable import-
ance in the solution of the problem. Where
nature gives a strong tendency, there must be a
strong reason in the cause — and still more when
she superadds a pleasure, like all otlier pleasures
of which we are conscious, but can give no ac-
count, after enjoyment, which is the peculiarity
of the smoker's pleasure — a point worthy of
philosophic consideration.

HISTORICAL.

PART I.

HISTORICAL.

Doubts have been advanced, and plausibly
supported, as to the alleged fact that the smoking
of tobacco was peculiar to the aborigines of
America. The plant, in its numerous varieties,
is known in every region of the globe, from the
equator to the sixtieth degree of latitude. It is
certain, however, that its use in Europe was bor-
rowed from the savage of America ; and the
history of tobacco, in its adoption by civilised
man as a luxury, is as interesting to philosophical
contemplation as is the history of any of his re-
ligious or social extravagances. It has triumph-
antly resisted the ridicule of the mob, the ex-
communicating anathemas of the popedom, and
the penalties of kings — mutilation and death.
Never was there a more striking illustration of
the poet's text, Gens humana ruit 'per vetitum
nefas. It seemed as though certain privileged

8 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

thinkers, concluding that it was the " fire stolen
from the ethereal mansion," ascribed to its fur-
tive introduction all manner of ills that flesh is
heir to — macies et nova fehriiim cohors ; nay, the
very image of death by premature decay loomed
in the quivering smoke of the pipe, and horribly
grinned in its ashes — leti corripuit gradiim !
Considering the dreadful evils which civilised
man inflicted upon the man of nature all over
America, perhaps it was by a sort of retribution
that this '' perilous stuff"" was permitted to be
sent by Hernandez de Toledo into Spain and Por-
tugal in 1559 — if persecution, pains, and penal-
ties be the instruments of Providence in the
hands of man ; but if millions after millions of
the human race then for the first time quaffed a
pleasure unfelt before — a passing solace to the
mind's unrest — a thrill of comfort, contentment,
and submission, whilst calmly inhaling its mys-
terious cloud amidst the stern realities of life —
and meanwhile a prophylactic against the for-
midable distempers so often decimating Europe
— then certainly was good returned to us for
evil wantonly inflicted.

HISTORICAL. V

King James I., " the Most High and Mightie
Prince " — the British Solomon, as his courtiers
called him — Maistre Jacques, as he was dubbed
by Henry IV. — was amongst the first to denounce
the use of tobacco. A characteristic quotation
from his ' Count erblaste, or Misocapnus,^ has been
given on the back of the title-page. This royal
philippic, lusus regius, has been and is the favourite
theme for reproduction by those amongst' the
moderns who feel a sort of vocation to denounce
the " weed;" but if they do not seek merely to
advertise their professional avocations, they should
remember that the moral opinions of James I.
can have no weight with any man who is ac-
quainted with the history of that royal pheno-
menon, who was himself "a slave to vices which
could not fail to make him an object of disgust "
equal to that which he felt at the *' stinking fume "
of tobacco ;* and that better evidence than mere
assertion must be produced in a court where the
majority of mankind may or will be defendants.

We may gather, however, from the king's tes-

* Raumer, ii. p. 200 etseq., giviug contemporary vouchers ;
also Winwood's ' Memorials/ ii.

10 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

timony, the eagerness with which the herh was
adopted on all sides. He asks —

" Is it rot a great vanity that a man cannot heartily
welcome his friend now, but straight they must be in
hand with tobacco ? no, it is become in place of a cure
[remedy] a point of good fellowship ; and he that will
refuse to take a pipe of tobacco amongst his fellowes
(though by his own election he would rather feel the
savour of a sinke) is accounted peevish, and no good
company, even as they do with tippling in the cold eastern
countries. Yea, the mistress cannot in a more mamierly
kind entertain her servant than by giving him out of her
fair hand a pipe of tobacco.

" Moreover, which is a great iniquity, and against all
humanity, the husband shall not be ashamed to reduce
thereby his delicate, wholesome, and clean-complexioned
wife to that extremity, that either she must also corrupt
ber sweet breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a
perpetual stinking torment."

Certainly this description of the prevalence of
the custom, if true, proves that the practice was
more general at that time — thirty years after its
introduction — than it is at the present day, though
far more costly, for the king states that " some of
the gentry bestow three and some four hundred
pounds a yeere upon this precious stinke " — repre-
senting a much greater value of the present
money.

HISTORICAL. 11

According to Aubrey, the pipe was handed from
man to man round the table : tobacco " was sold
then for its wayte in silver. I have heard some
of our old yeomen neighbours say that, when they
went to Malmesbury or Chippenham, they culled
their biggest shillings to lay in the scales against
the tobacco."

In Mr. Solly's letter, published in the Lancet,
he repeats an absurd opinion put forth by a Mr.
Lizars, in his very slovenly and ill-written philip-
pic against tobacco. " I believe," says the doctor,
** if the habit of smoking in England advances as
it has done during the last ten or twelve years,
that the English character will lose that combina-
tion of energy and solidity which has hitherto
distinguished it, and that England will sink in the
scale of nations." Now, since it is quite evident
from the doctor's letter that he knows nothing
respecting the physiology of smoking — all his
long tirade being merely a tissue of opinions
without facts to support them — the announce-
ment is simply ridiculous, instead of being worthy
of deep consideration, as it would have been had
his whole letter not forcibly suggested the con-

12 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

viction that it was the product of effete senility.
Still the striking fact to which the historian can
appeal would have fronted him at once ; for, when
we call to mind what was achieved hy the men of
England, at that time general smokers, by the
king's testimony, so soon after the latter went to
his long account, we may reasonably suppose that
the men of England were not deficient in " energy
and solidity." Again, the habit has been ever
since constantly increasing, especially in the
Navy, amongst the regular defenders of Eng-
land ; and whatever was grandly done in the last
war was not prevented by the practice of smoking
and chewing ; and our latest defenders abroad
may be safely pronounced to have, if possible,
surpassed their predecessors in " energy and so-
lidity." Alma, Inkermann, Balaklava, the Re-
dan, and the endurance of that never-to-be-for-
gotten Crimean winter and the infernal trenches,
should shame any man out of the very thought
that the solidity and energy of England are de-
parting.

At all events, according to the homely saying,
" what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the

HISTORICAL. 13

gander," as all other nations surpass us in the
habit of smoking, the doctor must admit that
others are " sinking " also by means of smoking,
and we must necessarily remain in statu quo pro-
portionally— equals being added or subtracted
from given quantities, the latter must remain
relatively the same. If we have been giants " in
the scale of nations," and all nations be made to
" sink " together, we may still remain as General
Tom Thumb to an infant of three months ; and
that will be some consolation at all events.

The nimble-witted Jesuits replied to James's
Misocapnus in their Anti-3Iisocapnus — perhaps
through theological spite, but most assuredly with
infinitely more sense and decency. Other writers
of note joined in the defence of the proscribed
and persecuted weed — Neandri, Thorius, Lesus,
Braum, in prose and verse ; but all to no purpose
against the prejudice of the " high and mighty "
who undertake to make a providence for man.
In 1 624 Pope Urban VIII. published a decree of
excommunication against all who took snuff in the
church. Ten years after this, smoking tobacco
was forbidden in Russia, under the pain of having

14 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

the nose cut off. In Transylvania the penalty for
growing tobacco was a total confiscation of pro-
perty, and for using the w^eed a fine varying from
three to 200 florins. In 1653 the Council of the
Canton of Appenzel cited smokers before them,
whom they punished, and they ordered all inn-
keepers to inform against such as were found
smoking in their houses. The police regulations
of Berne, made in 1661, were divided according
to the Ten Commandments, the various prohibi-
tions being classed with reference to each com-
mandment, and the prohibition against smoking
stood immediately beneath the command against
adultery — for what reason it is impossible to say,
unless it arose from the fact that the tobacco-plant
is, like many others, a sort of vegetable Mormon,
belonging to the order styled Pewtoyzc??'za monogy-
nia — as it were, a female polygamist. This pro-
hibition was renewed in 1675, and the tribunal
instituted to put it into execution, the Chambre
au Tahac^ continued down to the middle of the
last century. Pope Innocent XIL, in 1590, ex-
communicated all those who were found taking
snuff, or using tobacco in any way, in the church

HISTORICAL. 15

of St. Peter at Rome. Even so late as 1719
the Senate of Strasburg prohibited the cultivation
of tobacco, from an apprehension that it would
diminish the growth of corn. Amurath IV.,
king of Per^ia, published an edict which made the
smoking of tobacco a capital offence : this was
founded on an opinion that it rendered the people
infertile ! The reader will agree with Dr. Paris
that tobacco " furnishes, in its most romantic his-
tory, a striking illustration of the triumph of
popular opinion over a series of legislative enact-
ments, which had no other origin than that of
ignorance and prejudice," *

Sterne's proverbial dictum — " they manage
things better in France" — was certainly ex-
emplified in the matter of tobacco. The king
of France, or rather the shrewd Richelieu, took
a different view of the growing propensity. No
law was passed against tobacco, but a duty was
imposed upon it, extremely small at first, and
this lasted to the year 1673; but in 1674, the
habit of snuffing and smoking becoming more

* Medical Jurisprudence, ii. 415,

16 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

and more popular, the government of Louis XIV.
increased the duty, and then converted the culti-
vation into a monopoly. This was conceded to
a speculator for six years, in consideration of the
payment of 700,000 francs in three instalments,
the enormous sum of more than 29,000/. sterling.
In 1720 the consideration for the monopoly was
more than doubled; in 1771 it was nearly
quadrupled, amounting to about 1,100,0007. per
annum. As the consumption of tobacco con-
tinued to increase, the government took upon
itself the entire monopoly, under the name of
Regie; and some idea may be formed of the
enormous increase in the consumption of tobacco,
when it is stated that in 1844 the revenue rose
to the sum of 102,000,000 francs, more than
4,000,000/. sterling; since which date it has
been constantly and steadily increasing, at the
average rate of from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000
francs per annum. The list before me is from
1829 to 1844. It is very probable that the
revenue for last year exceeded that of England,
which is set down at 5,220,388/. We must cer-
tainly pay the French kings and their ministers

HISTORICAL. 17

the compliment of pronouncing them much more
rational than their neighbours on all sides, who
fined, ruined, mutilated, or decapitated their
miserable subjects in the vain effort to resist a
propensity as strong and imperative as any that
Gall or Spurzheim discovered, or fancied they
discovered, in the human brain. The French-
man whose statistics have just been quoted
boldly puts forth the following question and
answer : —

" Can we now set a term to an increase of consumption
so enormous? We think not . . , . ; for we believe that
there exist two causes which must cause a manifest in-
crease in the consumption of tobacco. The first is the
increase of population ; and the second is the improved
condition of the poorer classes ; for how many peasants
are there in France who do not smoke simply because
they are in want of bread ? " *

Nor is the career of tobacco less striking in
England and her colonies. In 1615, the year
before King James's ' Counterblast,' the fields,
the gardens, the public squares, and even the
streets of Jamestown, Virginia, were planted
with tobacco — nay, it became not only the staple,

♦ Joubert, * Tabac,' p. 9.

C

18 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

but the currency of the colony.* Fifty years
after, Virginia exported to England 60,000 lbs. ;
during the next thirty years it increased to
120,0001bs.; and during the last 160 years, since
1689, the produce of Virginia has risen to nearly
twice as many millions of pounds !

As to the consumption of tobacco in England,
it is certain that the above 120,000 lbs. were all
the imported supplies for home consumption and
exportation ; but for the last year the imported
leaf which paid the duty of 35. per lb. exceeded
33,802,500 lbs., besides upwards of 333,000 lbs.
of cigars, which, paying a duty of ^s. Qd. per lb.,
gave to the Customs 150,000/. The progressive
increase will appear by the following table : —

1851 ..

.. 28,002,841 lbs.

1852 ..

.. 28,558,733

1853 ..

.. 29,737,561

1856 ..

.. 33,802,500

And to this must be added the large quantity
of contraband tobacco which the duty of 3^.
a lb. tempts the smuggler to introduce.

That the consumption among us is still rapidly

* Bancroft, * United States,' i. 114.

HISTORICAT*

19

on the increase, appears from the above numbers ;
but it is more clearly shown by the following
table, exhibiting the quantities consumed at each
of the last four decennial periods : —

Years.

1821
1831
1841
1851

Total
Consumption.

lbs.
15,598,152
19,533,841
22,309,360
28,062,841

Population.

21,282,960
24,410,439
27,019,672
27,452,692

Consumption
per Head.

12
13
13^
17

In the column showing the consumption per
head, I have rejected the decimal, so as not
to confuse the reader; thus for 11-71 oz. I
have given 12 oz., and so of the rest. I give
the table on the authority of Mr. Johnston,
quoting the ' Journal of the Statistical Society,'
xvi. 50.

These numbers, continues the same authority,
show that, during the last of these periods of
ten years, the consumption of the United King-
dom increased one-fourth, or from 13.j to 17 oz.
per head. But these last numbers do not truly
represent the consumption in either of our two
islands. Great Britain, as in the case of tea

C 2

20 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

and ardent spirits, consumes a much larger pro-
portional quantity than Ireland. Thus, in 1853,
the home consumption in the two countries was —

Great Britain. Ireland.

Total consumption 24,940,5551^8. .. 4,624,141 lbs.
Consumption per head, 19 ounces. .. 12 ounces;

being one-half greater in Britain than in Ireland.
The duty at 3^. per lb., and its produce in
the United Kingdom, stand thus ; — •

Total duty. Duty per head.

1852 .. .. £4,560,742 .. .. Zs. 2d.

1853 .. .. 4,751,760 .. .. Zs. Ad.
1856 .. .. 5,070,388 .. .. 3s. Id.

Some idea of the subject will be formed by
inspecting the following document, published by
Messrs. Grant, Hodgson, and Co., sworn brokers,
dated 2nd Feb. 1857. Particular attention may
be directed to the summary of Home Trade;
it will enable the smoker to discover the various
kinds of tobacco and the proportions of the.
compounds which the Trade supplies to his pipe
or lips.

Imports in January, 1857.

Virginia 1

i^entucky JHhds. and tierces 468

Maryland do Hhds l.'ie

HISTORICAL. 21

Negro-head and Cavendish .. ..| ^i^fxes^^^^^ ^° . 55

Havannah and Principe Cigars . . Cases 222

Columbian Cigars Cases

Hambro', Brazil, &c., Cigars .. .. Cases 10

Manilla Cheroots, East India ^^^0^^^!^ ^^

or Cheroots j ""

Havannah, Cuba, and Yara Leaf .. Bales. 1553

Porto Rico Leaf Bales —

St. Domingo Serous .. .. —

Columbian Serons and boxes 3728

Brazil Leaf Bales —

Varinas Roll, and Leaf Cases —

South American, Palmyra, and P'^^^'l-Pnies fi3

guay I

Manilla Leaf Bales and cases 329

China Leaf Bales —

East India and Java Leaf .. .. Bales and cases 198

Latakia Bales and cases — ■

Turkey and Greek Leaf Cases and bales 419

. r. ^ J /-, (Boxes,bales, cases,

Amersfoort and German | and hhds. .. 432

Seed Leaf Cases —

Snuff Casks —

Deliveries in Janiianj, 1857, /or Exportation.

Virginia, Kentucky, &c Hhds 332

Maryland „ •• •• 2

TVT x. A A r^ ]• 1 jKegs, tierces, and

Negro-head and Cavendish .. ..< boxes .. .. 151

Havannah Cigars Cases \

Hambro' Cigars Cases I ^^

East India Cheroots (all sorts) andl^^g^g j

Cigars / J

Havannah and Cuba Leaf .. .. Bales 60

Porto Rico Leaf Bales —

St. Domingo Leaf Serons .. .. —

Columbian Serons .. .. 262

Brazil Bales

22 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

Varinas Bales —

South American and Paraguay . , Serons . . . . —

East India, Java, and Manilla Leaf Bales and cases 225

Turkey and Greek Leaf Bales and cases 10

Amersfoort and German (Boxes, bales, cases,

1 and hhds. . . 1

Seed Leaf Cases —

Snuff Casks —

For Borne Trade.

Virginia, Kentucky, &c Hhds. and tierces 507

Maryland .. Hhds 139

Havannah Cigars Cases!, \

Hambro' Cigars Cases I .g^

East India Cheroots (all sorts) and)^ j

Cigars / /

Havannah and Cuba Leaf .. .. Bales 367

Porto Rico Leaf Bales 60

St. Domingo Serons .. .. 14

Columbian Serons .. .. 137

Brazil Leaf Bales Ill

Varinas Eoll Serons . . ..\

South American and Paraguay . . Bales /

Manilla Leaf Bales and cases "I

East India and Java Leaf . . . . Bales and cases /
Turkey and Greek Leaf Bales and cases 741

Amersfoort and German (^"''1'^"'' ^'^''^o,

\ and hhds. .. 421

Seed Leaf Cases 12

Snuff Cask —

For Use of tJie Navy.

Virginia and Kentucky Hhds. .. ., —

Negro-head Kegs and tierces —

Under Bond.

Virginia and Kentucky Hhds 176

Maryland Hhds 2

Negro-head and Cavendish . . ..[ ^^S^' *'^^^^^' ""''^ ,,
° I boxes . .. .30

102

350

HISTORICAL. 23

Havannali Cigars Cases \

Hambro' Cigars Cases I g

East India Cheroots (all sorts) ^iicl)^ j

Cigars / )

Havannali and Cuba Leaf .. .. Rales 11

Porto Rico Bales —

St. Domingo Leaf Serons .. .. —

Columbian Serons .. .. 10

Brazil Leaf Bales 2

South American and Paraguay . . Bales 43

Turkey Leaf Bales and cases 37

Manilla Leaf Bales and cases 4

Latakia Leaf Bales and cases —

East India and Java Leaf .. .. Bales and cases 72

. /. . J /-I T i? (Boxes,bales,cases,

Amersfoort and German Leaf . . . . | ^^^ ^^^^^- _ ^ gg

Seed Leaf Cases —

Snuff Casks —

In Europe, generally, with the exception of
Russia and Prussia, the consumption of tobacco
is perhaps restricted by heavy duties ; yet the
consumption of the United Kingdom is, as I
before stated, less than that of most other
European nations.

In Hamburg 40,000 cigars are smoked dailf/
in a population whose adult males scarcely
amount to 45,000 individuals.

In France it is about 18^ oz. per head, three-
eighths of this quantity being used in the form of
snuff. In Denmark it amounted in 1848 to

24 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

about 70 oz. or 4| lbs. per head; and in Bel-
gium it averages at present 73J oz. or 4|- lbs.
per head.* These quantities are, Mr. Johnston
thinks, to some extent beyond the European
average ; but no one who has had much inter-
course with the Continent would, I think, feel
disposed to think them beyond the mark. In
some of the North American States the pro-
portion greatly exceeds these quantities, whilst
amongst Eastern nations it is believed to be
greater still.

The average consumption of tobacco by the
w^iole human race of 1000 millions is 70 oz.
a head, the total quantity consumed being two
millions of tons, or 4480 millions of pounds.

The largest growers of tobacco at present are

the United States of America. Their annual

production at the last two decennial periods of

their "census-returns was estimated in

1840 at 219,163,319 lbs.

1850 at 199,752,646

The Dutch are extensive growers, and so are

the Belgians and the various " nationalities "

Aanuaire Statist. Beige, 1854, quoted by Johnston.

HISTORICAL. 25

comprehended under the name of Germans ;
indeed, German tobacco insinuates itself into
every possible compound of the shops, being as
cheap (but in the end as dear) as anything else
that we import from the land which Tacitus be-
praised for the same reason that makes Guizot
such an indefatigable expounder of English
history.

In the valley of Guelderland about two mil-
lions of pounds of tobacco are raised. Of this
nearly one-half is bought by the French govern-
ment for the supply of France. The rest of the
Guelderland tobacco is shipped to North America,
nay, even to the island of Cuba — the home of
the far-famed Havannah ; — and, as our Scotch
and Irish whiskies are largely imported by the
French to deodorise, colour, and flavour, and
send back to us as prime Cognac of some fabu-
lous age — so, doubtless, the manufacturers of
Havannah "work up " the Dutch and German
commodity with a dash of their ov;n Jierba clivina,
and send it back to expire " in Fatherland,"
enriched by its transmigration.

The total yearly produce of tobacco all over

2Q TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

the world weighs as much as the wheat con-
sumed by ten millions of Englishmen. Eeckon-
ing it at only double the market value of wheat,
2d. and a fraction per pound (immensely below
the mark), it is worth in money as much as all
the wheat eaten in Great Britain.* Such com-
putations are more objects of curiosity than
worthy of serious consideration ; since the earth
and the fulness thereof are adapted to support a
thousand times more inhabitants than exist, and
the arithmetic of the matter applies equally to
another " article " of daily and universal con-
sumption— more effectually injurious to the
health of man than tobacco, a powerful nervous
medicine daily imbibed — tea and coffee — the
•united duties on which paid, last year, 6,389,722/.;
thus giving a much larger head-consumption, and
a positively correct one — for the two drinks enter
into the blood-circulation of every man, woman,
and child m the kingdom.

Johnston, * Chemistry of Life,' uhi supra.

CULTIVATION. 27

PART 11.

CULTIVATION,

If the absolute abundance of any of the products
of nature be any criterion by which we may infer
some commensurately extensive purpose to be
subserved thereby, the immense varieties of
tobacco, the rapidity and vigour of its growth,
the prodigious quantity of its seed in each plant,
and the great difference of climate in which it
will thrive and reward cultivation, must exalt it
highly amongst the agents of the terrestrial
economy. Forty species have been named, but
only eight or ten are cultivated, in different
varieties. The most abundantly grown is the
Nicotiana tabacum — so named after Nicot, the
Frenchman, who introduced it into France. This
species may be taken as the type of the most
beautiful symmetry of all the family. I have seen
the plant full six feet in height — the growth of

28 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY.

four summer moons — rising from the soil with a
pyramidal stem, the base of which nearly equalled
the wrist of man in thickness. Stout tendons
fix it to the soil; but it is constantly observed
that the plant tends, as it were, to emerge entirely
from the ground, which must be repeatedly
heaped up round about the salient root. Its
cylindrical stem is divided by numerous branches,
adorned with magnificent leaves, oval, lanceolate,
alternate, and 24 inches in length by 18 in
diameter. The tips of the leaves are acute, their
borders wavy, the surface velvety and strongly
marked with a mimic nervous system, dividing
the leaf in spaces at right angles nearly from the
central spine, and of a yellowish-green colour,
glutinous to the touch, and bitter to the taste.
The flower is purplish ; the fruit-pod is oblong,
membranous, with two lobes containing an im-
mense number of exceedingly fine seeds: Lin-
naeus counted 40,320. So vigorous is the repro-
ductive energy of the plant, that I have seen it
blooming a beautiful flower after having been cut
down and hung up to dry for three weeks —
the flower-bud having been developed from the
juices of the hanging stem. The seeds have

CULTIVATION. 29

been known to retain their vitality for fifteen
years.

Between the 40th and 47th degree of latitude
is the climate which seems best adapted for the
cultivation of tobacco of the strongest kinds, but
the warmer latitudes have hitherto produced the
mildest and wholesomest varieties. The finest
tobacco of America — if not the finest in the world,
certainly the dearest — is that produced at the
Havannah, ill the island of Cuba. It is said
that Cuba is the very jewel of the Spanish crown
because of its Nicotiana — the cisjar beinsf abso-
lutely necessary to propel the blue blood {sangre
azul) of Spain's gentility.

The Manilla tobacco is produced in the island
of Luzon, one of the Philippines. A common
notion prevails that Manilla cigars are made up
with opium. I have tested them chemically with
the greatest exactitude, and could not detect a
trace of opium in any of its forms.

In Western Asia the most prized tobaccos are
those of Latakia, the ancient Laodicea, in Syria,
and those of Shiraz in Persia. These are also
consumed amongst ourselves by way of " mix-
ture " for the pipe.

30 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

The principal commercial centres of the globe
for the cultivation and exportation of tobacco are
as follows : —

In America — Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana,
Havannah (Cuba), Macouba, Tobaco, and St.
Vincent.

In India — the Philippines and Borneo.

In Europe — Spain, France, Italy, Amersfoort,
Holland, Belgium, the Levant, Silesia, and the
Ucraine.

This list shows where the weed is "raised,"
but the whole atlas must be repeated to state
where it is absorbed.

The climate, the soil, the mode of culture,
the kind of manure applied, the period at which
the leaves are gathered, the way in which they
are dried and cured, the time they are kept in
store, the distance to which they are carried to
market, and the process by which they are pre-
pared for use — all these circumstances exercise a
well-known influence upon the leaf; it is, like
wine, improved by careful keeping and mellowed
by age, if artificial heat has never been applied
to drive off the manufacturer's moisture. These

CULTIVATION. 31

conditions being so varied, there can be only few
places in which they all conspire to the produc-
tion of the most valuable crop. Hence, as in
the case of the vine and with tea and coffee, the
localities which yield tobacco in the greatest
perfection are not only few in number, but gene-
rally very limited in extent ; and in the temper-
ate climates of its cultivation a single night's
frost is sufficient to damage and utterly destroy
the entire crop, either at its first planting out or
at its maturity — as was the case last autumn in
America.

Tobacco was once extensively grown in Ireland
and Yorkshire ; and were it not forbidden by
law, its cultivation, with the aid of science in the
matter of manure, would amply reward the spe-
culation. It requires a light loamy soil, and
the kind of manure used must be adapted to the
quality of the tobacco as to its strength or
mildness.

In America, and all temperate climates, the
seed is first sown about the beginning of March,
on a hot-bed. In a week the plant appears not
larger than a pin's head, and continues to grow

32 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

rapidly in its artificial climate, until, in the first
week in May, it is ready for transplanting. It
is then pricked out singly, each plant being
allowed three square feet of superficial surface.
Thus, an acre will receive 16] 3 plants, and not
more, if broad and vigorous leaves are required,
such as will yield half a pound of prepared
tobacco from each plant, or 800 lbs. to the acre.
This transplantation requires care, so as not to
injure the delicate fibres of the embryo-giant,
giving as yet no conceivable idea of the "de-
velopment " which it will attain, if you only
give " ample room and verge enough " for its
superabundant energies.

The first week in May is the usual time ; but
still a frosty night may utterly undo your toilsome
labour ; if so, you must renew the transplanting
from a stock reserved for the purpose ; nay, you
may have to do so a third time, in a very
" unlucky" season. After the third failure the
French " give it up," and plant hemp, so as to
lessen their loss for the season. It must be
remembered, however, that one crop out of three
will amply remunerate the culture.

CULTIVATIOX. 33

Your plants have struck and show well, and
begin to rejoice in the genial warmth of the
vernal sun : but your labour is not done. All
manner of grubs, earthworms, and insects will
attack the tender nurseling : these you must kill
or ward off with lime or sawdust until a month
has passed away, and then the plant will be safe
from such depredators. As it grows every weed
dies off beneath it ; it occupies its space without
competition ; but as every living thing has its
parasites — man has twenty within and without
him — so has the tobacco. A peculiar caterpillar
will attack the leaves and eat them up, if you
are not a vigilant morning and evening visitant
to nip him in the bud.

Soon the plant enlarges its dimensions, but
the growth must be checked. A dozen leaves at
the most are sufficient for each plant ; and having
developed that number, it must be topped off;
and every flower-bud must be repeatedly removed
so as to prevent its flowering, which would im-
pair the quality of the leaves.

Early in September or later, according to the
season, is the time of gathering the crop. In hot

D

34 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

climates, at the time of maturity, there is an
odour of tobacco round about the plant ; but
nothing is more absurd than the Munchausen
story sometimes told by knowing wags, to the
effect that the best relish of a cigar is when the
leaf is just culled from the plant and rolled up
there and then into a cigar and smoked ! This
is a pure fable : you might just as easily set the
Thames on fire with a rushlight. The leaf when
gathered — whether on the stem as in America,
or separately as in France and Germany — is rich
in its peculiar juices, greenish as any autumnal
leaf, and very brittle.

The leaves are then hung up in covered sheds
or lofts, admitting the light and air freely on all
sides, and there they remain for six or seven
weeks, until they are perfectly dry and withered.

It is a better plan, however, to lay them in
heaps, and give them a sweating for a week
before suspension : the drying process will thus
be more rapid, and the tobacco will be improved
in flavour.

After this drying, a moist, " juicy '* day, as
the Yankees call it, is chosen ; the leaves are

CULTIVATION. 35

thrown in heaps on the floor, covered with mats
or hlankets, and thus retained for the purpose of
setting up the fermentation, which results in the
pecuhar aroma of tohacco. The dry leaf has
scarcely more odour than any other leaf : it is its
peculiar fermentation which gives it the fragrance
of the " weed." The speed of this process will
depend upon the surrounding temperature : 36
hours will sometimes suffice. The fermentation
must be stopped at attaining a precise degree of
heat, which is ascertained by shoving in the
hand : below or above that point (which practice
makes easy of detection) the tobacco would be
" foxy " — deteriorated in the market. The fer-
mentation is stopped by uncovering, and spread-
ing out, and turning over the leaves.

Various manipulations ensue in various coun-
tries. In some the leaves are twisted into rolls, in
others made up into bales ; and in America they
are pressed into hogsheads, or other like recep-
tacles, with a powerful lever, which has the effect
of spreading the oil of the leaf uniformly through
its mass.

Supposing the planter to have succeeded in

D 2

36 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

getting his 800 lbs. per acre, we may proceed to
calcalate what the product of each acre may-
fetch in the London market. The calculation
does not take into account the cost of production,
freight, &c. : — it merely shows the value it repre-
sents immediately before it begins to add to our
comforts and to the revenue. Taking the average
prices at present given, some kinds of tobacco
would figure as follows — " errors excepted."

Per Acre.

Virginia-leaf,

800 lbs.

at Is. alb. -

= £40 0 0

Amersfoort

j>

6d. „

20 0 0

Cuba

5)

8d, „

26 13 4

Columbian

5J

2s.

80 0 0

German

n

Is. „

40 0 0

Manilla

j>

Is.

40 0 0

Porto-Eico

75

5d. „

16 13 4

Havannah

55

3s.

120 0 0

The reader will complete his ideas on the
subject by examining the following price-list of
Grant, Hodgson, and Co., brokers, for the be-
ginning of the present month, February, 1857 ;
remembering always that 35. 2d. is the duty to
be superadded on each lb. of tobacco, and 9^. Gd.
on cigars and any other form of the manufactured
article. This duty, of course, is the cause of its

CULTIVATION. 37

high price to the consumer, and it clearly
amounts to a considerable sum thus paid to
government by even the most moderate smoker
during the year. Smokers should therefore
enjoy the special favour of governments, as no
other member of the community pays taxes in
proportion to the tribute of the smoker for the
enjoyment of his weed. I take it that the con-
sumption of one ounce of " shag," " returns," or
" bird's-eye" per week, would constitute a very
moderate smoker : — call it 4 lbs. of tobacco per
annum. For this favour he pays to government
125. Sd. Still it must be admitted that the duty
on tobacco is unquestionably one of the finest
strokes of fiscal ingenuity, for it collects an
enormous revenue from an article which is not
indispensable, and yet which is made a necessary
of life by an irresistible craving of man. As an
indirect tax it is also absolutely perfect : — for it
reaches every consumer by imperceptible grada-
tions— from the richest to the poorest — the latter
not being inconvenienced, the former scarcely
feeling it at all.

33

TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

WHOLESALE PKICE OF TOBACCO AND
CIGAES.

Maryland.

d. d.

Fine yellow 10 11 per lb.

Yellow 9 10 ,,

Brown to coloury 8 9 , ,

Virginia and Kentucky.

2nd Feb.

] St Feb.

1st Feb.

1867.

1856.

1855.

pel

lb.

per

lb.

per lb.

d.

d.

d.

d.

d. d.

Fine Scotch and Irish Spinners

11

12

8

8^

8 8^

Good middling ditto

9^

lOi

7

H

7 n

Ordinary to middling

n

9

5-^

6*

bh 6

For fine Shag and part Spinning

9

10

7

1h

6i 7

For common ditto

7

8

55

64

5^ 6

Old and dry (scarce)

4§

5

4i 5

Fine black sweet-scent . ,

10

7

1\

6i 7

Good stout, rich Snuff Leaf . .

8

9

6i

7

6i 6i

Middling ditto

7

8

6

6i

5i 6

Ordinary short and part faded

6

6i

4

5

4i 4i

Stripped leaf, or Lux fine Spin^

14

16

10

10^

10 lOi

Ditto good middling

12

13

8^

9i

9 9i

Ditto middling & Planters

,,

_

7|
9^

8

Ih 8

Kentucky Stemmed, fine

14

15

10

9 10

Ditto good and leafy . .

12i

13

9

9i

8i 8|

Ditto short to midd ing

II3

12

8

8^

8i ..

Ditto Leaf, good to fine . .

9

11

6^

74

H 7h

Ordinary to middling . .

6

8

5^

6

4i H

Stout rich Yorks for Snuff . .

4

ih

6 7

Cavendish

8^

10

2

7

2

8i

7 8^

Negro-head, part heated

5

6

3

4

5 6

Ditto good

11

9

10

9 10

Ditto fine

II5

13

lOi

11

11 12

Ditto Barret's fine twist

18

19

17

18

21

CULTIVATION.

39

Amersfoort for) „
Cigars & Siuitf | "

Akyab 0

Brazil 0

Cuba 0

Columbian .. .. 0
Ditto (iu Roll) . . 0
Esmeralda .. .. 1

Florida 1

Greek

German Flat 1 ,

covers . . . . ,1
Ditto Folded 1 ^

covers . . . . j
Ditto for cutting 0
Ditto Stemmed . . 0
Havannah Leaf . . 1

Java 0

Manilla 0

Per lb. I Tcr lb.

d. s. d. I s. d.

„i Porto Rico .. ..0 4^

^ " '2 Palmyra 1 3

6 0 6^ Paraguay

5 0 6' I Ditto (Koll)

8^ Oil j Turkey Leaf ..

9 2 2 'Seed Leaf .... 0 8

8 0 10 iUpata 0 7

6 1 10 jVarinas Eoll ..0 9
8 2 0 1st. Domingo Leaf

.. JYara 1 2

Q Havannah Cigars 8 0

^ ^ ^ I German ditto ..1 2

j Manilla Cheroots 7 0
^ ^' ^ I East India ditto ..

6i 0 7^ Kentucky Stalks 3 1

8 1 8 [Virginia ditto ..3 2

2 4 6 [Mixed ditto .. .. 2 11

7 0 11 I Smalls (nominal) 2 9

8 18 1

s.

d.

0

6

1

10

0

•4

0

9

0

9

0

8^

0

8

0

11

2

9

21

0

2

6

7

6

1

0

3

2

3

3

3

0

2

10

40 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

PART III.

MANUFACTURE.

The various kinds of tobacco arrive in different
kinds of package — bales, boxes, peculiar frails or
panniers called serous in Spanish, in tierces, and
in hogsheads ; — this last form being best adapted
to the large Virginjan or Maryland leaf, which
is essentially the poor man's tobacco. Immense
lever-force is applied in the packing of these
hogsheads — a mass of leaves twelve inches in
depth being compressed to three, so as to form a
compact solid substance — in which state it will
keep for almost any length of time. A hogshead,
48 inches long by 32 in diameter, will hold more
than 1000 lbs. weight of tobacco, when thus com-
pressed.*

* This odd name, hofjshead, has actually been supposed to
be derived from its form ; but it would be difficult to make
out a resemblance in that monster-barrel to the head of a
hog, even if we ignore the snout of the latter. Ocks is a
measure in Brabant ; and hondcn means to hold. The com-
posite word is thus rationally explained ; and it is clearly the
same as the Danish ockshood, or oghshood, and the German
oxhoft.

MANUFACTUKE. 41

In the tobacco warehouses at the London
Docks may be seen ranges, tiers, or alleys of
hogsheads, whose number is immense. Passage
after passage occurs, each several hundred feet
in length, and only wide enough to admit the
necessary traffic : all parallel one to another, and
all bordered on both sides with close compact
masses of hogsheads, generally two in height.
The whole are under one roof, or rather one
succession of roofs ; and there are sometimes
deposited there as many as 20,000 hogsheads,
averaging 1200 lbs. of tobacco in each.

Those who are unacquainted with the Customs
and Excise regulations may wonder why this
enormous quantity of tobacco is kept in one
place. The reason will be evident when the
duty on tobacco is remembered. This duty is
not demanded as Ions; as the tobacco remains at
the docks, or rather in the warehouses. In this
safe-keeping it is said to be in bond, under the
State, and cannot be removed until the duty is
paid. If by any casualty the whole or a portion
of a liogshead of tobacco becomes injured pre-
vious to its arrival at the docks, the owner would

42 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

rather lose it entirely than pay the heavy duty
on the damaged portion. Were the duty very
small, possibly the damaged portion might be
sold at a price which would more than cover the
duty ; but the duty is too high to permit such a
speculation. The state allows the damaged
portion to be burned, without any duty having
been paid on it. When a hogshead is to be
opened, the head is knocked out, some of the
staves loosened, and by a dexterous management
the hogshead is taken completely off the tobacco,
leaving the latter standing upright, as a brown
mass of tobacco-leaves, dense and impenetrable.
If, by the action of sea-water, bad packing, or
any other cause, any of the mass has become
injured, two men, armed with long cutting in-
struments, stand on opposite sides of the mass,
and chop away all the injured part, by small
bits at a time — an operation of no small difficulty
owing to the solidity and hardness of the mass.
The remainder is then weighed, its duty is de-
termined, and samples are taken by the brokers,
who proceed to effect a sale in the usual way of
business. The damaged tobacco is burned in a

MANUFACTURE. 43

huge kiln, called " the Queen," at the Docks ;
by which it is reduced to ashes. What is done
with this tobacco-ash I do not know ; but it is
decidedly a valuable commodity, and should be
shipped back to the tobacco-plantations as an
almost priceless manure. The leaves of all
plants are especially rich in incombustible ash,
and those of tobacco are amongst the richest in
this respect. The dried leaf when burnt yields
from 19 to 28 per cent, of ash ; on an average,
every 4 lbs. of perfectly dry tobacco contain
1 lb. of mineral matter — the same that forms the
ashes of our pipes and the nozzles of our burning
cigars. It is important to give a little consider-
ation to this subject, and I invite attention to the
following hints.

Tobacco is an "exhausting crop;" in other
words, it is found to impoverish the soil more
rapidly than other vegetables. It is in the ashes
of plants that we find wdiat they took from the
soil, and it is certain that no plant will thrive
unless the soil contains the elements of its ashes.
Practically, this simple law of nature has been
universally ignored ; but the operations of nature

44 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

are accomplished notwithstanding. The ultimate
particles — the mineral constituents of plants —
can never be destroyed ; and whatever we do with
them, or wherever they happen to rest at last, after
their endless transmigration through the blood
and bones of animals, nature garners them up to
renew a subsequent vegetation.* They belong to
that class of bodies which are at once most neces-
sary to vegetation and least abundant, for the
reason above stated, even in fertile soils. Exactly
then in proportion to the weight of leaves gathered
must have been the weight of those substances
withdrawn from the soil. Now, every ton of per-
fectly dry leaves of tobacco carries off 400 to
500 cwt. of this composite mineral matter ! What
a valuable waste, then, it is to throw away the
ashes of our tobacco ! One pound of this ash will
supply four pounds of tobacco ; it has, conse-
quently, a most appreciable value, and it would
decidedly pay if depots were established for the
purchase of the ash of our pipes and cigars, were
it only to give pin-money to our indulgent wives

* For valuable agricultural hints on this subject, see
Liebig's ' Letters on Chemistry,' i,, Letter xvi.

MANUFACTURE. 45

and daughters. The high price of tobacco com-
mends the idea to domestic economy, and a
" Society for the collection and exportation of
tobacco- ashes (limited) " would unquestionably
be a sound speculation, although it must neces-
sarily begin with smoke.

For want of these mineral salts many planta-
tions have gradually become exhausted, incapable
of profitable cultivation, and now lie waste and
desolate : the fortunes of tobacco-planters, even
in naturally favoured regions, have gradually
declined with the faihng fertility of their wearing-
out plantations. And it is upon the Atlantic
borders of the United States of America that the
effects of this exhaustion are strikingly found,
whilst it is the boast of chemistry that it has as-
certained, beyond doubt, what the land loses by
every crop of tobacco, or any other vegetable,
the cause of its barrenness, the mode of its re-
newal, and tells us how fortunes may be extracted
from the same old soil with matter hitherto cast
away as a nuisance.*

* In Hungary extensive districts are not uncommon where
wheat and tobacco have been grown alternately upon the

46 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

The manufacture of tobacco comprises the
three modes in which it is consumed : — the manu-
facture of cigars ; the preparation of the various
kinds sold, under the name of Shag, Returns,
Bird's-eye, Cavendish, K'naster, &c., for the
pipe ; and snuff-making. Each has its peculiar
" mystery " or " craft " both in the old and mo-
dern sense of the words.

Cigars.

The persons engaged in the London tobacco-
trade are: 1. The brokers, twelve city houses,
who receive the consignments of tobacco and
cigars, and supply, 2. The manufacturers of
tobacco for smoking, snuff, and cigars, 90 in num-
ber ; and 3. The tobacconists or general dealers
in the article, who number about 1569 throughout
London, according to the Directory. In connec-
tion with this I may state that there are r.o less
than 82 clay-pipe makers in London.

soil for centuries, the land never receiving back any of those
mineral elements which were withdrawn in the grain and
straw, because some soils abound in silicates so readily de-
composable, that in every one or two years as much silicate
of potash becomes soluble and fitted for assimilation as is
required by the leaves and straw of a crop of wheat. Liebig,

MANUFACTURE. 47

Some of the large manufacturers of cigars
employ as many as 300 makers, besides mere
" strippers " or inferior workmen, apprentices or
women, whose function it is to separate the mid-
rib from the two halves of the leaf, without
damaging its texture. The cigar-maker is paid
at the rate of so much per hundred cigars — the
remuneration varying from Is. Qd. to Ss. per
hundred, according to the " style " or make of
the cisfar. The best workmen easily earn 21. 10s.
per week. According to information which I
have received on the subject, the number of work-
men employed varies somewhat in the following
ratio : 300, 100, 60, 20, 12, 6, according to the
extent of the manufactory. Taking the number
of manufacturers, as by the Directory, to be 90,
and the average of those numbers to be 82, we
get a result of 7380 workmen employed in the
making of cigars, snuff, and tobacco for the pipe.
This arithmetical guess can scarcely be above the
mark, considering the prodigious quantity of
home-made cigars in circulation — the quantity of
cigars imported being most strikingly dispropor-
tionate to that of the leaf adapted for the manu-

48 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

factures. Last year the duty paid on the leaf
was, as I have stated, 5,070,388/. : this sum
represents the enormous importation for the
home-supply of 33,802,000 lbs. over ; whereas
the quantity of cigars imported, represented by
150,000/. duty paid, amounts to only 3 15,750 lbs.
in weight, or, allowing 100 cigars to the pound (a
variable number), we have only 31,5 75,000 foreign
cigars imported. A little arithmetic will put the
question beyond a doubt. Let us assume that
this number of foreign cigars were actually sold
last year. If we divide those figures by 313, the
number of week-days in the year, we have the
quotient 100,878 — the number of foreign cigars
sold per day— which we may certainly assume
for the argument, admitting the total to have
been imported. Now, there are 1569 tobacconist-
retailers in London alone. Taking this number
as a divisor to the daily sale of 100,878, we get
only 64 foreign cigars to represent the retail- trade
in that article, as the daily sale of each. But the
divisor must have very large additions to it for
all the towns of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
all which have their tobacconists, who profess to

MANUFACTURE. 49

sell " real foreign cigars" — which additions would
doubtless reduce the daily sale to a very small
fraction. If this arithmetic be correct, it follows
that foreign cigars, " real Havannahs,'' must be
very rare indeed, and also that the number of
workmen employed cannot be less than 7380, in
order to make the tremendous supplies required.
The statistics of the manufacturing trade in
Hamburg confirms ray argument* This manu-
facture is the most important branch of trade in
Hamburg. It gives employment to more than
10,000 persons, for the most part women and
children ; and it supplies 150 millions of cigars
per annum ! About four millions sterling is the
value of the article. A printing-press with a
numerous staff is exclusively occupied in printing
the labels for the boxes and packets of cigars.
The imports at Hamburg from the Havannah
and Manilla amount to 18 millions of cigars
annually ; which, with its own production, swell
the number of the annual trade supplies at
Hamburg to the number of 168 millions of cigars.
About 153 millions are exported ; the remainder,
15 millions, are consumed in Hamburg — giving,

E

50 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

as I have before stated, about 40,000 cigars as
the dally consumption in a male population of
scarcely 45,000 adults.*

Tobacco and snuff manufacturers pay an excise
duty beginning at 57. 55. if they manufacture
under 20,000 lbs. weight, and rising gradually
up to 311. 10s. if their manufacture exceeds
100,000 lbs. Mere dealers or tobacconists pay
55. Sd. Excise inspectors visit the former, at
any time, to test the quantity in hand.
- Of all the various ways of using tobacco in
England, none has made a more striking advance
within the last twenty years than cigars. From
the earliest times familiar in the tropical regions
of America and Spain, the cigar was for a long
period scarcely known in England, and was con-
fined to the richer class of smokers. It is now in
universal use.

The tobacco-leaf being delivered to the manu-
facturer in bales, boxes, or hogsheads, it is turned
out and sorted according to its quality — some
leaves being only fit for the interior, others for

Joubert, ' Tabac,' p. 9.

MANUFACTURE. 51

the covering of that interior ; and, lastly, the
best are reserved for the exterior or outer
covering, which recommends it to the " cus-
tomer." These various parts are respectively
called " fillers," " bunch- wrappers," and " out-
sides."

Previously to this operation the whole mass is
copiously damped by means of a whisk with
water, about twenty-four hours beforehand ; for,
the leaves being dry and brittle, it would be
impossible to roll them into cigars without giving
them moisture, which tobacco imbibes freely,
even from the atmosphere, and soon becomes
elastic and workable.

The leaves are then placed before the
" stripper : " he takes them up one by one, folds
them, strips off the stalk or mid-rib by a quick
and dexterous movement, throws the stalks on
his right hand, and lays the stripped leaves
smoothly on his left. He is on the left side of
the cigar-maker, to whom he hands up the leaves
as fast as they are wanted. The cigar-maker is
seated on a low stool in front of a low workbench,
which has raised ledges on three of its sides,

E 2

52 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

open at the front. He takes a leaf of tobacco,
spreads it out smoothly before him on the bench,
and cuts it to a form somewhat like the gores
or stripes of a balloon : — this is the " bunch-
wrapper." He then takes up a few fragments
of tobacco-leaf consisting of small cuttings, lays
them on the bunch-wrapper and rolls them into
the latter — thus making the shape of a cigar.
He next places this cigar against a gauge or
guide formed of a piece of iron, and cuts it to a
given length as ordered. Finally, he lays a
narrow strip of leaf, the " outside," similar in
shape to the bunch-wrapper, upon the bench, and
rolls the cigar spirally into it, pasting the tip-end
with paste coloured with chicory, or with gum-
tragacanth, to prevent the outside from becoming
loosened. All this is but the work of a few
seconds — even with the most reluctant tobacco
The cigars are then either set aside to dry spon-
taneously— or, which is almost invariably the
case, they are dried by the heat of a stove.

In this simple synthesis of the " weed" there
is much that concerns the smoker : — for it
follows that,

MANUFACTURE. 53

" There 's no " cigar hut cmi " assume
Some mark of virtue on its outward parts."

The outside may be fair whilst the inside is
verily foul — "a goodly apple, rotten at the
core." Indeed it is this very synthesis which
accounts for the different prices of cigars — of
confessedly British manufacture — varying from
21s. a lb. down as low as 7^. Assuming that
only the best Havannah leaf has been worked up
throughout, 21^. would not yield an exorbitant
profit, considering all the items of cost ; but
unfortunately such genuine cigars, all Havannah,
seem to circulate at a price which presupposes
the payment of ds. duty — in plain English, the
smoker pays for " foreign" Havannah and gets
British. Every possible compound of tobaccos
enters into the formation of cigars as sold to the
public. Some aie compounds of low-priced
Havannah with German outsides ; others are all
German ; some are Havannah inside and Manilla
outside ; — in short, it is utterly impossible to
know what a cigar is made of until it is smoked
— and not even then, except by the experienced
veteran. Cheapness is the order of the day ;

54 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

man's ingenuity makes every effort to meet its
requisitions — and with perfect success. He gives
the public what they want — a cheap article : it
satisfies : it pays : the world rolls on as usual :
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. But the
veteran smoker says, " No ! / smoke a pound of
cigars a week. I will not smoke a bad cigar.
I'd rather give up smoking, and I'll do it if you
don't supply me with a good cigar at or under
such a price." The consequence is that the
veteran smoker gets a good cigar at a cost which
gives only a fair and sufficient return to the
tobacconist, and both are satisfied with each
other — both being good judges of cost and
average profits. But, as a general thesis, it
may be affirmed that the price of cigars is abso-
lutely what can be got for them. I have seen
cigars, which I knew could be bought at 10s. or
125. a pound, retailed at 'dd. each as " foreign
Havannahs," and doubtless they were bought
and smoked as such by those who sicken you in
the streets with a truly " precious stinke."

manufacture. 55

Tobacco for the Pipe.

A hogshead of tobacco being opened, the leaf
is dug out piecemeal by the aid of an iron instru-
ment ; for the tobacco in this condition is one
entire solid mass ; and indeed without the aid
of moisture it would be impossible to separate
the leaves. This moistening is technically called
" liquoring."

The various kinds called Shag, Returns, Bird's-
eye, are merely different preparations from the
Virginian tobacco. Shag has evidently derived
its name from its appearance, husky or torn^ as
Pope says : —

" So the rougli rock had sJiagg'd Ulysses' hands."

Returns is made of the lightest-coloured leaf,
selected from the hogshead, after being turned
out— hence its name ; and Bird's-eye is so called
because a portion of the stalk is cut up with it,
the small discs of stalk bearing a fancied resem-
blance to the eye of a bird.

The cutting of the leaves into those fine
threads or shreds which constitute common
smoking-tobacco is effected by machinery acting

56 TOBACCO : ITS HISTOEY.

upon a large number of leaves pressed together
in the form of a cake. The cake, as hard as a
board, but clammy and wet, is laid upon the
bed of the cutting-engine, worked by steam.
This bed is susceptible of a slow progressive
motion by means of a screw beneath it, the screw
being connected at one end with a cog-wheel, in
such a manner that, while the machine is work-
ing, the bed on which the tobacco is laid is urged
slowly forward. Another part of the mechanism
gives motion to a sharp blade, which has a recipro-
cating vertical motion, or rather a motion somewhat
similar to that of a pair of nut-crackers, as there is
a hinge or fulcrum at one end. Each action of
the cutting-blade slices off a thin film from one end
of the cake. As the cake is composed of a very
large number of separate leaves of tobacco, it
follows that each film or shaving taken from the
edge, generally at right angles to the surface of
the leaves, must be formed of separate pieces, in
no case larger than filaments or fibres. The
thickness of these fibres is regulated in a very
ingenious manner. Immediately after the blade
or knife has made one cut, the cake is moved

MANUFACTURE. 57

forward a small distance, so that the next fol-
lowing cut may be distant some small space
from the former. Tt depends upon the number
of cogs in the wheel at the end of the underlying
screw whether this distance, and consequently
the diameter of the fibres of tobacco, shall be
greater or smaller.*

A considerable quantity of water in the
" liquoring " tends to darken the leaf ; and the
lighter colour of " Returns " owes this quality
to a regulation of the moisture as well as the
pressure — both which combine to darken the
colour of Shag, the strongest kind of tobacco.

The other names of the various kinds of to-
bacco were given to them from the places whence
they come, or other circumstances, without refer-
ence to quality. " Oronoko " is so called from
the South American river of that name.

K'naster, or C'naster, was originally the name
given in America to baskets of rushes or cane,
in which they packed the tobacco sent to Europe ;
and hence the designation of " Kanaster tobacco."

* Dodd's * British Manufactures,' Tobacco.

58 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

At present the two kinds known by these names
are manufactured from either German, Dutch,
or Havannah leaf.

" Pigtail " tobacco is a rope or cord about the
thickness of a pig's tail, and of any length re-
quired, coiled round into a heap like cordage ;
and it is spun into that shape in a similar manner
to rope by the simultaneous action of a man and
two boys, requiring very great dexterity. A
spinning-wheel is kept in motion by one of
the boys : the other boy spreads out the leaves.
The man follows him, and rolls up these leaves
into the shape of a cord by a very pecuHar mo-
tion of both hands. The length of *'tail" is
kept constantly rotating by the wheel, and the
man, adding leaf after leaf to it with the left
hand, presses and rolls it with a palm of leather
or wood held in his right. The manoeuvre is so
quick and dexterous that a spectator can hardly
see where or how the leaf becomes absorbed into
the tail and made part of its substance. The
black colour of the heap or ball is given to it by
steeping in tobacco-water.*

* Dodd. ubi supra.

MANUFACTURE. 59

Snuff.

In the price-currents of the Trade we tind the
item " Stalks, duty paid," varying in price from
2s. lid. to 35. Ad. These stalks are the same pre-
viously described as being removed from the leaf
before making the cigar, and they are used in
the manufacture of snuff; but every portion of
the leaf is used for the purpose in the different
kinds of the article. The purest kind of snuff
is " Scotch," which is made either entirely from
stalks, or stalks with a small proportion of leaf.
The " high-dried," such as '' Welsh " and
" Lundyfoot," owe their qualities chiefly to the
circumstance that they are dried so much as to
acquire a slight flavour of scorching. " Rappee,"
and the darker snuffs, are made from the darker
and ranker leaves. A process of scenting too
has great influence on the flavour of the snufF,
since the manufacturer can introduce any kind
of scent, according to the taste of his customers.
" Prince's Mixture," among the low-priced snufFs,
and the interminable varieties of " fancy-snuffs,"
owe no small part of their flavour to the kinds

60 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

of scent introduced. The celebrated " Liindy-
foot " derives its particular flavour chiefly from
the fermentation carried to a very high pitch
before the batch is turned ; and it is said that
its first discovery was owing to the neglect of the
man attending upon the batches, and who, by
getting drunk, made his master's fortune. An
accidental fire in the manufactory is also alleged
as the source of the discovery ; but Mr. Barlow
thinks these reports destitute of foundation,
stating that, in spite of the alleged fact, the
famous Lundyfoot cannot be imitated by other
manufacturers. Not being a snuflf- taker, my
opinion may not be worth much ; but I have
certainly made snufi' out of an Havannah cigar
which was thought by snuff'-takers to be Lundy-
foot. I merely placed the cigar in a plate in an
oven until it became perfectly dry and " crumbly "
to the touch, and then rubbed it into a fine
powder in a Wedgewood mortar.

Almost the whole of the snuff sold in the
metropolis is ground in or near the town of
Mitcham, in Surrey.*

* Dodd, iihi supra.

MANUFACTURE. 61

Before grinding, the tobacco is (in France at
least) moistened with salted water for the pur-
pose of preventing a putrid fermentation, which
is liable to set in by over-moistening tobacco — a
casualty which I think must often deteriorate the
cigars of the London makers. A rotten " filler"
inserted in the " bunch-wrapper " is an abomina-
tion often to be detected under the most showy
" outside."

This salt and water is called the " cure " or
" sauce." Formerly nothing else was used (in
France at least), but at the present day (in
France at least) other substances are used to
give flavour, such as sal ammoniac. Each ma-
nufacturer has his own recipe for the " sauce."
" The result is sometimes a very agreeable snuff,
but sometimes very unwholesome." *

The material, varying in quantity for a single
batch of any sort of snuff from 2 cwt. to 30,000
lbs., is first spread on the floor, when it is copiously
sprinkled with the sauce or cure, in which about
2 per cent, of salt should form the principal

* Joubert, ubi supra.

62 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

ingredient; but as every manufacturer has a
different mode of laying down snuffs, various
flavours are often introduced at this stage of the
process. It is then heaped into a bin, where it is
suffered to remain until it has gone through a
thorough heat. The fermentation of so great
a mass is frequently too hot to be borne by the
hand for any length of time. By this heat the
tobacco is deprived of much of its essential oil,
and is rendered more mellow and less likely to
ferment and turn musty after the snuff is ground.
It is then turned out of the bin and suffered to
cool, and at length sent to the mills to be
ground to whatever grain the manufacturer
chooses to direct. Such is the English method.
The prejudices in favour of foreign snuff are not
without substantial foundation : since, owing to
the excessive duty on tobacco (amounting gene-
rally to between 600 and 900 per cent.), the
English manufacturer cannot afford to allow his
raw material to lie any considerable time in pro-
cess of manufacture ; but foreigners, for opposite
reasons, can allow the snuff- work to remain in
process frequently for two, oi- even four years.

MANUFACTURE. 63

Their method is (after having cured their to-
bacco) to spin it into what is termed carotte, con-
sisting of long rolls of tobacco, varying in weight
from 5 to 10 lbs. These are piled up in immense
numbers, and undergo a gradual and almost im-
perceptible fermentation, instead of the violent
and rapid heat into which the English manufac-
turer is required to force his material ; and, con-
sequently, a mellowness and flavour results
superior to that acquired by our method. Fo-
reign makers have also a superior method of
reducing the article into snuff. Instead of grind-
ing it under ponderous stones, they either cut it
into grain with peculiar machinery or rasp it by
a circular file, thereby entirely avoiding the great
friction which deteriorates the English snuff and
interferes with its flavour.*

I cannot conclude this section more appro-
priately than by giving a summary of the various
modes of using tobacco, as given by Mr. John-
ston.

On shipboard smoking is always dangerous

* Sir Richard Phillips, ' Arts of Life.'

64 TOBACCO ; ITS HISTORY.

and often forbidden, while snuffing is expensive
and inconvenient, and less perfectly satisfies the
narcotic appetite. If the weed must be used,
therefore, the form of chewing is more excusable
in the sailor. Pigtail is, I believe, the favourite
form for that purpose.

In some of the southern and western states of
North America, chewing, to an offensive extent,
prevails ; and in Iceland, according to Madame
PfeifFer, tobacco is chewed and snuffed " with the
same infatuation as it is smoked in other coun-
tries." The traveller in northern Sweden may
have observed the hunde, who accompanies or
drives his post-horses, putting a large pinch of
snuff from time to time into his mouth; thus
applying to the wrong organ, as he conceives, the
finely powdered leaf. An Icelander applies the
snuff to his nose, but in a peculiar manner.

" Most of the peasants, and even many of the priests,
have no proper snuffbox, but only a box made of bone,
and shaped like a powder-flask. When they take snuff
they throw back the head, insert the point of the flask in
the nose, and shake a dose of snuff into it. They then,
with the greatest amiability, offer it to their neighbour —

MANUFACTURE. 65

he to his ; and so it goes round till it reaches its owner
again." *

The box described in this passage is only a
Highland horn mull, a little different in shape
from those of modern fashion. The Highlander
lifts the powder to his nose with a little shovel ;
the Icelander, using the small end of the horn,
at once pours it in. But among the Celto-Scan-
dinavians of Northern Britain there is the same
love of the powdered tobacco as in Iceland and
Northern Scandinavia, and the same amiability
in handing round the box as is seen in primitive
Iceland. Are these not lingering relics of similar
social customs which still point to the ancient
unity and common origin of the three now dis-
connected peoples ?

The practice of using snuff is said to have
come into England after the Restoration, and to
have been brought from France ; but it is well
known that the habit of mere snuff-taking did
not originate with the introduction of tobacco,
since we find recipes for making snuff from herbs.

* Madame Pfeiffer, ' Visit to Iceland.'

F

66 • TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

&C.5 in some of the oldest books of medicine
extant.

The Turk? and Persians have become the
greatest smokers in the world. In Turkey the
pipe is perpetually in the mouth. In India all
classes and both sexes smoke. The Siamese
chew moderately, but smoke perpetually. The
Burmese of all ranks, of both sexes and of all
ages, down even to infants of three years old,
smoke cigars. In China the practice is so uni-
versal that every female, from the age of eight
or nine, wears, as an appendage to her dress, a
small silken pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe.
Indeed, from the extensive prevalence of the
practice in Asia, and especially in China, Pallas
argued long ago that the use of tobacco for
smokinc; in those countries must be more ancient
than the discovery of America.

"Amongst the Chinese," he says, " and amongst the
Mongol tribes, who had the most intercourse with them,
the custom of smoking is so general, so frequent, and has
become so indispensable a luxury; the tobacco-purse
affixed to their belt so necessary an article of dress ; the
form of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have
taken the model of theirs, so original ; and, lastly, the
preparation of the yellow leaves, which are merely rubbed

MANUFACTURE. 67

to pieces, and then put into the pipe, so peculiar, that they
could not possibly derive all this from America by way of
Europe, especially as India, where the practice of smok-
ing is not so general, intervenes between Persia and
China."

This opinion of Pallas has since been supported

by high botanical authorities. Thus, Meyen

says,—

" It has long been the opinion that the use of tobacco,
as well as its culture, was peculiar to the people of
America ; but this is now proved to be incorrect, by our
present more exact acquaintance with China and India.
The consumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of
immense extent, and the practice seems to be of great
antiquity ; for on very old sculptures I have observed the
very same tobacco-pipes which are still used. Besides,
we know the plant which furnishes the Chinese tobacco :
it is even said to grow wild in the East Indies. It is
certain that this tobacco-plant of eastern Asia is quite
different from the American species."

Other late writers dissent from this opinion,
and consider that there can hardly be a doubt
but that tobacco was introduced into the dif-
ferent countries of the East from Europe and by
Europeans. The truth may possibly be, that
species of the tobacco-plant are native to Europe
and Asia as well as to America, and that only the
custom of using them as narcotics was intro-

F 2

68 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

duced into Western Europe from the New
AVorld.*

If I may give an opinion on the subject, I
incline to believe that all the world owes the use
of tobacco to the aborigines of America. Had
the practice been of anything like the high an-
tiquity (which it had in America) in those re-
mote countries of Asia, ancient travellers would
have signalised so singular a custom. The in-
defatigable primitive Jesuits penetrated early into
every nook of the eastern world that could possibly
give ultimately a see to a Papal bishop in parti-
bus infidelmm ; but in none of their voluminous
* Edifying and Curious Letters ' do they mention
the practice of smoking amongst the objects of
their wonderful zeal, amidst trials beyond the
endurance of common humanity.

If the theory I have advanced in the Introduc-
tion be correct, there was ample reason why the
practice of smoking tobacco should be suggested
by Nature in America — a region of endless
morasses, swamps, forests of decaying vegetable

Chemistry of Life, No. vii.

MANUFACTURE. 69'

matter, energetic volcanic disturbance of the
earth, and their consequent atmospheric altera-
tions by miasmata incompatible with the func-
tions of animality. In the wisdom of Nature's
permissions we must acquiesce — as in the
presence of that which is awful. We knov/ not
all the physical purposes of creation. Doubtless
our successors in this eventful struggle of life
will be more enlightened. But in any circum-
stances, a great fact — a universal fact — such as
we must contemplate in the use of this narcotic,
should make us pause and consider if there be
not more in it " than is dreamt of in our philo-
sophy."

Adulterations of Tobacco.

Tobacco is decidedly the least adulterated
article of commerce. Strange and contrary to
the popular belief as it may appear, Dr. Hassall
— the only gentleman who has scientifically exa-
mined into the question by employing the micro-
scope, among other tests, for impurities — found
that not one of forty samples of cut tobacco was
adulterated with any foreign leaf. The most

70 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

frequent adulterations consisted of the addition,
in large quantities, of water, salt, and some
saccharine matter, either sugar or treacle.*
Water and salt are ingredients, it will be remem-
bered, avowedly necessary in the manufacture ;
and the addition of sugar, though contrary to
law, is positively beneficial to the smoker, because
smoking tends to diminish the saccharine con-
stituents of the blood.

From my previous statements and arithmetical
calculations (if correct), the following informa-
tion from the ' Tricks of Trade ' will be con-
clusively proved to be correct — indeed, there can
be no doubt about the matter : —

" The worst kind of fraud committed by the vendors of
cigars consists in manufacturing them in this country
from common, cheap, and coarse tobacco, and selling them
to the public as foreign produce. Nearly all the Cubas
sold in England at thi-eehalfpence each, or ten for a
shilling, are made in home manufactories. The Bengal
cheroots at twopence each, or seven for a shilling, many of
the threepenny Havannahs, and all the twopenny ones
likewise, have never travelled out of the United Kingdom."

The rage of the public for enjoying luxuries at
a cheap rate is the cause of the evil ; for a bad

* Tricks of Trade, p. 177.

MANUFACTURE. 71

cigar IS unquestionably a social infliction of great
enormity. Not only does it fail in the object of
its creation, but it creates the very evil which it
was intended and adapted to remove.

"^J he blame is therefore less with the maker than
the consumer, who should be able to judge for
himself in this very important matter. The
great majority of smokers care little about quality
in their tobacco — the mere act of smoking being
their only object. Again, sometimes a, low-
priced but sound cigar will be preferred to the
veritable " havannah as imported ;" and, if not
excusable, still we certainly cannot wonder that,
in such circumstances, the price asked by the
caterer should be the same as for the duty-pay-
ing and high-priced havannah. As I said before,
the price of cigars is merely nominal : the usual
custom is to get the highest possible price, and
the projit accordingly varies from three shillings
up to twenty shillings on the pound of cigars.

The public should be cautioned against a sort
of confraternity who tramp the streets in the
garb of sailors or otherwise, offering to supply
" smuggled " cigars " very cheap." A cheroot

72 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

purchased of a hawker in Whitechapel Road
was made of two twisted wrappers or layers of
thin paper, tinted of a bistre colour, while the
interior consisted entirely of hay, not a particle
of tobacco entering into the composition. Other
cheroots Dr. Hassall found to consist externally
of tobacco, but made up internally of hay. The
vendors of these luxuries belong to the class of
men who attend race-courses and skating in the
Parks. They carry with them a box of these
cheroots and a piece of burning tow. As they
walk along they shout out, " A cigar and a light
for a penny ! " *

Others will decoy the simple believer to some
out-of-the-way place, with the intention of rob-
bing him by main force, aided by others who
make their appearance at the catching of the
*' flat." This is rather too much to bear, even
for the sake of the weed. Curiosity induced me
on one occasion to give in to one of these " soft
impeachments," and I had to show vigorous
fight — but with perfect success — before effecting

Tricks of Trade, p. 178.

MANUFACTURE. 73

an exit from the den of three of these ruffians
who would take advantage of a smoker's pro-
pensity.

The adulterations of snuff are unfortunately
well attested. Dr. Hassall examined forty-three
samples, involving all the most celebrated and
popular compositions, from Prince's-mixture to
Grimstone's eye-snuff. He detected oxide of
iron, red and yellow ochre, umber, chromate of
lead, red lead, bichromate of potash, silica, and
what appeared to him powdered glass. The
silica, no doubt, existed in the tobacco originally ;
but the other powerful chemical agents must
have been added — if not " with felonious intent,"
at all events for some trade purpose, and cer-
tainly with the possibility of poisoning the con-
sumer. In the ' Tricks of Trade,' from which I
give the above, will be found a deplorable case
of such poisoning, recorded by Professor Erich-
son. It appears also that " Mr. Fosbroke, a
surgeon, was very nearly falling a victim to this
shameful and poisonous adulteration. Paralysis
had coinmenced, but the lead in the snuff was
fortunately detected in time." Dr. Letheby has

74 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

also added his testimony to this lead-poi soiling in
" brown rappee." During the last ten years the
Commissioners of Excise have made 368 seizures,
and instituted 203 prosecutions, for offences con-
nected with tobacco : — ■

'*' We would undertake," writes Dr. Hassall, " to make
as many seizures, or rather detections, of tobacco adul-
terated in one or other of its forms, in the space of three
months as are recorded in the above return, which ex-
tends over a period of ten years." *

This opinion, the higher order of smokers will
be glad to hear, does not extend to cigars ; for
the learned doctor states that all the cigars sold
in shops are manufactured fi'om the genuine
tobacco-leaf, after examining fifty-seven samples
purchased in different parts of London. t

In connection with this important subject, I
think it proper to insert here a piece of informa-
tion given by Mr. Johnston in his ' Chemistry
of Life : '—

" I insert, in the form of a note, a reference to a use of
tobacco, of which I can scarcely speak with confidence.
It is said to be employed by unprincipled private brewers

* Tricks of Trade, which, by all means, read.
t Tricks of Trade, p. 178.

MANUFACTURE. 75

in some parts of England for adulterating beer, and by
l^orter-sellers to adulterate porter. The country-labourer,
who cannot afford of an evening to buy more than a single
glass of beer, desires something for his little money which
shall not only be tasted in his mouth, but also in a sensible
degree affect his head ; a few tobacco-lea.ves, introduced
after the manner of hops, are said to give this quality to
the beer, and a little tobacco-extract to the porter. Several
trustworthy persons, who profess to know, assure me that
such a use of tobacco is by no means uncommon. How
is it possible to protect the poor man against fraudulent
persons, whom, by a morbid craving, he encourages to
conspire against himself?"

Supposing the doctors to be correct in their
diagnosis — -in which they are almost universally
deficient — it is very probable that the " cases "
which they ascribe to smoking were actually
the result of tobacco taken internally in such
" hocuss'd " potations. All our drinks are more
or less " hocuss'd " or " flash'd," — all our food is
adulterated : it is therefore more than probable
that smokers, as well as others, have been
poisoned in their food and drink, and not by their
pipe or cigar.

76 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

PART lY.

THE INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO ON THE
HUMAN SYSTEM.

I WAS once told by a clergyman that the most
disgusting thing he ever saw in all his life was
the state of his own teeth, exhibited to him by
way of double reflection on a mirror, by his
dentist. I have taken a friend to Dr. Kahn's
most interesting and instructive anatomical mu-
seum, and he had scarcely been in the hall three
minutes before he felt " sick," and pronounced
the whole collection a most detestable libel on
human nature ! And truly enough, for " the
greater the truth, the greater the libel." I fear
the reader will not peruse with much gusto the
following analysisof the gentle weed, as exhibited
by the chemists ; the bare recital is enough to
" turn the stomach " of any man who has not
hardened himself against horrors in the dissecting-
room and the wards, of hospitals. Still, by ^vay
of encouragement, I may be permitted to assure

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 77

the reader that I am now smoking — as I have
been throughout these pages incessantly — and
will decidedly do so to the end — with rational
satisfaction : —

" When the leaves of tobacco are mixed with water,
and submitted to distillation, a volatile oil or fat comes
over in small quantity. This fatty substance congeals,
or becomes solid, and floats on the surface of the water
which distils over along with it. It has the odour of tobacco,
and possesses a bitter taste. On the mouth and throat it
produces a sensation similar to that caused by tobacco-
smoke. When applied to the nose it occasions sneezing ;
and when taken internally it gives rise to giddiness,
nausea, and an inclination to vomit. It is evidently one
of the ingredients, therefore, to which the usual effects of
tobacco are owing ; and yet it is remarkable that from a
pound of leaves only two grains of this fatty body are ob-
tained by distillation. "Upon such minute quantities of
chemical ingredients do the peculiar action and sensible
properties of some of our most powerful medicinal agents
depend !

" When tobacco-leaves are infused in water made
slightly sour by sulphuric acid, and the infusion is sub-
sequently distilled with quicklime, there comes over,
mixed with the water, a small quantity of a volatile, oily,
colourless, alkaline liquid, which is heavier than Avater, and
to which the name of mcottn has been given. It has the
odour of tobacco, an acrid, burning, long-continuing tobacco
taste, and possesses narcotic and very poisonous qualities.
In this latter respect it is scarcely inferior to prussic acid,
a single drop being sufficient to kill a dog. Its vapour is
so irritating that it is difficult to breathe in a room in

78 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

which a single drop has been evaporated. The proportion
of this substance contained in the dry leaf of tobacco varies
from 2 to 8 per cent. The reader niay recollect the great
sensation produced in 1851 by the trial of the Conite de
Bocarme, at Mons, and his subsequent execution, for
poisoning his brother-in-law with nicotin.

" So far as experiments have been made, the tobaccos
of Havannah and Maryland contain 2 per cent. ; that of
Kentucky 6 ; that of Virginia nearly 7 ; and that of
France from 6 to 8 per cent. In smoking a hundred grains
of tobacco, therefore — say a quarter of an ounce — there
may be drawn into the mouth two grains or more of one
of the most subtle of all known poisons. For as it boils
at 482° F., and rises into vapour at a temperature below
that of burning tobacco, this poisonous substance is con-
stantly present in the smoke. From the smoke of a
hundred grains of slowly-burning Virginia tobacco Melsens
extracted as much as three-quarters of a grain of nicotin ;
and the proportion will vary with the variety of tobacco,
the rapidity of the burning, the form and length of the
pipe, the material of which it is made, and with many
other circumstances.

" But besides the two volatile substances which exist
ready formed in the tobacco-leaf, another substance of an
oily nature is produced when tobacco is distilled alone in
a retort, or is burned, as we do it, in a tobacco-pipe. This
oil resembles one which is obtained in a similar way from
the leaf of the poisonous foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). It
is acrid and disagreeable to the taste, narcotic and poison-
ous. One drop applied to the tongue of a cat brought on
convulsions, and in two minutes occasioned death. The
Hottentots are said to kill snakes by putting a di'op of it
on their tongues. Under its influence the reptiles die
as instantaneously as if killed by an electric shock. It

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 79

appears to act nearly in the same way as prussic acid. The
oil thus obtained consists of at least two substances. If
it be washed with acetic acid (vinegar) it loses its poison-
ous quality. It contains, therefore, a harmless oil, and
a poisonous alkaline substance, which the acetic acid
combines with and removes. The nature and chemical
properties of this alkaline poison have not as yet been
investigated." *

Of the many analyses of tobacco which I have
read, the foregoing is the most minute, the most
precise, and the most disgusting. That the
analysis is perfectly correct there can be no doubt
whatever. It only remains to test the accuracy
of its alleged result in the practice of smoking.
It will signify little when I assure the reader that
I have smoked two cigars in transcribing the
analysis — for millions have been doing the same
thing during the same time all over the world ;
but let us embody a state of things occurring
every night in London — perhaps in every town of
the United Kingdom. It is easy to name, at
least, dozens of places in London where many
dozens of men congregate at night for the purpose
of recreation — every man with pipe or cigar

* Johnston, ' Chemistry of Life.'

80 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

puffing many cubic feet of smoke from many
" hundred grains of slowly-burning Virginia to-
bacco," each hundred containing " three-quarters
of a grain of nicotin," " scarcely inferior to prussic
acid, a single drop being sufficient to kill a dog ! "
Yet in these close, ill-ventilated laboratories of
" volatile oil," " oil empyreumatic," and " vola-
tile alkali" — in which men, women, children,
cats, and dogs, enjoy a periodic respite from the
toils of day — not a single case of poisoning has
ever been seen, and night after night this experi-
mentum crucis on a large scale has been tried,
with the same result ! " I recollect seeing,"
says Dr. Elliotson, " a young woman who could
eat the hardest salt beef, and digest it well ; but
if she took a raspberry, or currant, or any other
fruit, she was instantly thrown into the most
violent spasms of the stomach, so that a stranger
would have fancied her life in danger ! " * But
here is not a case of currants and strawberries,
but " one of the most subtle of all known poisons,"
confessedly concocted and administered " broad-

Practice of Medicine, p. 38.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 81

€ast," and yet the functions of life go on glibly as
usual ! And to tell an uneducated man, in sucli
circumstances, that he was actually imbibing
poison enough to kill a thousand cats, would pro-
voke the reply given to a doctor by such a man :
*' Well, doctor, you seem to be divided as to how
poor Cook came by his death, but it's clear it
wasn't a room full of tobacco-smoke — else /must
have the lives of ten thousand cats, dogs, and the
like of such stupid animals."

But neither cats nor dogs are poisoned in such
circumstances. There must, therefore, be some
counteraction, which either renders the poison
innocuous, or modifies it to an extent which prac-
tically comes to the same result.

It is certain that man gradually renders himself
proof against any of the known poisons — at all
events against the most powerful of the increas-
ing, and, it appears, testless catalogue. The
curious statistics of opium and its compounds are
well known as such " familiar demons ;" but it is
not generally known that arsenic has been made
a fountain of beauty, vigour, and longevity. I
refer the curious in such matters to the * Chemistry

G

S2 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

of Life', where the subject is fully discussed.*
There we read of "a hale man of sixty, who
enjoys capital health at present, takes for every
dose a piece about two grains in weight. For the
last forty years he has continued the habit, which
he inherited from his father, and which he will
transmit to his children." It is not for the mere
result of such a practice in the apparent well-
being of the subject, that I allude to arsenic and
other poisons thus familiarly taken into the human
system. My object is very different ; and per-
haps the argument will be assisted to a right
development by this aid of comparative toxi-
cology : —

" 'No symptoms of illness or chronic poisoning are ob-
servable in any of these arsenic-eaters, when the dose is
carefully adapted to the constitution and habit of body of
the person using it. But if from want of material, or any
other cause, the arsenic be left off for a time, symptoms
of disease occur ^Yhich resemble those of slight arsenical
poisoning." f

Now, if we proceed in the same way with
smoking, chewing, or snuffing, carefully adapting

* Johnston's ' Chemistry of Life,' No. x.
f Ubi supra.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 83

the quantity to the constitution and habit of the
body, and then, from want of material or any
other cause, the same be left off for a time — is it
not a striking fact that not a symptom of the
slightest kind of poisoning by tobacco is exhibited
by the smoker, the chewer, or the snuff-taker?
On the contrary, we are told by the opponents of
tobacco of many instances in which the habit was
left off with immediate beneficial results to the
general health — and the fact is, in the very nature
of things, perfectly possible ; but it is the total
absence of jioison-effects to which I would call
attention — if the body was really poisoned by the
use of tobacco in the forms under consideration.
It may be alleged that the mineral poison tends
to remain in the system, whereas the vegetable
poison tends to escape ; but with regard to the
latter, we are compelled to remember that many
medical witnesses, at a late trial, expressed a
strong opinion that one vegetable poison, strych-
nine, could be found in the body many months
after death.* What the sensations of other

* Palmer's Case — the Defence.

G 2

84 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

smokers may be I do not know ; but being myself
what would certainly be called an inveterate
smoker, I may be permitted to state that I never
felt any inconvenience, " neither better nor worse,"
when, from circumstances, I have passed twelve,
fifteen, or even twenty-four hours without smok-
ing ; and this occurred during the great trial at
the Old Bailey just alluded to, at which I con-
stantly attended. Nay, more — I have passed vdiole
days without smoking, merely as a test of the
human will. I have also tantalised the propensity
by cutting down my daily consumption to one-
twentieth of the usual quantity, and this, too,
without any inconvenient physical sensations what-
ever— although, like Dr. Johnson in the matter
of wine, I think it a greater trial to refrain than
to abstain altogether.

At all events, we have the admitted fact that
no permanent morbid effects remain after giving
up the habit ; and therefore, admitting the patient
to be actually better for giving up smoking, it
only shows that smoking was to the smoker what
Hudibras thought the doctors were to all man-
kind : —

IXFLUEXCE OX THE HUMAX SYSTEM. 85

" For men are brought to worse distresses
By taking physic than diseases ;
And therefore commonly recover
As soon as doctors give them over."

With these preliminaries, let us proceed to
examine the medical bearings of the question.

The various names of tobacco attest the vogue
in which it was held at its early introduction.* It

* The name, tobacco, has been derived from Tabasco, a
to-vrn of Mexico, and from Tabaco or Tobago, an island in
the Bay of Panamd. I can find no ratioual origin of the
name. What the natives of Cuba called it when Columbus
in 1492 found them, men and women, smoking *' small
brands " or cigars, he did not state. In Mexico it is called
by the natives Petun — in fact, our adopted Petunia of the
flower-gardens is a species of tobacco. A certain Mr. Neil,
in ' The Lancet,' suggests Tu 'Rax,zv (^^ Bacchus) as its deri-
vation, because he thinks it " a provocative or incentive to
strong drinks ! " Thus, as Ben Jonson says, these doctors are

" Made of all terms and shreds ; no less beliers
Of [nature's] favours than their own vile med'cines."

A writer who professed to have been in the island of Cuba
states that the "triangular tube alone, amongst the Indians,
bore the name of tohaco, but not the leaf or the plant. Fumar
uii tabaco is the expression in Havannah for smoking a cigar."
The word tobaco belongs, according to Humboldt, like
savannah, maize, &c., to the ancient language of Hayti or
St, Domingo, and was generally used in the AVest India
islands after the Spanish conquest. The former writer gives
a most extraordinary statement respecting the manufacture of
cigars, which, although a striking curiosity, I almost feel
inclined to omit. He says, " When the connoisseur is saun-^
tering at his ease, inhaling with delight one of those cigars*

86 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

will be remembered that King James calls it " a
cure ;" and Dr. Paris founds an opinion on one
of these names — " Henbane of Peru " — that the
oil of tobacco was " the juice of cursed hebenon"
by which the King of Denmark, in ' Hamlet/
was poisoned in his orchard.* Under other more

de la Beina, relishing with the gusto of a true amateur its
delicious flavour, and admiring its aptitude to catch and
retain fire, let him know, then, that cigar, so fiery and yet so
mild, has been— well, this cigar has been, like most others he
has ever smoked, rolled — yes, rolled, upon the hare thigh of one
of the country girls, called a guajira in Cuba." — Bentley's
Miscellany, April, 1844. Doubtless this hideously gross
canard has circulated amongst "fast young men;" — it is a
disgusting and self-evident absurdity. No one who knows
how a cigar is made can believe it. A flat surface is abso-
lutely necessary ; and, besides, no human being covild endure
the constant repetition of such rolling or friction on the
cuticle of the thigh. Moreover, the tobacco would act as a
poison, its oil being absorbed.

* Pharmacol. 294. As the learned doctor seemed anxious
to claim this discovery as a curiosity, since he repeats it in
his ' Medical Jurisprudence,' perhaps his medical brethren,
when they quote it, should record the name of the inventor,
which is never done, however; but unfortunately for this
hypothesis, the tragedy of ' Hamlet ' was, according to Ma-
lone, "written in 1596, seven years before the accession of James
to the throne of England, whilst Dr. Paris accuses Shakspeare
of playing the courtier, in thus introducing the " cursed
hebenon" in accordance with the prejudices of King James.
According to Campbell, ' Hamlet' was written in 1600, three
years before the king's accession. This acquits Shakspeare
of "playing the courtier ;" indeed, the conjecture is scarcely

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 87

striking names, herha sacra, herha divina, herha
medica, and finally, herha panacea, tobacco was a
specific in the hands of the faculty, or at all events
that portion of it called —

" impostors,
Quack-salving, cheating mountebanks, whose skill
Is to make sound men sick, and sick men kill."

There can be no question that the first attempt
at smoking reveals phenomena which plainly
show that the herb divine requires her votaries
to go through a certain ordeal or trial before
admitting them to her favours, if they aspire to
the rank of her highest functionaries. I know
not whether my case is singular, but I can state
that I enjoyed my first cigar — some twenty years
ago — as much as the one I am now smoking.
Others are less fortunate, and the trial-scene is

■worthy of notice, even on the doctor's assertion that the oil
of tobacco might have produced death by the ears. The
doctor seems to forget that the discovery of the empy-
reumatic oil of tobacco is a disclosure of modern chemistry;
and if the ancients even thought it possible to poison Alex-
ander the Great by first thoroughly imbuing with poison a
girl who was to sleep with him, what wonder that a hundred
such-like applications to all parts of the body might enter
into the imaginations of men, and be used for their " craft"
by the poets ?

88 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

peculiarly painful. Each pufF the novice draws-
is a bitter dose attended with sardonic contor-
tions of the mouth and face. He spits abundantly.
From time to time he coughs hectically. Perhaps
he swears intemperately. Many have stopped at
this stage, among the rest the Great Napoleon.

Napoleon once took a fancy to smoke, for the
purpose of trying a very fine Oriental pipe, pre-
sented to him by a Turkish or Persian ambas-
sador. Preparation having been made — the
match being ready — nothing remained but to
apply it to the tobacco ; but that could never be
effected in the way taken by his Majesty for that
purpose. He contented himself with opening
and shutting his mouth alternately, without in
the least drawing his breath. *' The devil !" he
cried ; " why, there's no result ! "

"I made him observe," says Constant, "that he made
the attempt badly, and showed him the proper method of
doing it ; but the emperor still reverted to his kind of
yawning. Wearied by his vain attempts, he at last desired
me to light the pipe. I obeyed, and returned it to him in
order. Scarcely had he drawn in a mouthful, when the
smoke, which he knew not how to expel from his mouth,,
turned back upon his palate, penetrated his throat, and
came out by his nose and blinded him. As soon as he-

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTE?,!. 89

recovered breath, he cried out, ' Away with it ! What an
abomination ! Oh the hog ! My stomach turns ! ' In
fact, he felt so annoyed for at least an hour, that he re-
nounced for ever the pleasure of a habit which he said was-
only lit to amuse sluggards."

Inveterate and immoderate snufF-taker as he-
was, surely he should have been content with
that enjoyment, and given the splendid Oriental
pipe to one of his brothers, to whom it would
have been a greater solace than the kingdom of
Spain or any other Napoleonic kingdom, as the
historic reader is aware.

Such then is the first symptom of the poison ;.
but if the novice continues, his head gets heavy,
and a slight nausea disquiets his epigastrics. At
this stage he has effectually taken his dose. He
may then throw away his pipe or cigar, without
in the least preventing the crisis which must
inevitably ensue. His stomach continues to
exhibit with increasing intensity the symptoms-
of considerable derangement, his legs totter and
refuse to support him, a cold sweat bathes his-
thighs and his temples : he vomits copiously ; and
finally he faints — but to come to himself again in
due time, as it were out of his ashes, like the-

90 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY. ,

phoenix — and renews the trial — if he has the
heart to do so.

Decidedly this picture seems calculated to
disgust for ever all future smokers ; hut the
reverse of the medal must be also exhibited ; and
the reader will perhaps be able to conceive how
it happens that men will poison themselves five
or six times in order to enjoy the Elysian plea-
sures which smokers profess to experience.

" The smoker," says a Frencliman, "experiences, in-
deed, a great pleasure. The snuff-taker charms away his idle
cares by introducing into his nose, from minute to minute,
a pinch of powder which excites his pituitary membrane.
The chewer excites to a high degree his sense of taste,
and at the same time wards off various diseases of the outer
membrane of the mouth ; hence our sailors escape thereby
many dangerous diseases — for instance, scurvy. As for the
smolcer, we shall extend further the study of the sensations
which he enjoys, for experience has taught us that, when the
smoker has hardened himself to the vaporous emanations
of nicotiana, he experiences three very distinct sensations.
The first is altogether ideal — it charms his leisure and
occupies his idle hour. We place the second in the excite-
ment of his sense of taste ; and the third, which in our
opinion is the truest, in the brain- excitement caused by the
beneficent fume of this admirable weed. This third sen-
sation produces a far niente which it is impossible to de-
scribe. It imparts the pleasantest thoughts to the soul
and magical impressions to the sensorium : what a crowd
of ideas does he find in his brain when his organisation is

INFLUENCE OX THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 91

saturated with the fumes of tobacco ! How vivid they are !
It is then that his head seems to dilate by the organic
repercussion which spends its entire force upon the brain.
All these repercussions are so many sparks which produce
a kind of intellectual convulsion, which often gives rays of
imagination even to those brains which Nature has not
favoured." *

So much from the Frenchman ; now hear the
Englishman : — t

" ' Blessed be the man who invented sleep ! ' was the
pious ejaculation of our worthy and inimitable friend
Sanclio Panza, and we, not denying the advantages, plea-
sures, and delights of slumber, change the subject-matter,
and exclaim, ' Blessed be the man who discovered tobacco ! '
Yes ! blessed be the man who first rescued this precious
weed from obscurity and brought it into general estimation !
For what has been more useful to mankind ? what more
beneficial ? Its virtues are manifold ; their name is
Legion. Truly the Indians proved their wisdom by making
the pipe the symbol of peace, for what more soothing?
what more consolatory ? To all men it proves of service,
from royalty to the bone-picker. The philosopher over his
pipe and coffee (excellent berry — rare weed) reasons and
speculates with a freshness and vigour which encourages
him in his labours. And if invention consist, as Con-
dillac will have it, in combining in a new manner ideas
received through the senses, when are they received with
such force, clearness, and energy, as when under the in-
spiration of the Virginian weed? The historian, whose
province it is to study facts, events, manners, the spirit of

* Joubert, * Tabac' f P. B. St. John.

92 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

epochs, can certainly not do justice to his subject if he be
not an adept in blowing a cloud. The romancist, who
differs only from the historian in that he embodies brief
spaces and not centuries, families and not races, he, too,
must love his meerschaum or his cheroot. Leaning back
leisurely upon his sofa, if he have one, and pufSng his amber
mouthpiece, ideas, thoughts, feelings, rush in rapid succession
upon the mind prepared for kindly and soothing emotions.
In the curling wreaths of vapour which ambiantly play
around him he discovers lovely and exquisite images j
amid the shadowy pulsations which throb in the atmosphere
he sees the fair and exquisite countenance of woman, faint*
perhaps, as the shade cast by the Aphrodisian star, but
yet visible to his eye. The aromatic leaf is the maUriel
of his incantations. Yes, there is magic in the cigar.
Then, to the sailor, on the wide and tossing ocean, what
consolation is there, save in his old pipe ? "While smoking
his inch-and-a-half of clay, black and polished, his Susan
or his Mary becomes manifest before him ; he sees her,
holds converse with her spirit. In the red glare from the
ebony bowl, as he walks the deck at night, or squats on
tlie windlass, are reflected the bright sparkling eyes of hi&-
sweetheart. ****** The Irish fruit-woman, the
Jarvie without a fare [and with one], the policeman
on a quiet beat, the soldier at his ease, all bow to the
mystic power of tobacco, and none more so than our own-
self." *

And now for a doctor : —

"In habitual smokers," says Dr. Pereira, a high au-
thority in such matters, " the practice, when moderately-
indulged, provokes thirst, increases the secretion of saliva^

* Bentley's Miscellany, March, 1844.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 93

and produces that remcarkably soothing and tranquillising
effect on the mmd which has caused it to he so much
admired and adopted by all classes of society, and by all
nations, civilised and barbarous." *

Mr. Johnston, in his ' Chemistry of Life,' pro-
ceeds in a similar vein : —

" It is chiefly because of * the soothing and tranquil-
lising effect it has on the mind,' as it is exj)ressed by Dr.
Pereira, that tobacco is indulged in. And were it pos-
sible," he continues, " amid the teasing, paltry cares, as
well as the more poignant griefs of life, to find a mere
material soother and tranquilliser, productive of no evil
after-effects, and accessible alike to all — to the desolate
and the outcast equally with him who is rich in a happ}^
home and the felicity of sympathising friends — who so
heartless as to wonder or regret that millions of the world-
chafed should flee to it for solace ! I confess, however,
that in tobacco I have never found this soothing efiect.
This no doubt is constitutional, for I cannot presume to
ignore the united testimony of the millions of mankind
who assert, from their own experience, that it does pro-
duce such effects. ****** Generally of the physio-
logical action of tobacco upon the bulk of mankind, and
apart from its moral influences, it may be received as
characteristic of this substance among narcotics —

" First. That its greater and first efiect is to assuage
and allay and soothe the system in general.

^^ Second. That its lesser and second or after-effect is
to excite and invigorate, and at the same time give steadi-
ness and fixity to the powers of thought.

* Materia Medica, p. USl.

94 TOBACCO ; ITS HISTORY.

" To what special action of its chemical constituents on
the brain and nerves the soothing action and the pleasing
reverie so generally spoken of is to be ascribed, we can
only guess. According to Dr. Madden, * the pleasure of
the reverie consequent on the indulgence of the pipe con-
sists in a temporary annihilation of thought. (!) Peoijle
really cease to think when they have been long smoking. (!)
I have asked Turks repeatedly what they have been think-
ing of during their long reveries, and they replied, " Of
nothing." I could not remind them of a single idea hav-
ing occupied their minds ; and in the consideration of the
Turkish character there is no more curious circumstance
connected with their moral condition.' *

" Is it really a peculiarity of the Turkish or Moslem
temperament that tobacco soothes the mind to sleep while
the body is alive and awake ? That such is not its gene-
ral action in Europe, the study of almost every German
writer can testify. With the constant pipe diffusing its
beloved aroma around him, the German philosopher works
out the profoundest of his results of thought. He thinks
and dreams, and dreams and thinks, alternately ; but
while his body is soothed and stilled, his mind is ever
awake. From what I have heard such men say, I could
almost fancy they had in this practice discovered a way
of liberating the mind from the trammels of the body,
and thus giving it a freer range and more undisturbed
liberty of action. I regret that I have never found it act
so upon myself." t

' * Madden's * Travels in Turkey,' i. 16.

t Johnston, ' Chemistry of Life.' The same writer says,
"But extensively as it is consumed, it is remarkable how
very few persons can state distinctly the effects which tobacco
produces upon them, the kind of pleasure which the daily

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 95

As an inveterate smoker of long continuance,
my own experience may be added to the fore-
going summary of the physiological and psycho-
logical effects of smoking. I must premise that it
is the very essence of all the pleasures which we
enjoy, that we cannot adequately describe them
after enjoyment. How pleasant it was — how
delightful, &c. — are the only terms we can use
to express the physical or mental condition.
The moment we proceed to describe the cause,
the effect becomes totally unintelligible — or
certainly inadequate to the cause. For my own
part, the utmost that I can say is that I find a
pleasure in smoking — a sort of contentment —
and its consequent submissiveness in the raging
battle of life. All the wonderful mental exalta-
tions, magical reveries, and crowd of ideas of the

use of it gives them, why they began, and for what reason
they continue the indulgence. If the reader be a consumer
of tobacco, let him ask himself these questions, and he will
be surprised how little satisfactory the answers he receives
will be. In truth, few have thought much on these points —
have cared to analyse their sensations when under the nar-
cotic influence of tobacco, or, if they have analysed them,
would care to tell truly what kind of relief it is which they
seek in the use of it."

96 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

Frenchman just quoted, are, and have been, to
me utterly unknown. In my twentieth year,
being inconvenienced by habitual dyspepsia, with
a chronic eruption on the face — a common
symptom of gastric derangement in the tropics —
I was advised to smoke by a friend, who promised
me a speedy and perfect cure of both ailments
from the practice. There and then I accepted a
cigar and smoked it — my first cigar — with great
satisfaction, as I have before stated. Within a
week afterwards all the symptoms of dyspepsia
disappeared and the eruption vanished — never to
return. Since the year 1837 I have constantly
smoked, either the pipe or cigar, w ith the excep-
tion of one year, 1838. With the pipe I smoked
the Dutch and Havannah K'nasters, rarely less
than half a pound a week ; but unable to find
any means of effectually getting rid of the dis-
gusting oil in the tube of the pipe, I resorted to
the cigar ; and for the last ten or twelve years I
have smoked the mildest cigars to be procured,
chiefly Havannah,'^ my average consumption
having been and being one pound of cigars per
week, more or less according to my occupation.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 97

The less I am engaged in brain or hand work
the less I smoke, and vice versa. I make up for
the extravagant cost by scrupulously denying
myself other pleasures and luxuries, rarely drink-
ing wine or spirits, and then only for the aid of
carbon when the lungs are to be exposed to the full
front of oxygen in the cold frosty breeze.* My

•5^ Having alluded to this natural property of alcohol in
the Introduction, perhaps it may be useful to explain my
views on the subject. A complete and practical knowledge
of the two grand divisions of all the elements required by
the living animal for the functions of life may be acquired
by referring to Liebig's ' Letters on Chemistry.' I must
here confine myself to the elements of respiration, or rather to
one of them, included in the terms wine, beer, spirits. The
reasons given in the Introduction are so cogent, so all-
important to the normal continuance of health, that I feel
compelled to believe, in advance of Liebig, that alcohol is
absolutely generated in the digestive process of all animals.
Startling as the theory may seem, the consideration of cor-
roborating facts may, perhaps, induce the reader to think it
probable, if not certain. It is well known that all the vege-
tables we eat contain starch, all the fruits contain sugar.
Now starch can easily be converted into sugar ; the process
of malting is a familiar instance. Barley is merely soaked
in water, spread out on a floor in heaps, where it heats and
forms sugar. The temperature which it attains at that
result is about 10^ above the atmosphere — say 70'^ F. Now
if we take this malt-sugar, or cane-sugar, or the sugar-juice
of the grape, adding water to the former, and keep them at
a temperature of about 70^, the same sugar will be changed
into alcohol, which we easily obtain by distillation, under
the respective names of whisky from barley, oats, rye, and

H

98 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

habitual beverage is very mild " family ale,"
and pure chocolate, which I get made expressly

wheat ; rum from cane-sugar ; and brandy from grape-juice
sugar. All malt liquors being retained in that condition, in
like manner contain alcohol, the result of fermentation.
Excepting the sugar still remaining in the latter, all these
fluids owe their beneficial effects entirely to the alcohol
"vrhich they contain. Their flavour has nothing whatever
to do with it ; nay, it may be owing to substances positively
injurious to the body. Now the natural heat of the body is
precisely adapted, in the healthy state, to efiect a similar
fermentation after having changed the starch into sugar,
"which last is constantly found in the blood. That alcohol
has not been found seems to result simply from the fact that
it must be sought in arterial blood, or blood which has not
lost a portion of its carbon in transitu through the lungs in
the respiratory process. As if to confirm this theory, a
French chemist has lately discovered that the liver secretes
sugar as well as bile. And this fact answers the objection
that may be made in the case of carnivorous animals, which
consume no substance containing those elements of the respi-
ratory function; their liver supplies the element. Besides,
every carnivorous animal instantly kills and sucks the blood
of its herbivorous victim at the 7ieck, apparently for the
purpose of imbibing the fluid with its normal alcohol and
certainly sugar. We have hitherto attributed this sudden
infliction of death to a merciful ordination of Providence.
Without questioning such ordination, I may be permitted to
prefer an explanation of the fact more in accordance M^ith
the wonderful harmony of creation. I may further add,
that the alcohol of the blood may, as in artificial circum-
stances, have passed into the acetic fermentation in the
state of disease, and even to the putrefactive. Many facts in
pathology seem to warrant the supposition, as exhibited in
the morbid animal secretions.

It is clear that these views apply directly to that dreadful
malady consumption. Cod-liver oil owes all its efficacy to its

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM, 99

from the bean, without any admixture. Tea and
coffee I avoid as I do the doctors — that is, on
principle : — these drinks are potent and valuable
medicines when required, and as such I use
tlLem; but I trust never to need a doctor for
*' advice" or " medicine."

I have never suffered from any but the most
trivial ailments — such as " colds ;" yet I have
been where smallpox, yellow fever, dyseptery,
and cholera have been raging.

My bodily strength 1 think equal to that of
any robust man of the same stature and weight
Having passed beyond my fortieth year, I am
neither bald nor gray, but rather inclined to be
primitively hirsute, the comfort and convenience
whereof I thankfully acknowledge to nature.

cay-hon ; but how disgusting it is to the poor patient ! Any
other oil may take its place ; and there is one, hen-oil, or
hehen-oil, which is quite scentless, and perhaps less costly than
that of the cod ; but even olive-oil will do. If the trace of
iodine in the cod-oil be important, which is most improbable,
it may be supplied by a fish-diet. Oil and alcohol are the
only remedies of consumption. Consumptive patients who
"drink" outlive those who are sober. The quadmmana, or
ape-tribe, especially those nearest to man, die of consumption
at the Zoological Gardens for want of attention to the re-
spiratory function : if they were dieted according to these
views, doubtless they would live in any climate.

H 2

100 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

My appetite is vigorous : digestion absolutely
perfect. I rarely, if ever, retire to bed before
twelve o'clock at night, often later ; but I know
no unrest. Sleep, always without dreams, re-
stores me to myself at seven of the morning,
always ready for work. Six to eight hours' sleep
suffice me ; but I can do with three, nay even
two hours, when pushed for time by some interest-
ing idea or pursuit.

I have never been drunk, tipsy, nor " under the
influence of liquor^^ in all my life, and firmly be-
lieve that I never shall be.

Such are some few items of a smoker's life,
which will be well known to many of my readers.
Truly, I live by rule, availing myself of all the
ascertained truths of organic chemistry and physi-
ology in the matter of health, convinced that, if
we do not live by rule, nature will certainly kill
us by rule and compass. Mere life is to me an
intense enjoyment, feeling in no organ an obstruc-
tion, in no member a burthen. My eye-sight is
as good as ever it was in my earliest youth as
far as I can remember ; my memory most re-
tentive. Headache is to me almost unknown;

INFLUEXCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 101

and the slight indisposition which may occa-
sionally result from atmospheric changes, almost
invariahly disappears within twenty-four hours.
If ever I relinquish smoking, it will he to avoid
the expense ; I believe that it has been beneficial
to my constitution in general, by mhiistering to
the feeling of contentment and submissiveness
in the raging battle of life, the ideal being inti-
mately allied with the physique —

*' alteriiis sic
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice."

Physically it seems to act also by way of
stimulant ; but there is no reaction in my case :
I am never depressed in body or mind, and there-
fore I cannot answer for the soothing effects
ascribed to smoking. I was always of a bilious-
nervous and sanguine temperament, and am so
still. What my nervous irritability was before
I smoked I can well remember, and I confidently
state that it is now the same.

I have been engaged in law studies for twelve,
fifteen, and sometimes eighteen hours a-day,
during a continuous period of six months — and
this not two years ago — smoking incessantly.

102 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

Concluding this necessarily egotistic summary,
I affirm that all the secretions of my organism
are perfectly normal, all its functions undisturbed
and vigorous, and seem to promise longevity.
Life is, however, desirable no longer than it can
be enjoyed, observes Sir Richard Phillips ; and
the wearing out of the system in advanced life
causes, in general, more pains than pleasures;
while the hopes and passions which give zest in
youth vanish with the powers of animality in the
petrifactions of age. In the slow but certain
diminution of the formative force within us, to
feel the bones grow brittle, the muscles rigid,
and the heart stiffened by accumulating lime — as
it were, built up internally : to stand in the midst
of animal perfections a mere diminished entity,
cursed with cravings and denied a capacity to
fill — but enough : if w^e can live without disease
to the utmost verge of our prime, perhaps that
will be sufficient ; at all events, it will amply
meet my views and wishes as a denizen of earth.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 103

The ' MODUS opeRxVndi ' of Smoking.

I do not believe that the poison takes effect
through the lungs ; clearly, if it did so, similar
effects would follow in all who breathe the vapour
of tobacco for the first time, which is contrary to
all experience. The modus operandi of smoking
has never yet been explained by the Faculty ;
and, with all due deference, I venture to offer
them the following solution. The general reader
must excuse the mystical terms of anatomy, since
it is to the medical profession that I submit the
suggestion.

Even the most inveterate smoker experiences
a most unpleasant sensation if he retains the
smoke in his mouth, forcing it backwards against
the fauces. I attribute the whole of the effects
previously described in the case of the novice, to
the irritation of the glosso-pharyngeal nerve and
its branches. In ihQ jugular fossa this nerve pre-
sents a gangliform swelling, and, thence passing
forwards between the jugular vein and internal
carotid artery to the stylo-pharyngeus muscle, it
descends along its inferior border to the hyo-

104 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

glossus, beneath which it passes to be distributed
to the mucous membrane of the tongue, and to the
mucous glands of the mouth and tonsils. Among
its numerous branches are the pneumogastric, the
sympathetic, and the lingual.

The pneumogastric descends the neck within
the sheath of the carotid vessels, diverging in its
course ; on the right passing between the subcla-
vian artery and vein to the posterior mediastinum,
then behind the root of the lung to the oesopha-
gus, which it accompanies to the stomach, lying
on its posterior aspect. The left enters the chest
parallel with the left subclavian artery, crosses
the arch of the aorta, and descends behind the
root of the lung, and along the anterior surface
of the oesophagus to the stomach.

The internal branches of the superior cervical
ganglion of the sympathetic nerve are, 1°, Pha-
ryngeal, filaments communicating with the pha-
ryngeal plexus upon the middle constrictor
muscle. They are also, 2*', Laryngeal to com-
municate with the external laryngeal nerve ; and
ajong branch descends to the thorax, and is dis-
tributed to the heart, the superior cardiac nerve.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 105

Lastly, the lingual nerve, arising by several
"filaments from the side of the corpus pyramidale
of the medulla ahlongata, escapes from the skull
through the anterior condyloid foramen, with
communicating branches, amongst others, to
the pneumogastric, sympathetic, and gustatory
nerve.*

I now proceed to the demonstration. The first
symptom is the irritation of the gustatory nerve,
whilst the glosso -pharyngeal excites the mem-
brane of the tongue and the mucous glands of the
mouth and tonsils to copious discharges of mucus ;
hence the spitting of the novice.

But the gustatory nerve is a branch of the
lingual, by which it transmits the shock to the
brain ; hence the giddiness which supervenes as
the second stage of the process.

Then the pneumogastric takes up the excite-
ment and begins to render the stomach uncom-
fortable— at first with simple nausea, and at last
with violent vomiting.

Finally, the superior cardiac nerve becomes

* In putting together this anatomical synopsis I have had
"before me INIr. Erasmus Wilson's ' Practical and Surgical
Anatomy.'

106 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

involved, the heart's action is disturbed ; then the
entire brain necessarily responds to the heart's
arrested action — the cerebellum can no longer
preside over the locomotive muscles — the limbs
totter, the patient falls and faints, until the vital
force again assumes its wonted energy.

How comes it, then, that the novice so soon
becomes habituated to smoking — enjoys the
pleasure without suffering the pain ? Five or six
trials, I am told, will always be sufficient to
launch the smoker : but it is difficult to conceive
how the nerves affected by the nicotin and oily
vapour — the latter acting on the heart, the former
on the brain, as just described — can become so
soon habituated to the poison. I venture to sug-
gest that these nerves never become thus habi-
tuated to the poison ; and if the most inveterate
smoker were to imbibe the smoke, after the
fashion of all novices in general, and Napoleon in
particular, there would necessarily be an end to
all smoking. It is the art or method of smoking
which makes all the difference. The smoker
does not drive the poisoned fume backwards, nor
does he retain it in contact with the oral organs.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 107

Instinctively he no sooner imbibes the vapour
than he pours it forth again in a stream athwart
his nostrils, -where, together with oxygen, it
stimulates the olfactory nerve, which, in my
opinion, produces the beneficial effects of tobacco
ascribed to it by all its votaries. This nerve —
the olfactory — rests against the under surface of
the anterior lobe of the brain, being lodged in
the narrow interval between two convolutions,
and retained in its place by the arachnoid mem-
brane ; its branches are transmitted through
numerous foramina in the cribriform plate, to be
distributed to the raucous membrane of the nose.
The stimulus is thus immediately communicated
to that portion of the brain which requires the
invigorating action of oxygen for its intellectual
manifestations. The larger the surface of the
mucous membrane of the nose the greater the
activity of the intellect or the anterior lobe of the
brain ; and without a well-developed nasal organ
there never was a well-developed intellect. The
nose of genius, in every age, has been conspicu-
ous— in every sphere of its numerous manifesta-
tions. Perhaps I should rather say that its size

108 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

and adaptation to expose a large internal surface
to the action of oxygen, indicates the amount of
intellectual activity of which the individual is
capable. Nay, so striking is this provision of
nature (and comparative anatomy will bear me
out), that in the case of celebrities, whose fore-
lobe of the brain exhibits no marked development
or expansion, nature has planted between and
below their eyes a nose of remarkable dimensions
in length and depth and inferior expansion. For
the proof of this position 1 appeal to the portraits
of all manner of intellectual celebrities, in every
profession, in every department of art or science.
It is, therefore, apparently on the cerebrum
proper, through the olfactory, that the fumes of
tobacco perform their remarkable function in the
human economy. Hence we constantly hear
persons who do not smoke affirm that they like
the smell of the pipe or cigar wafted on the
breeze of morn. Their brain feels comfortable
Qt the gentle stimulus — as it were a flavour to
oxygen.

■^' Strong Labour got up ; with his pipe iu his mouth,
He stoutly strode over the dale ;

INFLUE>sCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEI\r. 109

He lent new perfumes to tlie breatli of the soutli,

On liis back hung his wallet and flail.
Behind him came Health from her cottage of thatch^
Where never j^hysician had lifted the latch."'^

This direct action of the fumes of tobacco on
the olfactory nerve, and thereby on the cerebrum,
is, I submit, the whole rationale of the various
effects experienced by different smokers. These
must necessarily differ according to the conforma-
tion of brain in each individual. Where the
imaginative faculties predominate, their activity
will be exalted ; where the reasoning powers are
predominant, they will attain greater concentra-
tion ; and so of all the functional activity of the
brain — including, of course, those manifestations
which we designate as moral or social — since the
entire mass of the brain must become involved in
the nervous action, as I have endeavoured ta
show in my hypothesis. Hence I am decidedly
of opinion that no one should smoke before man-
hood— that is, before the brain has acquired its
full natural expansion and activity ; in other
words, before the age of twenty or twenty-five

* Smart.

110 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

years in England. Functional activity, prema-
turely exerted in any part of the animal system,
must necessarily be injurious : he whose organs
have been carefully restrained from premature
activity, will find them last the longer without
derangement. And tobaccp is not an aid required
by the young, whose mentality will develop itself
by its own internal force, in due time and in a
normal manner ; and w^hose passions, if they are
to subserve the great intents of nature, must not
anticipate their period of development, unless they
will be able to acquiesce in finding the end of
their enjoyments antedated.

It follows also, from my hypothesis, that the
mild cigar is the safest form of using tobacco.
It has been said that " the cigar, especially if
smoked to the end, discharges directly into the
mouth of the smoker everything that is produced
by the burning." This is precisely what it does
not do. Its " discharge " is instantly re-dis-
charged from the mouth, to act on its proper
organ in influencing the brain — and even then
vastly modified by union with atmospheric air —
nay, possibly chemically changed, in some degree,

IXFLUEXCE OX THE HUMAN SYSTEM. Ill

by contact with the mucous surface of the mouth,
whose saliva is compounded of water and a variety
of chemical constituents, and at times a fatty acid.
It is stated to be alkaline habitually, and acid
after meals ; but doubtless it varies in these qua-
lities ; indeed it is more commonly acid. Now
it has been found that, if the empyreumatic oil of
tobacco be washed with acetic acid (or vinegar),
it loses its poisonous quality. It contains, there-
fore, a harmless oil and a poisonous alkaline
substance, which the acetic acid combines with
and removes.* But any acid will react against
an alkaline substance, and the mouth habitually
icill he found decidedly acid to litmus-paper — the
saliva instantly changing the blue to red, show-
ing a strong acid reaction, and yet the mouth does
not taste acid. I have repeatedly thus tested the
fact — nay, on even touching the tip of the cigar
taken from the mouth, a strong acid reaction has
been made evident. I contend, therefore, that
this terrible oil, which kills cats and dogs and
vipers as if by lightning — this " cursed juice

Johnston, * Chemistry of Life,' and other writers.

112 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

of hebenon," if you like — is thus deprived of
its poison, and rendered completely innocuous
by this provision of nature in the mouth ; and
nothing but " a harmless oil " remains, if it does
remain, in the mouth. The bitter taste results
from the harmless gums which form the largest
constituents of the leaf— a property which is said
to be available for tanning.

Now this reasoning is most strikingly confirmed
by a statement quoted by Joubert to the follow-
ing effect : —

"When a stranger an-ives in Greenland he is imme-
diately suiTounded by a crowd of the natives, who ask the
favour of sucking the empjTeumatic oil in the reservoir of
his pipe ! And it is stated that the Greenlanders smoke
only for the pleasure of drinking that detestable juice which
is so disgusting to our European smokers."

The fact is, that it is no longer the poison it was
before : the alkaline poison has been neutralised
by the acid of the saliva, whose condensed mois-
ture makes up "that detestable juice" — per-
fectly harmless, at least not poisonous — very-
bitter and nauseous to Europeans, but doubtless
quite as palatable as their train-oil : indeed, there
ought to be no quarrelling about taste in anything

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. llo

here below. A German writer has stated that
there is no substance so revolting that some of
earth's inhabitants do not crave it as a luxury ;
and he enters into particulars with disgusting
minuteness.*

This also explains how some smokers swallow
their saliva without being poisoned : if the bitter
principle and oil do not disagree with the stomach,
it is clear they run no risk whatever. For myself,
I never swallow the saliva immediately after
puffing; and if the cigar be strong, or nearly
burnt out, I invariably reject the fluid. If I am
right, Mr. Johnston is clearly wrong, therefore,
when he states that, " when the saliva is retained,
the fullest effect of all the three narcotic ingre-
dients of the smoke will be produced upon the
nervous svstem of the smoker." And his conclu-
sion from this erroneous position is equally, and
for the same reason, mistaken. He says, — •

* Schneller, * Geschichte der Menscheit,' i.24. Enumerating
the delicacies of all nations, he says, amongst the rest, that
die Kalmucken fresscn stinkendcs Aus imd die Nachjeburt von
Thieren ; and that die Jakuten verzehren Eaubthiere, und die
Nachgehu-t ihrer Weiher ist ihnen ein Leckerbissen, worauf
sie ihre Freunde einladen !

114 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

"It is not surprising, therefore, that those who have
heen accustomed to smoke cigars, especially of strong
tobacco, should find any other pipe both tame and tasteless
except the short black cutty, which has lately come into
favour again among inveterate smokers. Such persons
live in an almost constant state of narcotism or narcotic
drunkenness, wliich must ultimately affect the health even
of the strongest."

I believe that such smokers have a taste similar
to that of the Greeiilanders, and that it is the
relish of the bitter gum which gratifies them with
its peculiar flavour : it is probably analogous to
the hop in its properties, and may, in large quan-
tities, produce the habitual narcotism alleged to
exist — precisely like hops, which give their sopo-
rific quality to beer. Of course, if those persons
are habitual drinkers of strong liquors as well as
smokers, their state can scarcely be called '' nar-
cotic drunkenness" arising from tobacco. The
stimulus of alcohol and the stimulus of tobacco-
smoke exalt the action of the brain, and the
stimulus of both may be followed by a reaction,
which is drunkenness or the partial cessation of
the brain's function ; but I contend that the
habitual smoker would find it infinitely more
difficult to bring on that state by smoking than

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEI\r. 115

the habitual drunkard would by alcohol. Of
course, for the sake of the argument, I suppose
the habitual smoker to exceed the limits permitted
by his cerebral organisation. This is a point
which each individual must learn by experience
alone. Nihil nimis must be the motto and guide
of all who would enjoy their powers to the end.
If your horse can trot twenty miles per hour,
always keep him at ten, if you wish him to last;
and so in all things appertaining to human exer-
tion and enjoyment, keep below rather than at the
mark — let a little appetite always remain unsatis-
fied, if you would preserve your functional activity
to the utmost.

By the Turkish and Indian pipes, narguileh
and hookah, in which the smoke is made to pass
through perfumed water and a tube of great
length, it is thought that a large portion of the
poisonous vapours is arrested ; it may be so to
an extent proportionate to the length of the tube ;
but the latter I found just as rapidly fouled as
any others, even to the very tip of the mouth-
piece, with the disgusting and tarry oil before
mentioned.

I2

116 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY.

The fashionable meerschaum absorbs this tarry
oil, which gradually imparts to it a beautiful colour
of mahogany or rosewood ; but after a time,
when saturated, the fluid will ooze through the
pores of the clay and soil the fingers. China,
wood, bronze and other metals, are used in the
construction of pipes, whilst our common clay has
been fashioned into every imaginable device to
suit the fancy. Numerous contrivances have
been vaunted as perfectly adapted to convey only
the purest vapour of the weed to the timid olfac-
tory ; but I am compelled to say that they only
differ in complication and cost from the simple
suerofestion of nature to the savaGje.

Before treatins; of the effects of snuffin2j and
chewing on the human system, it will be neces-
sary to state the other constituents of tobacco,
as established by the chemist. It must be re-
membered, however, that the somewhat extensive
catalogue is confined to a very infinitesimal pro-
portion of the given quantity ; whilst pure water
constitutes by far the greater part of the whole
— as it does in the mass of all animals and in
plants. In 100 parts of dry tobacco, about 88

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTE^^:. 117

will be pure water, and the remaining 12 parts
will be occupied by nicotin and the other con-
stituents already described, together with the fol-
lowing mineral bases, acids mineral and organic,
other organic bodies, and other mineral bodies : —

{ Potash.
1 Lime.
Mineral J Magnesia,
bases. | Oxide of iron and
I of magnesia.
I, Ammonia.

Mineral
acids.

Nitric acid.
Hydrochloric acid.
Sulphuric acid.
Phosphoric acid.

( Malic acid.
I Citric acid.
Organic J Acetic acid,
acids. I Oxalic acid.
I Pectic acid,
i, Ulmic acid.

Other
organi(
bodies.

Yellow rosin.
Green rosin.
• , Wax or fat.
°^S^°^^ Nitrogenised
I matters,
i, Cellulose.

Other mineral bodies — silica and sand.*

Other chemists answer also for albumen and
gluten in tobacco : indeed, without the latter it
would not be adapted for rolling into cigars, or
cutting into the long shreds of pipe-tobacco.

It is evident from this list that the dainty
dish of " plug " within the sailor's jaw, has had
a very complicated cooking. Truly it is homceo-
pathically infinitesimal in its quantitative little
bits of this and little bits of that ; but still all

* Fremy et Pelouze, ' Traite de Chimie generale,' tom. iv
p. 422, ed. 1855.

118 tobacco: its history.

its enticements must depend upon the right dis-
tribution of parts — or, to borrow and adapt a
phrase from that veritable genius of the stomach
the immortal Soyer (who should have been
knighted for his Crimean exploits), " the in-
gredients are so nicely blended, and such a de-
lightful concord exists, that it equally delights the
palate " of those who like it, "as a masterpiece
of a Mozart or a Rossini should delight the ear."*
I confess this chewing of tobacco is to me in-
comprehensible ; and this only shows how we are
apt to find fault with those who " go the whole
hog," whilst we ourselves only put in a paw —
for between the tip of a cigar on the lips and a
plug in the jaw, there is only a matter of small
measurement. But, on the other hand, smokers
have all antiquity on their side. Fume of some
sort, from the earliest times, was an emblem of
supernal satisfaction ; and no sacrifice was other-
wise ever brought to a perfect consummation.
And not only in accordance with the religious
instincts and adaptations of man was the fume
of something burnt, in order to please, as he

♦ The Modern Housewife.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 119

believed, the god whom he worshipped ; but, as
a natural consequence, he also burnt it to please
himself — the next best object of his adoration.
The ancient Scythians used to cast bundles of
herbs into the fire, and then inhaled the fragrant
smoke ; the Thracians did the same with the
aromatic seeds of certain plants : and, according
to Herodotus, the Babylonians employed the
same means to produce and enjoy a transient
intoxication. But the analogue of the quid or
plug we seek in vain amidst the primitives of
earth in their early development.

And yet why should not the nerve gustatory
subserve to that great engine of animality, sensa-
tion, as well as the nerve olfactory ? Indeed, is
there another animal who has contrived so many
wonderful means of agitating, exciting, delight-
ing every sense whereby his brain is continually
shaken ? Is man content with seeing the natural
beauty of nature alone ? How came he then to in-
vent such incomprehensible combinations, begin-
ning perhaps with " Punch and Judy," and ending
— no — only further developing his ideas at the
gorgeous spectacle of the Princess's ? ... Is he
content with merely hearing the song of birds, the

120 . TOBACCO ; ITS HISTORY.

humming of the winds, the roar of the ocean 't
Did he not invent the bagpipes ? . . . And so,
throughout the catalogue of his senses, all is
tendency to expansion, exaggeration, — and then
a return, a retrogression to something which,
though buried in the bygone past of ages, he
will not " willingly let die," but reproduces to
enjoy again with new excitement. If this holds
good in his "educated" senses, possibly it i?
as certain in the rest ; and if, according to the
theory of development, man is but an advanced
mammal^ perhaps the chewing of tobacco is but
a " repetition " of the chewing of the cud in his
antecedent prototypes — the ruminants.

Certainly the gustatory of the chewer has
good reason to be excited. Wiiilst it escapes
the poisonous oil which is produced by the burn-
ing of the leaf (by the smoker), it has the full
swing of the natural volatile oil and the nicotin
to contend with. How the resultant of these
forces is simply an unspeakable gratification,,
without the penalty of poison, is a matter which
the doctors must not pretend to explain by say-
ing that, from the quantity of those substances-
which he involuntarily swallows or absorbs, his^

IXFLUEXCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 121

appetite must be impaired, and his digestive
powers gradually weakened. When we contem-
plate our hardy race of sailors, whether Enghsh
or American, and consider their robust frames
and vigorous appetite — when we reflect that a
tolerably good digestive faculty is sometimes, or
has been often, necessary to assimilate their
"daily bread" — you may tell them indeed that
they must be endowed with dura ilia — but if
you tell them they are poisoned by the quid
or the plug, they will tell you to " tell it to the
marines." Who can tell what resultant is pro-
duced in the mouth of the chewer by the free
mixtura cum liquido of all the constituents of the
tobacco and the constituents of saliva, and the
whole heterogeneous mass, potash, lime, magnesia^
iron-rust, &c. ; acid nitric, acid acetic, acid
citric, phosphoric, &c. ; rosin yellow, rosin green,
wax, or fat, nitrogenated matters, and cellulose,
with flint and sand — to all which add the natural
galvanism of the organ — who can tell, I say,
what resultant is produced by beneficent Nature
in the mouth of the chewer ? If we pause for a
reply, will the doctor's, will Mr. Solly's, shake of
the head, or letters in the ' Lancet/ answer the

122 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

question as truly, as scientifically, as theoretic-
ally, as practically, as the incontestable mental
and bodily vigour of the jolly tar, *' in shape and
gesture proudly eminent " ?

There is a point connected with this chev/ing
of tobacco which is somewhat noteworthy. The
wonderful dexterity acquired by man in the use
of his hands and eyes in taking deadly aim as a
sportsman or otherwise, however striking, is still
conceivable, as we can clearly see that his hands,
arms, and eyes, were adapted to the purpose ;
but the naturalists tell us of a little sporting fish
whose endowment is, if I may think so, still more
extraordinary. He rises near the surface of the
summer-sea, just where the flies or other insects
are vaulting in their mazy dance, and, taking his
aim, spits unerringly at a fly a small pellet of
water, and thus secures his prey. I know not
how w^e are to come at the comparative anatomy
of the matter, after the manner of Cams ; but
the Yankee chewer unquestionably "repeats"
the unerring " organ" of this sporting fish to
admiration. If practice makes perfect, great
must have been that practice which has given

IXFLUEXCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 123

the Yankee his art of expectoration. He can hit
anything, within range, at any angle, and vault
you a curve of any parabolism. He will lodge
his alkaline or acid pellets between each of the
bars of the grate, exactly in the centre, each in
succession, and begin again from the bottom.
He will fusilade each corner of the heated
stove, and leave at each corner the impress
of the hissing conical, and finish off with a
vertical shell plumb down upon the centre !
Never take a bet if a Yankee offers to wager
what he can do in the 'spital department ; but,
considering how few can do a " dirty thing" in a
handsome manner, we cannot deny our admira-
tion, in this particular, to the votaries of the
plug in America.

The Finlander removes his quid from time to
time and sticks it behind his ear, and then chews
it again ; but the Yankee keeps it in until ex-
hausted of all its juices, and then he " chaws"
another. It is said that some sleep with it in
their mouth : a negro in his sleep swallowed one
of these plugs, and soon awoke with vomiting,
frightful cries, and frantic gesticulation. He was

12-i? TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

bled, and, after a few doses of ether, perfectly
recovered.*

Nothing seems to prove more conclusively that
a very different procedure takes place in the
absorption of the virtues of tobacco by chewing,
to that which occurs on consigning them at once
to the mucous membrane of the stomach, than
the fact of the complete immunity of the sailor.
And yet there is evidence that the aroma at least
interpenetrates the tissues like salt in pork, or beef,
or fish. The following fact was communicated to
Commodore Wilkes, of the Exploring Expedi-
tion, by a savage of the Feejee Islands. He
stated that a vessel, the hull of which was still
lying on the beach, had come ashore in a storm,
and that all the crew had fallen into the hands
of the islanders.

"What did you do with them?" inquired
Wilkes.

" Killed 'em all," answered the savage.

" What did you do with them after you had
killed them ? "

*' Eat 'em — good," returned the cannibal.

Hygiene Navale, p. 736. Paris, 1856.

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 125

" Did you eat them all ? " asked the half-sick
commodore.

" Yes, we eat all but one."

" And why did you spare one ? "

" Because he taste too much like tobacco.
Couldn't eat him no how."

If the tobacco-chewer should happen to fall
into the hands of New Zealand savages, or get
shipwrecked somewhere in the Feejee group, he
will have the consolation of knowing that he will
not be cut into steaks and buried in the uncon-
secrated stomach of a cannibal, and thus find at
least one advantage in the use of tobacco.*

* London Journal. Dr. Pidduck, of the 'Lancet' con-
troversy, corroborates this curious phenomenon. I quote
verbatim: — "The extraordinary fact is this: that leeches
were killed instantly by the blood of the smokers, so sud-
denly that they dropped off dead immediately they were
applied ; and that fleas and bugs, whose bites on the children
were as thick as measles, rarely, if ever, attacked the
smoking parent. It may be said, ' But why may not this
poisonous effect upon leeches, fleas, and bugs, be owing to
gin, and not to tobacco ? ' The answer to this objection is,
that the Arabs and Bedouins, who drink neither wine nor
strong drink, are protected from the onslaught of the insects
which swarm in their tents by poisoning their blood with
tobacco, whilst the wine-drinking Europeans are attacked
without mercy. What is so fatal to insect life (sic) cannot
be otherwise than most formidable to the life of persons
whose blood is thus poisoned." (!) And the frantic doctor
avers that this "pathological fact cannot fail to settle the

126 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

SnufF-taking used to be formerly a charac-
teristic " practice" of the medical profession.
Indeed the gold snuffbox and gold-headed cane
were the peculiar emblems of the fashionable
leech. Mutantur tempora — it's quite a different
thing now-a-days. Now the emblem is a smart
equipage, yclept a " pill-box" — with tiger beside
or behind, dashing past with a well-appointed
cob, who knows his master. From the top of
the omnibus how we envy the fortunate indi-
vidual ! But we think of the sad vicissitudes of
poor human nature — ^its beautiful simplicity — its
wonderful generosity in making so " han'some "

a return for —

" shelves,
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Eemnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses ! "

The use of tobacco for snuff is referred to the
times of Catherine de Medicis : it was recom-

controversy to every reflective mind !" Think of a learned
M.D. considering our precious human organism on a par
with that of bugs, fleas, and even leeches ! Why, 'tis
monstrous ! The Philistine said unto David, " Am I a dog ?"
What would he have thought of Dr. Pidduck had he been
implicated by the latter in the idea of a bug or flea, or even
a leech ? Is the doctor no adept in the "theory of develop-
ment"?

INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 127

mended to Charles IX, , her son, for his chronic
headaches. Its efficacy consists in irritating the
pituitary membrane, and thus producing and
augmenting the secretion of mucus. The poet
Horace would have been much obliged to the
inventor had he been contemporaneous, for he
states that he would be " particularly well, were
it not for a troublesome rheum" — " prsecipue
sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est." Indeed
snuif-taking was evidently an original medical
prescription, and as such I must leave it entirely
to the doctors. Vix ea nostra voco. I grudge a
cigar to the man who " snuffs." The olfactory
cannot reasonably object to an ethereal vapour,
but to bury it alive in dust, to slake it with a
filthy liquor, perhaps compounded of sal-am-
moniac, yellow ochre, red lead, and other infernal
concoctions, is too hard to bear — even for a nerve
of the nose, condemned as it is, without the
possibility of defence spontaneous, to smell all
manner of rats, in all manner of shapes incidental
to the economy of man and universal nature.

And the sneezing which it produces may
cause the rupture of an aneurism, a cerebral

128 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

hemorrhage, and, according to Haller;, even
squinting.

The habit, when acquired, is safe from these
perils, for the susceptibihty of the mucous
membrane is deadened ; nevertheless the re-
peated stimulations of the membrane act upon
its structure, and ultimately thicken and harden
it throughout. The peculiar titillation which
snuff- takers enjoy can be procured only by aug-
menting the dose of snuff: their noses, their upper
lip, being continually rubbed, are hypertrophied,
as the doctors call it — that is, increased in dimen-
sions: the black mucosities which ooze from
their nostrils, the odour of their breath and of
their garments, often disgust us with their persons,
especially when old age and want of cleanliness
aggravate these inconveniences. Their sense of
smell is deteriorated and weakened by the ex-
haustion of excitability in the olfactory, which
finds it very difficult to perform its function
through the blackish mass of its carpet*

* Levy, * Traite d'Hygiene,' ii. 263. Paris, 1857.

MEDICINAL ACTION. 129

PART V.

MEDICINAL ACTION OF TOBACCO.

Very early, before 1589, the Cardinal Santa

Croce, returning from his nunciature in Spain

and Portugal to Italy, carried thither with him

tobacco. This circumstance is commemorated

by Castor Duranti in Latin verses, which lavish

the most egregious praises on this plant ; not

only it is asserted to cure every disease, but the

holy Cardinal's exploit in bringing tobacco is

actually compared with that of his progenitor

who brought home the veritable wood of the

Cross ! —

" Tlie names of Santa Croce rightly given,
Since they, in all respects resembling heaven,
Procure, as much as mortal man can do,
The welfare of our souls and bodies too."

Possibly the credulity of superstition in that
age eagerly embraced this notion, and ascribed
to the plant even the efficacy of a charm or

K

130 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

amulet. Certain it is, however, that in the course
of the following century tobacco waxed strong in
the popular belief as a panacea or cure for all
diseases. In the small work, ' De Herba Panacea,'
of zEgidius Everartus, we find enumerated all
the usual ailments of the body with their appor-
tioned dose of tobacco. The fair sex might find
in its juice a primitive Rowland's Kalydor —
faciei ruhorem tollit succus : it restored hearing
to the deaf, and sight to the blind. Headache,
toothache, colic, catarrh, worms, uterine neu-
ralgia, and haemorrhoids — in a word, all diseases
fled before it — nam illas omnino curat*

Whether its use as a medicine in those days
killed ultimately more than it cured — like so
many of its successors in the healing art — or that
it lacked the aid of endless advertisements,
doings on a large scale, fictitious testimonials,
and all the other paraphernalia of humbug — it is
impossible to say; but there is a fashion in
remedies, in doctors, in courtesans, in warriors,
in preachers, in eveiy thing that can appeal to

* De Herba Panaced, Auc. ^md. Everarto, Ant. 1C64.

MEDICINAL ACTIOX. 131

any thing in man physical or spiritual, — and
having hved its day, its hour comes : —

" But yesterday tlie word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world : now Hes he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence ! "

The fact is that the doctors could not manage
tobacco. Nicotiana proved refractory in their
hands. They knew its effects when internally
administered ; they had seen its vertigo — severe
nausea — vomiting — general tremor of the body —
cold sweats — syncope — death. Everything about
the remedy suggested caution ; the doctors used
it recklessly — used it as they use so many things
according to the books, — " try this " and " try
that," — and Death only knows what will be the
end of the trial ! Dr. Paris relates a case in
point. It was a case of strangulated hernia : —

" The patient had been under the care of a medical
practitioner in the vicinity of London, who, after repeated
and fruitless efforts to return the intestine, injected an
infusion of tobacco into the rectum, and sent him in a
carriage to the Westminster Hospital for the purpose of
undergoing the operation : but the unfortunate man expired
very shortly after his arrival, in consequence of the effects
of the tobacco clyster.

" It was a practice to inject the smoke of tobacco into

K 2

132 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

tlie anus, by means of a bellows of a peculiar construe tion,
in cases of suspended animation, with a view to stimulate
the rectum " .... " annually recommended for such pur-
poses by those who professed to instruct the profession and
the public upon these important topics ; this may lie con-
sidered one of the most stupendous errors that ever occurred
in the exercise of the medical art." *

Tobacco, as a remedy, died out by the disas-
trous deaths which it was made to inflict by the
ignorance of the faculty. If corrosive sublimate,
arsenic, opium, prussic acid, strychnine, aconite,
and other frightful poisons, can be made subser-
vient to the healing art by internal administra-
tion, so, by suitable management, in skilful
hands well acquainted with its properties, even
tobacco may become a useful assistant in some
diseases. True, in Dr. Pereira's ' Materia
Medica ' we find notices of such possible exhibi-
tions of tobacco ; but until the physician is accu-
rately acquainted with his remedy, and the
specific purposes to which it may be applied,
perhaps the public have reason to congratulate
themselves that tobacco is a dead letter in the
pharmacopoeia. For a certainty, in administering

* Dr. Paris, 'Medical Jurisprudence,' ii. 418 and

MEDICINAL ACTION. 133

tlieir doses, the doctors would not estimate our
bodies' capability of resistance by Dr. Pidduck's
scale of fleas and bugs. Fiat haustus or linctus
will not do with the pride of nicotiana. The
infinitesimal globules of Hahnemann will be
best adapted to a medicine which, given to the
blood in its normal activity, will shake, within
three minutes, all the nervous centres of the
body.

§ Is Tobacco a Peophylactic ?

In the Introduction I have put forth this opinion,
which has been doubted by the medical profes-
sion.* It is, nevertheless, a belief of the popular
mind; and, whether well founded or not, if it
only tends to quiet the mind during certain
■epidemics, beyond doubt it has an immense ad-
vantage. Certain mineral and vegetable sub-
stances have apparently operated as preservatives
against epidemic influences : the cholera, it is
said, spared the manufactories where animal
charcoal, sulphur, or mercury were manipulated ;

* Tereira, ' Mat. Med.'

134 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORr.

the town of Idria, near a mine of mercury, did
not present a single case.*

Dr. Stokes and others have noticed the disap-
pearance of intermittent fevers in the marshy
districts of Cornwall, after the establishment of
several copper-foundries which pour into the
atmosphere the vapours of arsenic ; and M.
Bayle has collected 2027 cases, of which 1948
prove the prophylactic efficacy of belladonna
against scarlatina.f

These are facts worthy of the attention of all
men. Time and observation will undoubtedly
disclose more of the broad available facts of na-
ture : it matters not if we cannot understand
their modus operandi; let us avail ourselves of
the blessing, and wait patiently for its explanation.

What influence has the manufacture of tobacco
on the health and diseases of the workmen ? On
one hand, Ramazzini, Fourcroy, Cadet-Gassi-
court, Tourtelle, Percy, Patissier, and Merat,
represent them meagi-e, discoloured, yellow,
asthmatic, &c. ; and the same opinion is recorded

* Delmas, 'Diet, de Medecine/ art. Cholera.
t Bibliotheque de Therapeutique, ii. 331.

MEDICINAL ACTIOX. 1 35

in the ' Dictlonnaire des Sciences Medicales/
quoted by Mr. Lizars in his pamphlet against
tobacco. On the other hand, Parent-Duchatelet
was induced by a rigorous inquiry to deny those
effects. According to the latter, the workmen
are acclimatised after a time, do not contract any
particular diseases, and live to a good age ; the
emanations of the tobacco do not inconvenience
them excepting at the time when the masses of
tobacco are broken down. The reports of the
physicians attached to the state-manufactories
seem to confirm this opinion. The official
document for the year 1842 declares — 1st,
that the workmen have suffered from no par-
ticular disease which can be attributed to
tobacco itself, but it might have aggravated in
the city of Paris bronchitis and cephalalgia, which
prevailed during the heats of summer ; 2nd, that
tobacco might have acted as a preservative
against certain diseases — typhus fever at Lyon,
dysentery at Morlaix, sweating-sickness at Ton-
neins; 3rd, that the employment in tobacco-
manufactures might perhaps be beneficial to per-
sons threatened" with pulmonary consumption,

136 TOBACCO; ITS HISTORY.

that it might preserve them from that disease,
and even cure those who might be already af-
fected. What are we to admit between such
opposite assertions and facts? asts Dr. Levy,
author of the ' Traite d'Hygiene Publique et
Privee,' " Consulting Physician " of the Emperor,
Inspector of the Board of Health of the Army,
&c., in the present year 1857. This author then
enumerates the various steps of the manufacture,
calling attention to the point when —

" a considerable quantity of gas is given off, "uhicli has
never yet been analj^sed, but which is supposed to be, from
its smell, that of ammonia, acetic acid, and probably
nicotin. These gases impregnate the air with an acrid
odour, and render it difficult to breathe at a certain stage

of the fermentation At the end of six months the

heat of the masses becomes stationary : then they proceed
to break down the masses, when a thick and fuming vapour
comes forth. This operation can only be performed by
robust and acclimatised workmen."

Other operations ensue, attended with great
rise of temperature ; the tobacco must be changed
from one place to another to prevent carbonisa-
tion ; —

" These transfers are the most painful and dangerous
labour of the workmen : they must remove a burning
powder, smelling of ammonia, and fill the sacks with it,

MEDICINAL ACTION. 137

breathing an infectious air, Avhich stings the eyes, irritates
the nostrils, and produces suffocation. This occurs three
times : in a subsequent stage the tobacco-dust flies about
like flour in a mill.

"Now the liabihty to injury from these various in-
fluences is in proportion to the conditions."

In other words, they increase in intensity until
they reach their maximum in the grinding of the
leaf to powder.

" We must distinguish the effects of tobacco into primi-
tive and consecutive: — 1st. The neighbourhood of a
tobacco-factory is known by a smell which increases as we
approach : in the interior we do not remark that continual
sneezing which Ramazzini mentions as evident even in
the horses ; but if we remain any time, we get headache,
we feel sick, and sometimes a diarrhoea comes on. The
latter, which is more frequent in the women, is salutary,
and seems to be a spontaneous eftort of nature to ehminate
certain substances which have penetrated the organism.
Many workmen cannot overcome these symptoms, and are
forced to give up the employment. Those who become
acclimatised forget their inconveniences. Careless of all
precaution, they eat in the factory without washing their
hands ; and as though the tobacco did not penetrate them
sufficiently, they smoke and chew tobacco. Meanwhile
the slow action of the tobacco, though imperceptible, does
not cease : it ultimately produces in them a deep change.
It consists, says M. Melier, in the peculiar alteration of
their complexion : it is not a simple loss of colour, an
ordinary paleness — it is a gray aspect somewhat dull — a
sort of compound of chlorosis and certain cachexias. Their

138 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

physiognomy is stamped "nnth a peculiarity which enables
a practised eye to recognise, to a certain extent, the old
stagers of the factory, for this look is confined to those
who have gone through all the works. M. Hurteaux
thinks that two years at least must elapse before it
appears : — it is then that the workman is acclimatised
completely. It is a slow intoxication, owing to the absorp-
tion of certain constituents of the tobacco. M. Boudet
did not find nicotin in the blood of these cachetic work-
men ; but their blood in inflammation is not buffy : they
are subject to passive congestions. It is rarely useful to
bleed them : it is moreover probable that they discharge a
part of the absorbed nicotin by their urine, which is
abundant, notwithstanding their habitual perspiration. In
fine, M. Stoltz, whilst engaged in the delivery of a work-
woman in the factory at Strasbourg, recognised the smell
of tobacco in the water of the amnios, without being
aware of the previous occupation of the woman. The
progress of the cachexia is shoA^^l by their becoming lean
and losing their strength, especiall}'- those engaged in the
more laborious departments. . . . We have no data as to
their longevity. My friend, le docteur Maurice Euef,
mentions, in a population of 123 individuals, 5 old men
above 72 years of age, 4 of whom have worked all their
lives in the factory at Strasbourg. The ameliorations
made in their condition consist in the ventilation of the
workshops, chimneys, the use of steam-engines, watering
the place with vinegar and water, as recommended by
Eamazzini and found useful by M. Hurteaux." *

"Does the tobacco-factory preserve its inmates from
certain diseases, or cure them when ill ? The workmen,
when attacked with rheumatism, neuralgia, lumbago, lie

Levy, ubi s'lpru.

MEDICINAL ACTION. 139

down upon a heap of tobacco, and wake up cured or
relieved. Dr. Berthelot uses with suceess in those diseases
a cataplasm of linseed in a strong decoction of tobacco.
Keveille' Parise has proved the efficacy of tobacco in gout.
Pointe, Merat, and Delens consider tobacco a prophylactic
against intermittent fevers. At Paris these diseases are
rare or mild ; at Strasbourg M. Ruef observed that species
of fever amongst his workmen. We have mentioned its
reputed j^reservative action against the sweating-sickness,
typhus, and dysentery. M. Gasc has noticed the rarity of
the itch and vermin amongst the workmen who manufac-
ture tobacco. Five of the ten physicians attached to the
State-manufactories concur in the opinion that pulmonary
consumption is rare amongst the workmen, and that its
course is less rapid in those who bring with them the
developed germ of the malady : two of them deny the
immunity ; three do not mention it. M. Euef is positive
on the subject — whilst 'other facts confirm the contrary.
In no case was consumption shown to have been stopped
or cured ; at least the facts i^roduced hitherto are wanting
in scientific rigidity. This point remains to be cleared
up : the government has it in view." *

Mr. Dodd, in his 'Manufactures of Great
Britain,' makes no allusion to any inconvenience

* Levy, vbi supra. I remember seeing in the papers the
notice of an observation made at the time, that not a single
case of Asiatic cholera occurred in the houses of the tobacco-
nists. This refers to the first visitation. Mr. Lizars, in his
brochure, thinks smokers and snuff-takers especially liable to
that disease, I regret that the impression left on my mind
after reading his tract compels me to withhold belief from
any of his assertions whatever.

140 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

as to the health of the workmen in the factories
at Mitcham in Surrey. I have stated, however,
that the English process is much shorter than
that of the French. The cigar-makers complain
of the constant sitting being injurious to their
back and loins. I have seen some of them : they
did not appear to differ in look from the general
run of in-door workmen. In truth, there are
many worse avocations, on the score of health,
in the metropolis and elsewhere. Painful as is
the thought so constantly forced upon the mind that
thousands on all sides must suffer for the support,
comfort, convenience, and luxury of the few, yet
it is nevertheless incontestable that there is no
condition of man without its burthen — and, as a
general rule, those feel it most who have least
reason to complain. And some there are who
sing their bitter toils away.

There is something peculiarly touching in the
following brief sketch by Bryant, in his * Letters
of a Traveller,' relating to his visit to a tobacco-
factory in America : —

" As we entered the room we heard a miinnur of
psalmody running through the sable assembly, which

MEDICINAL ACTION. 141

now and then swelled into a strain of very tolerable
music.

* Verse sweetens toil,'

says the stanza which Dr. Johnson was so fond of quot-
ing ; and really it is so good that I will transcribe the
whole of it : —

* Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound :
All at her work the village maiden sings ;
Kor, while she turns the giddy wheel around,
Eevolves the sad vicissitude of things.'

Verse, it seems, can sweeten the toil of slaves in a tobacco-
factory.

" ' We encourage their singing as much as we can,' said
the brother of the proprietor, himself a diligent masticater
of the weed, who attended us, and politely explained to us
the process of making plug-tobacco — ' we encourage it as
much as we can, for the boys work better while singing.
Sometimes they will sing all day long with great spirit ;
at other times you will not hear a single note. They
must sing wholly of their own accord ; it is of no use to
bid them to do it.' "

§ Is Smoking Injurious to Health and
Morals ?

If the reader has perused the voluminous cor-
respondence in the * Lancet,' during the last six
weeks, relating to this question, he is aware that
its whole purpose is to attribute almost every
disease to the use of tobacco. Diseases of the
heart, of the brain, of the spine, chest, lungs, of

142 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY.

every organ of the body, we are told, menace the
habitual smoker with premature decay or death ;
and we are given to understand that, unless we
give up smoking, Dr. Solly, at least, will not
report favourably upon us to the Victoria and
Crown Insurance Offices ! The mere threat of
premature decay by various diseases and death
might pass ; but it seems the height of impro-
priety for a medical man to lend himself to in-
surance companies to enable them to screw higher
premiums from the insured, which must be the
result, however conscientious (though misguided)
may be Mr. Solly's opinions.

If the various positions of Mr. Solly and his
friends of the ' Lancet ' were well founded, it
would follow that every third man at least of our
population must have been suffering from all
manner of diseases for the last two centuries —
since the consumption of tobacco has kept pace
with the increase of population ; nay, it also
follows that, instead of increasing in population
at a great ratio, as proved beyond a doubt, we
have been suffering from sterility ! And this in
the face of the well-known fact that the popula-

MEDICINAL ACTION. 143

tion increased last year at tlie rate of one thou-
sand per day. And insanity, too, is ascribed to
tobacco — whilst it is well known that the female
lunatics exceed the male by a considerable number.
In short, nothing but the most glaring improbabi-
lities are adduced, and the assertions are such as
Mr. Solly may make when he pleases to his pupils
without fear of contradiction. I cannot but look
upon the whole excitement as an exhibition of ill-
conditioned prejudices — from whatever motive
proceeding I know not ; — but if Mr. Solly gave
up smoking, as he says, because he believed that
it impaired his nervous energy, I am sorry to feel
compelled to say that his letters in the ' Lancet '
evince very considerable nervous weakness — in-
deed, such a weakness as would believe implicitly
in the existence of witches and hobgoblins.*

* In the presence of the following facts, it is indeed
wonderful that Solly and his ilk should think it worth their*
vrhile to seek in tobacco a cause of "insanity" or "mania."

" It has been calculated that drunkenness in England kills
annually 50,000 men. One-half of the insane, two-thirds of
the poor, three-fourths of the criminals of this country are
amongst the persons given to drink. It has been proved
that the four principal retailers of spirit in London receive
each week 142,458 men, 108,598 women, 18,391 youths,
giving a total of 269,447." — Dr. Levy, Hyfjienc, ii. 720.

] 44 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

I shall therefore not waste space and time in
noticing in detail the numerous puerilities of the
* Lancet' correspondence ; but endeavour to lay
before the reader such observations and opinions of
men better informed and less prejudiced, as may
enable any man to come to a right conclusion
on the subject. Between the use and the abuse
of tobacco there is at least a difference, if not a
gulf or ocean : — for I am free to admit that
there may be many who abuse tobacco — as there
are many who abuse all the other gifts of nature ;
but, for my part, I cannot but think that it
would be better for men of office and position to
shrink in obscurity than to come forward to re-
form the universe without fact, reason, or even pre-
judice, to recommend them to a patient hearing.

Smoking, as to what may be use or abuse, is
entirely a matter of idiosyncracy of constitution.
Thus, we are told that there are cases on record
of persons killing themselves by smoking seven-
teen or eighteen pipes at a sitting. It is possible ;
it may be probable ; but the same result might
have arisen from eating of as many dishes. And
how comes it that I am at this moment thinking,

MEDICINAL ACTION. 145

writing, and smoking indefatigably, whereas I
have been thus engaged since three o'clock this
morning, the hour being now four o'clock p.m. ?
Thirteen hours' thinking fixedly, composing,
transcribing, translating, and smoking all the
while ; and add to this another item, that I had
been writing until midnight, when I retired for
the repose of three short hours. This may be
called abuse — but I know it not to be so in my
case — as ray constitution is capable of greater
endurance.

" Witli some constitutions smoking never agrees, but
both Dr. Pereira, and Dr. Christison in his ' Treatise on
Poisons,' agree that ' no well-ascertained ill effects have
been shown to result from the habitual practice of
smoking.' Dr. Prout, an excellent chemist and a phy-
sician of extensive medical experience, whom all his scien-
tific contemporaries held in much esteem, was of a different
opinion. But even he expresses himself obscurely as to
its being generally deleterious when moderately indulged
in. I give Dr. Prout's own words : — * Tobacco disorders
the assimilating functions in general, but particularly,%s
I believe, the assimilation of the saccharine principle.
Some poisonous principle, probably of an acid nature, is
generated in certain individuals by its abuse, as is evident
from their cachetic looks, and from tlie dark and often
greenish-yellow tint of the blood. The severe and peculiar
dyspeptic symptoms sometimes produced by inveterate
snuff-taking are well known, and I have more than once

146 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

seen siicli cases terminate fatally with malignant disease
of the stomach and liver. Great smokers also, especially
those who employ short pipes and cigars, are said to be
liable to cancerous affections of the lips. Bnt it happens
with tobacco as with deleterious articles of diet, — the
strong and healthy suffer comparatively little, while the
weak and predisposed to disease fall victims to its poi-
sonous operations. Surely, if the dictates of reason were
allowed to prevail, an article so injurious to the health,
and so offensive in all its modes of enjoyment, would
speedily be banished.'

" Yet reason is not so certainly on Dr. Front's side, for
Locke says, — ' Bread or tobacco may be neglected, but
reason at first recommends their trial, and custom makes
them j)leasant.' " *

AVhether Lord Bacon was a smoker I know
not, but he says of tobacco, " no doubt it hath
power to lighten the body and to shake off un-
easiness."!

Warburton, one of the greatest thinkers of
any age, was a most inveterate smoker. So
was Sir Isaac Newton.

J have been assured by competent persons that
the oldest inhabitants of every town in England
are smokers.

* Johnston, * Chemistry of Common Life.'
t Hist. Vitse et Mortis. He thought it hyoscyami quoddam
genus — the botanical opinion of the age.

MEDICINAL ACTION. 147

Cancer on the lip has been ascribed to the
habit of smoking ; but it should be remembered
that Sir A. Cooper attributes most of the cases
of cancer of the lip that fell under his care to
the use of the tobacco-pipes^ from the adhesive
nature of the clay with which they are made !
The part of the pipe which rests upon the lip
should therefore have a wax or ivory coating.*
I may be permitted to be very doubtful of the
alleged cause altogether. It seems to have
been suggested by the fact that Hp-cancer pre-
dominates greatly in men ; but if it occurs at all
in women, or in men who do not smoke, perhaps
we are justified in requiring more scientific con-
nection between cause and effect than appears in
the circumstances. When I smoked a pipe ray
lips, tongue, and mouth were frequently ex-
coriated, and I have known others in the same
condition, but a single night's rest was suffici^t
to repair the damage.

Sugar and water or a few lumps of sugar

Jennings, ' Treatise on Tobaaco' p. 64 : —
"Her blubber'd lip by smutty pipes is icom."

— Gay, Shepherdts Week.

L 2

148 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

alone I have constantly taken the last thing at
night; and I recommend to all who may, at
any time, fancy that they have smoked too much,
camphorated spirits of wine — two or three drops
in a table-spoonful of water. Camphor is alleged
to be an antidote to tobacco.

According to Dr. Laycock, some smokers ex-
perience in the morning, at waking, heat, redness,
tears in the eyes, spasm of the orbicular muscle
of the eyelids, with photophobia : if so, it is high
time to discontinue a pleasure at the cost of
positive pain.

Good smokers rarely lose much saliva ; but
in others the loss may be extensive enough to
impair digestion and compromise nutrition ; the
swallowing of the bitter principle mixed with the
saliva may, in certain cases, irritate the stomach,
as I have stated. Percy, who exaggerated the
morbid liability of smokers, ascribed to smoking
squirrhous induration and cancer of the stomach.
In reading all these allec;ations and those in the
' Lancet,' perhaps the reader will ask himself how
it happens that in the minute account of the
workmen in the French factories — under the

MEDICINAL ACTION. 149

worst possible circumstances — not a single case
of any of the alleged diseases is given !

Mr. Solly speaks of the fauces of the smoker
being like a piece of dirty red velvet. A gentle-
man who told me he had smoked from his
thirteenth year — enjoying perfect health and
looking perfectly well — to whom I mentioned
Mr. Solly's reproduction of Laycock's venous
injection hypothesis, assured me that, not feeling
well a few weeks ago, he went to an eminent
physician, who on looking into his fauces said
they looked like a piece o^ parchment ! and that he
could not account for it, unless it was caused by
smoking. Between the red velvet and the white
parchment where will the insurance offices re-
quire a sign ?

" Evident iDflammatiou of the stomach is only an ex-
treme case," says Dr. Le'vy, in his important work before
quoted. " A Utile smoke is absorbed, especially by the
lungs, and its narcotic action adds to the beatitude of old
smokers. Is it true that they lose their appetite ? By
no means, — but the cigar cheats hunger as any other
diversion would do, and perhaps also by allaying visceral
sensibility.

" The abuse of tobacco directly affects the larynx, the
trachoma, and the lungs ; tlie voice becomes hoarse and
more base ; a slight cough supervenes. Mr. Laycock

150 tobacco: its history.

mentions cases of inflammation and ulceration of the
larynx. The action of the heart is depressed, and with
certain outrageous smokers its pulsations are more feeble
and slightly irregular, the rapidity of the cerebral action
and the free flow of ideas seem slackened, and it is this
nervous depression which gives to tobacco the epithet of
soother and consoler.

" Desperate smokers are pale and livid ; their teeth are
black ; their lips blue ; their hands tremble ; their muscles
are without vigour ; they are bereft of energy and decision.
The mucous membrane of the mouth becomes vascular,
swollen ; irritation sets in with hemorrhage. This explains
in a degree tbe great number of bleeding stomatitis
common among military men.

" Now, if we weigh without prejudice the advantages
and inconveniences of tobacco, we shall find that both
have been somewhat exaggerated. It is not a digestive
agent ; it does not prevent scurvy, nor does it produce it,
&c. It does not besot smokers and chewers ; it does not
emaciate them by the loss of saliva, &c. ; it does not soil
the angles of the lips with a black foam, excepting amongst
those gluttons who, instead of being satisfied with a simple
plug, fill their mouths with tobacco intended for the pipe.

" When it is accused of brutalizing its votaries, its
effects are confounded with those of drunkenness and gross
intemperance (crapule).

" Doubtless in the atmosphere of smoking-rooms, where
the Flemings spend several hours given up to the absorp-
tion of the molecules of nicotiana which act on their
nervous system, their hopped ale adds to the slight nar-
cotism which they acquire every day ; and this double
influence, being renewed every day, ends with dimming
their understanding, benumbs their sensations, &c. ; but
the use of the cigar, the pipe, or the plug in the open air

MEDICINAL ACTION. 151

Is exempt from these consequences, if not carried to
excess.

" In truth, the introduction of tobacco amongst nations
is a strange fact. Whilst civilisation advances so slowly,
a fetid herb has con(j[iiered the world in less than two
centuries.

" This extension, so rapid, still continuing in France
(since its branch of the revenue is constantly increasing),
proves that it appeals to the very depths of human nature,
— qu'elle inte'resse le fond de la nature humaine.

" Does tobacco only satisfy a fashion, a caprice, an in-
veterate habit — that substance which the workmen, the
poorest of the land, will get, at the cost of other privations,
with the pence which they gain by the sweat of their
brow ? . . .

" Or, in spite of so many observations to the contrary,
to which those of Laycock, Wright, and Guerard must
now be added, shall we believe, with Knapp, that it
exerts a useful influence on the human body and its
fmictions ? *

" Tobacco responds to that imperious craving after
sensation, excitement, with which man is tormented, and
which he seeks to satisfy by feeding gross appetites, for
want of the more delicate impressions which he finds in
the bosom of a society of which he is actually deprived.
The savage of America, the soldier in his bivouac, the
sailor on the deep, the effeminate inhabitant of tropical
regions who dreads to think under the whelming
weight of the burning climate, the idler of our towns, the
Turk enervated by the premature exercise of the repro-
ductive function, and sunk in the double inertia of

* Knapp, ' Die Nahrungs-mittel in ihrem chemischen und
technischen Beziehungeu,' p. 101.

152 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

fatalism and despotism, make use of tobacco as our dandies
use the ball-room and theatres, as the poet sips coffee, as
the savant gives lectures, — all resolves itself into that
grand engine of animality — sensation.*

*' Amongst smokers, some relish the immediate im-
pression, and enjoy it instinctively, hke the very air they
breathe.

" Others meditate their sensations. They find in them
a source of contentment which lifts them up to the hope
or remembrance of bliss. f The periodic action of em-
bracing the cigar with their lips, and expiring its vapour
in puffs, rocks their minds to rest.

" Thus tobacco rises to the rank of a moral modi/leaf or.
And then we must appreciate it — no longer in accordance
with its chemical constituents or the principles of physi-
ology, but in the light of moral reactions, which play so
important a part in human hygeine. Wretches who have
not eaten bread for a long time beg alms to buy tobacco.
A sailor deprived of his plug for three days puts into his
moiith a ball of tarred oakum, and thanks with tears in
his eyes the surgeon who shares wdth him a bit of his
tobacco.

* Forget, * Medecine Naval e,' i. 293.

t Les autres refle'ehissent leurs sensations, y puisent un
bien-etre qui les porte a I'esp^rance ou aux reminiscences de
bonheur. The reader will perhaps remember the account
•which I have given of my own sensations whilst smoking,
and will perceive that Dr. Levy has precisely described them ;
and I feel great delight in the coincidence. It shows how
we all are classed in relation to certain types of humanity ;
it is the irresistible impulse by which we are adapted for the
social compact.

It may be proper to state, that the former part of my book
was wi'itten several days before I procured this most interest-
ing work of Dr. Ldvy.

A MORAL MODIFICATOR. 153

" If this plant has its drawbacks, it has, therefore, its
sweets also. To many a man it is the remedy of that
disease of civiUsation which we call eimui.

*' Even the very illusions and the erroneous ideas that
men entertain concerning it deserve to be respected by
the physician. One man attributes to tobacco the facility
of his intellectual labour ; another cannot digest his food
without smoking. Oh, you may smile ! But consider.
The craving for tobacco is the last appetite which leaves
those who are in a state of disease, and who have been
accustomed to tobacco under one form or another ; the
renewal of that appetite is a favourable prognostic of
recovery.*

" What we must blame and proscribe is the abuse —

* This striking illustration thus suggested to the medical
profession is in wonderful contrast with the sapient obser-
vation of Mr. Lizars, who says, — " A remarkable change
occurs to the excessive smoker when he labours under in-
fluenza or fever, as he then not only loses all relish for the
cigar or pipe, but even actually loathes them. Does not
this important fact satisfactorily show that the furor tabaci
depends on the morbid condition produced on the salivary
secretion and organ of taste by the deleterious drug, and at
the same time illustrate the pathological law that two morbid
states seldom or never co-exist in the same individual ? The
sudden removal of all desire to smoke affords the best refu-
tation to the delusive repi*esentation which the unhappy
tobacco victim urges for continuing," &c. So, by parity of
reason, the very common loathing for the most favourite
and wholesome food on those occasions, shows that natural
hunger depends upon the morbid condition produced on the
salivary secretion and organ of taste by the deleterious food,
&c. ! And this writer actually assumes the motto, " Quera
Deus vult perdere prius dementat." Nothing could be more
appropriate.

154 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY.

the precocious use of tobacco ; for, after all, that substance
has no hygeinic value in itself ; on the contrary, it is a
poison.

" Its influence must be necessarily injurious on youth,
on the young apprentice of the trades, on the students of
colleges, who cultivate the pipe and cigar as signs of man-
hood and emancipation. It depraves their appetites ; it
may compromise their development.

" The habit of almost incessant smoking in the East,
where the pipe is the prelude of all official acts, of all con-
versations, of all social relations, is detestable and bnital-
ising. The Oriental seizes his pipe in the morning, and
never quits it until he goes to bed. A special functionary
— the pipe-bearer — is an appendage of all officials. In
families of respectability the care of the pipes is the exclu-
sive attribute of one or many servants who occupy the
higher grade of the domestic establishment. It is in the
East and in the taverns of Flanders that we behold the
stupifying effects, the intellectual and moral degradation
which result from the combined use of beer, tobacco, and
the harems. There is no family there. The inert enjoy-
ments of the smoking-rooms take the place of the family
and cause the abandonment of the household hearth. The
excessive use of tobacco enervates the intellect, plunges it
into vagueness, blunts perception, weakens the memory.
Smoking is, at least, a mode of cerebral idleness, which,
by constant repetition and long continuance, ends in ren-
dering the mind unfit for anything, in the irremediable
torpor of the mental faculties.

" Amongst Europeans, excess in smoking almost always
accompanies excess in the use of alcoholic drinks. Then
Asiatic torpor alternates with the violence and brutality of
the English prizefighter.

" In the East smoking is an obstacle to the regular

A MORAL MODIFICATOR. 155

activity of men, to civilisation, and, above all, to the de-
spatch of public business, the important organization of
government." *

This debased condition of man, so eloquently
described by Dr. Levy, is very shocking. The
mere vice of alcoholic intemperance has become
an object of abhorrence to the advanced mind of
Europe. But it is necessary that we should look
at all things in every possible aspect, if we wish
to obtain right honest conclusions.

The ancients were certainly more indulgent to
the vice of intemperance : at all events they have
not much abused it. Many of their philosophers
speak of it very complacently. Even the Stoics
advised intoxication for the good of the soul : —

" Hoc quoque virtutum quondam certamine magnum
Socratem palmam promeruisse ferunt."

That censor and corrector of public morals,
Cato, was himself unable to resist the soft im-
peachments of alcohol : —

" Narratur et prisci Catonis
Ssepe mere caluisse virtus." t

* Levy, ' Traite d'Hygiene,' ii. 264 et seq.

* See Montaigne, liv. II. c. ii., Be VYvrognerie.

156 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

In the Scriptures we find the fact itself pro-
minently put forward — the praise of alcohol as a
comfort to the heart of man incidentally noticed
— its remedial efficacy recorded in the matter
of the stomach.

Tliat alcohol has its uses in the human eco-
nomy I have endeavoured to show in a previous
page ; but I may appeal at once to the practice
of all nations, in all times, from Noah to the
present, for proof positive that alcohol has also
been a social modificatory and, as such, well worthy
of calm philosophical and medical consideration.
Its abuse relates to morals and the innate dignity
of man.

It may be the same with regard to tobacco.
Dr. Levy, just quoted, says that tobacco has
nothing hygeinic — health-preserving — in it ; but
it is, rather, toxical — poisonous. Alcohol was long
in the same category, until rescued from the dis-
grace by Liebig, with whose views respecting the
respiratory function of alcohol Dr. Levy agrees ;
but it was long before an admitted social modi-
ficator. . Tobacco is clearly now in this category :
the time may come when some future Liebig

A MORAL MODIFICATOR. 157

shall discover in it a hygeinic, health-preserving
principle.

Should such a thing come to pass, the hrntali-
ties of the Turkish and Flemish smokers will
stand on a par with the brutalities of all drunkards
in all ages ; and some captious and irreverent
mind may wonder why nature does not at once
disclose her objects, instead of permitting man to
knock his head to pieces before he can discover,
to his perfect satisfaction, that he cannot do with-
out it.

By way of colophon to this argument concern-
ing the abuse of tobacco, the words of old melan-
choly Burton are very apposite : —

" Tobacco — divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which
goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philo-
sopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases ! A
good vomit, I confess — a virtuous herb — if it be well
qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used ; but,
as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as
tinkers take all, 't is a plague, a miscliief, a violent purger
of goods, lands, health — hellish, devilish, and damned
tobacco, the rain and overthrow of bodv and soul." *

* Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton wi'ote when tobacco
was in the very acme of its influence. Indeed it seems
absurd to talk of the abuse of tobacco at the present day,

158 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY.

The moral influence of tobacco is not a light
matter. That principle within it which imparts
electric action to the brain, and therefore to the
whole system by the nerves, must necessarily be
a moral agent for good or evil.

That wise monarch James L, who, gude mon,
was hardly quarrelsome on any subject but to-
bacco, to which he had a mortal hatred, as we
have seen, used to say, in his hours of relaxation,
that this plant was

" the lively image and pattern of hell ; for that it had, by
allusion, in it all the parts and vices of this world whereby
hell may be gained, to wit, — 1st, it was a smoke — so are
the vanities of this world ; 2ndly, it delights those who
take it — so do the pleasures of the world make men loth
to leave them ; 3rdly, it maketh men drunken and light
in the head — so doth the vanity of the world — men are
drunken therewith ; 4thly, he that taketh tobacco saith
he cannot leave it, it heiuitcheth him — even so the plea-
sures of the world make men loth to leave them, they
are so enchanted for the most part with them ; and
further, besides all this, 5thly, it is hke hell in the very

when we know what it was in past times — a raging fashion
prevalent in places whence it is now most rigorously ex-
cluded, and adopted for the most part with personal views,
which no longer influence the public mind. If the calcula-
tion could be made, it would be found that there are fewer
smokers in England now— in proportion to the increased
population — than there were fifty years ago.

A MORAL MODIFICATOR. 159

substance of it, for it is a stinking, loathsome tiling, and
so is hell. Were I to invite the devil to dinner, he should
have three dishes, — 1st, a pig ; 2iidly, a pole of ling and
mustard ; 3rdly, a pipe of tobacco for digesture." *

Compared with the royal author's * Counter-
blaste,' this is tender mercy, observes an anony-
mous medical writer; but I may add, "all
joking apart," that I have been little understood
in a previous part of this Treatise if my opinion
concerning the moral action of tobacco be not
apparent : — •

'' That sedate, sober, and capable men smoke tobacco
almost incessantly," observes the same anonymous physi-
cian, " must be known to many persons, neither do their
mental or physical powers suffer by it. The drunkard
smokes, but his pipe is a mere appendage to his pot.
Observation leads to a conclusion that there are more
sober than drunken smokers." f

And some men, whether drunkards or not,
reckless or 'sedate, cannot smoke at all, try they
never so wisely.

* Apophthegms, &c., 12mo, 1671.

t See a paper signed " Medicus " in vol. xxiv. of ' The
London Medical and Physical Journal,' p. 445. The medical
reader will find this article recommended by Dr. Paris
(Pharmacologia, p. 81). The other work, ' Essay on Tobacco,'
by H. W, Cltdand, M.D., I was unable to procure, even at
the library of the British Museum^

160 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

There must be then a constitutional peculiarity
—a certain nervous system — a particular brain,
for which tobacco is intended. How important
must be, therefore, the results of smoking to the
individual and to society, as a moral agent for
good or for evil, if nature has thought proper to
give the faculty to some and to deny it to others,
whilst it confessedly acts energetically on the
very masterpiece of her developments !

Curious facts on this point are matters of com-
mon observation. These must ultimately tend
to elucidate and explain the mysteries of this
wonderful modificator in all its aspects.

' In North America," observes Mr. Johnston, "the
effects which tobacco produces, divide, physiologically,
entire regions from each other. The States of intellectual
New England and New York, for example, taken as a whole,
appear to dislike the use of tobacco ; at least there is a
very large, thinking, and conscientious body of men in
those States who are exerting themselves to repress and
suppress the use of the weed, and who even desire a
legislative enactment to prevent it.

*' The Western and Southern States, on the other hand,
largely, and almost universally, indulge in tobacco ; and
one cannot travel from New York towards those States
without coming in contact with the practices of smoking
and chewing in their most offensive forms.

"In the one region the mass of thoughtful and religious

MORAL INFLUENCE. 161

men condemn the use of tobacco, chiefly, I believe, on
moral grounds ; in the other region, a vast majority of the
mind, as well as almost universal practice, uphold and
maintain it.

" In Russia, the Starovierze, or ' Old Believers,' a very
moral sect of dissenters from the Greek Church, look with
horror on the use of tobacco.

" These are very interesting physiological facts, w^ll
worthy of calm study on the part of those whose feelings
wall permit them to look at the matter coolly, and whose
minds are capacious enough to take in and balance con-
tradictory opinions and testimony. Climate gradually
affects constitution and temperament. It has so affected,
I believe, but in different ways, the two regions of Xorth
America to which I have referred.

" Upon constitutions and temperaments so diversely
altered, the constituents of tobacco act differently ; and
thus the broadest assertions, both of the abusers and the
defenders of tobacco in the several regions, may be strictly
true, though decidedly opposed to each other, and entirely
contradictory. There is much Avisdom in the Irish form
of equivocal assent to a doubtful assertion : ' True for
you^ — meaning, 'with my knowledge you would think
differently.'

*' Again, in New England it is alleged as a strong
moral argument against the use of tobacco, that it pro-
vokes thirst, and leads almost necessarily to excess in
drinking, to frequent intoxication, and to all the evils
which flow from it. This, which is sometimes alleged
at home, and often with truth, is singularly at variance
with its reputed effects among the Asiatic nations.
Mr. Lane, the translator of ' llie Arabian Nights,' says,
that, ' being in a slight degree exhilarating, and at the
same time soothing, and unattended by the injurious

M

162 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

effects wliicli proceed from Avine, it is a sufficient luxury
to many who without it would have recourse to intoxicat-
irig beverages, merely to pass away hours of idleness.'
Mr. Layard, whose intercourse with Eastern nations has
been most extensive, entertains the same opinion ; while
Mr. Crawford, who has also seen much of Eastern life,
thinks it can hardly be doubted that tobacco must, to a
certain extent, bave contributed to the sobriety both of
Asiatic and European nations.*

" These opposite facts form another interesting phy-
siological study. In North America the smoking of
tobacco provokes to alcoholic dissipation ; in Asia it re-
strains the use of intoxicating drinks, and takes their place.
How complicated are the causes out of whicb these dif-

* Journal of the Statistical Society, March 1853, p. 52.
The Dr. Pidduck before quoted in notis reproduces one of
Mr. Lizars's hobgoblins — enervation of the reproductive
organs. He asks, " How is it, then, that the Eastern nations
have not ere this become exterminated by a practice which
is almost universal ? The reply is, that by early marriage,
hefore the habit is fully formed, or its injurious effects decidedly
developed, the evil to the offspring is prevented," &c. Now,
in reply to this reply of the doctor, he is informed that in
India all classes and both sexes smoke — ^where infanticide
feeds the sharks of the Ganges — and yet population is exube-
rant. The Burmese of all ranks, of both sexes and of all
ages, down even to infants of three years old, smoke cigars,
according to Crawford. In China, again, a country of re-
dundant population, the practice is so universal, that every
female, from the age of eight or nine, wears, as an appendage
to her dress, a small silken pocket to hold tobacco and a
pipe. See Johnston's ' Chemistry of Common Life,' No. vii.
p. 9. Are these facts compatible with the doctor's reply,
that *' by early marriage," &c.

MORAL INFLUENCE. 163

ferent effects spring ! Climate, temperament, bodily con-
stitution, habits, and institutions, act and react upon each
other ; and according to the peculiar result of all these
actions in this or that country, the same narcotic substance
produces upon the mass of the people a salutary, a harm-
less, or a baneful effect ! " *

And clearly " the bodily constitution, habits,
and institutions of each country" have preceded
the use of tobacco. The use of tobacco may
enable individuals to live in comfort amidst that
state of things included in the words "habits and
institutions of each country;" but tobacco has
not formed them — it cannot form them. The
Spaniard became a smoker just in time to enable
him to bear patiently and proudly the downfall,
the ruin, of his country — degraded by its igno'
ranee, fanaticism, despotism, and its utter want
of adaptation to a new order of events in the
advance of human destiny. The same may be
said of the Turk and other eastern nations — -
according to our notions, still more degraded.
However curious may be the investigation of the

* Johnston, ubi supra.

M 2

164 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

national peculiarities which distinguish the most
inveterate consumers of tobacco, we must guard
ourselves from the fallacy of substituting the
effect for the cause. Individual life must always
be the starting-point from which we must infer
the life (►f nations. If a man has household
affliction of some sort — a " skeleton in the family"
— and " takes to drink," — did the drink cause the
affliction, or make his skeleton ? In truth, if the
battle of life be to man continuous and deter-
mined in his physical economy, it is not less so
in his mind — hopes, fears, troubles, and anxieties.
These he strives to resist, to fight, to overcome
any how, in his desperation. You may quarrel,
if you like, with the cause^ but you had better
try and alleviate its effects, rather than denounce
intemperately even his temperate use of the
means which he has found conducive to his ease,
comfort, and consolation.

In conclusion, to inveterate smokers I say,
Tobacco is a phreno-aisthenic agent, and by its
use you charge the batteries of your nervous sys-
tem. You must, therefore, either intellectually or
bodily, w^ork off the subtle electric fluid. With-

ADVICE TO SMOKERS. 165

out great mental work, or much bodily exercise,
no veteran smoker can escape the penalty of this
plethora any more than any other.

Out-of-door exercise is absolutely essential, in
this climate at least, but must never be urged to
lassitude.

Frequent, if not daily, tepid ablutions of the
whole body, or a great portion of it, are also
essential.

Nicotiana does not like " the bottle."

Always take a lump or two of sugar before
going to bed.

A piece of gum-camphor, placed anywhere in
the room, is what I always keep in my library.
You cannot smell it, as it resigns its molecules
to the thin air. Ripe fruit of all kinds, especi-
ally apples and oranges, at any time ; and vine-
gar at meals, but in moderation, are useful.

If you be a real smoker, you feel no evil effects
whatever in body or in mind from the gentle
weed.

If any such be felt, common sense advises at
once — give it up.

It seems that Dr. Elliotson found some advan-

166 TOBACCO! ITS HISTORY.

tage in smoking, in spite of this Wcirning of
nature ; for he says, —

" With regard to myself and tobacco, although I have a
stomach that will digest anything in the shape of food, yet
if I smoke three cigars in a day, or smoke three or four
successive days, it invariably jiroduces the most extreme
gastrodynia and cardialgia, — so as to make me quite mi-
serable ; and therefore 1 am compelled to he temperate in
that respect.^'' *

He also says, —

" Dr. Cullen mentions two cases of dyspepsia, from
patients taking snufi" before dinner : in one the disorder of
the stomach was gastrodynia,— aching pain of the sto-
mach ; in the other, a complete loss of appetite. Now,
both these individuals, on being particular not to take
snuff before dinner — taking as much as they chose when the
stomach had something in it — recovered from their dys-
pepsia." t

Smoking on an empty stomach will not do for
every one, nor immediately after meals.

My entire experience is in favour of the
mildest havannah cigar.

But I must not be supposed to be adverse to
the pipe. Tciste is multiform. Horace, in his
first Ode, has certainly not exhausted its va-

* Practice of Medicine, p. 1094. f Ibid.

ADVICE TO SMOKERS. 167

rieties. Between the taste of the smoker who
w'ould rather not taste the weed itself, and that
of the Greenlander who luxuriates in its most
offensive juices — Harpy vis gula digna rapacihus
— there must be endless gradations — shades of
difference — nuances, as the French cleverly ex-
press the idea, varying according to the natural
state of the gustatory and olfactory. The
smoker of the mildest havannah by preference
cannot enjoy it more than does the smoker by
preference of k'naster, returns, or even shag,
through the medium of the pipe. Philosophic-
ally, we must contemplate the sum of sensations,
by whatever means produced. In fact, we
must —

" Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture charms the mind."

The Greenwich pensioner, to whom, in his
honoured retreat, you can make no present
more acceptable than an ounce of tobacco ; the
Dutchman in his swamps — that everlasting
memento of man's original fish-condition (ac-
cording to the ' Vestiges of Creation '), exhibit
to the mind the very perfection of human bliss

168 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

— namely, pleasure cheaply bought and in-
tensely enjoyed. In effect, it is the very essential
virtue of nicotiana., that, in whatever form she
presents herself to her votary, nought can
*' wither her, nor custom stale her infinite
variety."

It may be proper, however, to state my reasons
for preferring the cigar. Tobacco smoked in
the pipe presents a much larger surface to com-
bustion ; consequently there is a greater elimi-
nation of the objectionable constituents of the
weed. The first whiff or two are pleasant
enough, but, in proportion to the heating of the
pipe, the volatile constituents are disengaged
from the whole mass of tobacco, and either cir-
culate around the smoker or are drawn into his
mouth, producing that increased secretion of the
salivary glands which has been noticed. Whereas
the entire bowl of the pipe is heated, the cigar
may be held to within the eighth of an inch from
the burning extremity. There is consequently
a greatly diminished product of the objectionable
volatile constituents.

The inconvenience of smoking, where and
when offensive to others, is a point of some im-

ADVICE TO SMOKERS. 169

portance to the real smoker. Pliny observes,
'' A man must do all by bis own humour, or
another's ; now my stomach is of that nature as
to digest what is entirely one or the other, with-
out a medium." I could never enjoy smoking
when it was in the least offensive to any one :
for the olfactory of every man must be re-
spected, as a helpless babe or a drunken sailor,
who cannot help themselves. And yet how
pleasing it is to record that never, in all my life,
did I find woman object to the fumes of pipe or
cigar. " Is my smoking disagreeable ? " " By
no means ! I rather like it." Such have al-
ways been the question and answer in my own
experience. But I have heard of a wife who had
stipulated before marriage that her lord should
give up smoking. Time rolled on, and she
boasted how much better he looked for giving up
the weed ; at last, a friend led her to the top of
the house, and through a glass-door she beheld
her lord, costumed from head to foot like a
Turk, and in beautiful nicotian meditation!
" Never mind ! " she exclaimed, " he smokes so
gracefully.'^

Sir Walter Raleigh's servant cat a different

170 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

figure on a similar occasion, if the anecdote be
not an invention. It is said that, having one
day retired to his room to smoke, after the
manner of the inhabitants of Virginia, he gave
himself up wholly to his meditations, and, with-
out paying attention to what he was doing,
namely, smoking, he ordered his servant to bring
him a cup of beer. The servant, on bringing
the beer, surprised to see what he had never
seen before, threw it immediately in his master's
face, and ran down the stairs, crying out, as he
descended, that his master's head was on fire,
the smoke coming out both at his mouth and
nostrils !

Se non e vero, e hen trovato. But that Sir
Walter Raleigh did, by his own practice, contri-
bute to the smoking of tobacco in this country,
there is no doubt whatever. —

*' Hail migMy Ealeigli ! to whose name we owe
The use and knowledge of this sovereign plant."

Certainly the practice of the Indians was much
more extensive in using the weed Old Hariot
tells us —

" that there is an herbe which is sowed apart by itselfe,

uppowoc. 171

and is called by the inliabitants Uppowoc : in the West
Indies it hath divers names, according to the several
places and countreys where it groweth and is used : the
Spaniards generally call it tobacco. The leaves thereof
being dried, and brought into powder, they use to take
the fume or smoake thereof by sucking it thorow pipes
made of clay into their stomache and head ; from whence
it purgeth superfluous fleame, and openeth all the pores of
the body ; whereby their bodies are notably preserved in
health, and know not many grievous diseases wherewithal
we in England are oftentimes aflSicted. The Uppowoc is
of so precious estimation amongst them, that they thinke
their gods are marvelously delighted therewith : where-
upon some time they make hallowed fires, and cast some
of the powder therein for a sacrifice : being in a storm
upon the waters, to pacify their gods they cast some up
into the aire and into the water : to a weare for fish being
newly set up, they cast some therein, and into the aire :
also after an escape of danger they cast some into the aire
likewise : but all done with strange gestures, stamping
some time, dancing, clapping of hands, holding up hands,
and staring up into the heavens, uttering there-withal and
chattering strange words and noises. We ourselves, dur-
ing the time we were there, used to sucke it after their
manner, as also since our return, and have found many
rare and wonderful experiments of the virtues thereof : of
which the relation would require a volume by itselfe : the
use of it by so many of late, men and women of great
calling, as also by some learned physicians, is sufficient
witness." *

* In the time of Shakspeare, "the amusements of the
audience previous to the commeucemeut of the play were
reading, playing at cards, smoking tobacco, drinking ale,

172 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY.

The numerous quotations of medical opinion
respecting the influence of smoking on the
human constitution, leave the question unde-
cided. The opponents of the weed unfold their
views precisely with the same logical fallacies
which afford amusement in the ' Counterblaste ' of
King James. To this royal pedant we must
award the praise that he managed his argument
with some dexterity, although it entirely turns
on taking what the logicians call the non causam
pro causa. His pupils in the * Lancet ' have
adopted his logic, but scarcely rise to the level
of the king's respectable attainments ; whilst it
is evident, from the names of the respective phy-
sicians quoted in favour of the weed, that they
are the hiorhest authorities of the land in the

o

matter of medical opinion.

We may be permitted to doubt the opinions
of those practitioners who so readily jump at

and eating nuts and apples. Even during the performance
it was customary for wits, critics, and young gallants, who
were desirous of attracting attention, to station themselves
on the stage, either lying on rushes or seated on hired stools,
while their pages furnished them with pipes and tobacco." —
Dyce.

CONCLUSION. 173

any cause which may enable them to answer the
questions of their patients. They may even err,
it seems, most shamefully, in that most important
matter diagnosis, or the true nature of the disease.

" A poor man, labouring under true scurvy, applied to
a surgeon on account of the horrid state of his mouth, —
his gunis being swollen, spongy, and bleeding ; his teeth
loose, and his breath offensive. The surgeon, not having
seen a case of scurvy, supposed the disease of the gums
arose from a bad state of the teeth, and extracted several
in succession ! He was then sent to another, of high emi-
nence and enormous practice^ who pronounced it a case of
fungus hcematodes of the gums, and admitted him into his
hospital — intending to resign him to his fate I Being
visited, however, b}^ a practitioner who had witnessed
scurvy at a naval hospital, the nature of the disease was
at once recognised ; some lemon-juice, fresh meat, and
vegetables were prescril)ed ; and he was well m a week
or two." *

Now these practitioners were " well-informed
men" — is it not dreadful to think of the blunders
of the vast medical ignohile vulgus ?

If the average annual consumption of tobacco
by the whole human race be, as has been proved,
70 oz. per head (see ante, p. 24)— considerably
more than an ounce per week — the enormous

Dr. Elliotsou, Practice of Medicine, p. 15.

174 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY.

generation of carbonic acid gas alone for the
support of vegetation, to say nothing of the
known curative virtues of tobacco to plants by
fumigation, and to animals by lotion, against
insects and other plagues, is well worthy of con-
sideration in advancing to right conclusions on
this important subject.

The benefits of tobacco, as a social modificator,
are, on all sides, incontestably admitted. My
own views on this universal habit of the human
race I have submitted to the reader, and per-
haps I may have an opportunity to enlarge upon
the subject in its general bearings, apart from
the individual gratification by which it is so
strikingly attended ; though, doubtless, many of
the sequences of my theory will be inferred by
the thoughtful reader, if my convictions be, as I
hope, in accordance with the known laws of
Nature in her mundane economy.

" Frui paratis et valido mihi,
Lato€, dones, — et j)recor, integva

Ciuii mente, — nee turpem senectam
Degere, nee a cigar carentem."

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