TOBACCO AS AN INCITANT TO THE USE OF ALCOHOLIC STIMULANTS, AND AN
OBSTACLE IN THE WAY OF A PERMANENT REFORMATION.
BY DR. R.P. HARRIS, PHYSICIAN OF THE "FRANKLIN REFORMATORY HOME."
When we consider the almost universal use of tobacco, especially in the
form of smoking, among our male population, it is not to be wondered at
that this powerful poison has come to be regarded as an innocent and
almost necessary vegetable production, not to be used as food exactly,
but greatly allied to it as an article of daily consumption. Few stop to
reason about its properties or effects; they remember, perhaps, how sick
they were made by the first chew or smoke, but this having long passed,
believe that as their systems have become accustomed, _apparently_, to
the poison, it cannot be doing them any real injury. When we reflect
that tobacco contains from one to nearly seven per cent, of
_nicotine_--one of the most powerful vegetable poisons known--a few
drops of which are sufficient to destroy life, it is not difficult to
perceive that this faith in the _innocence_ begotten of use must be
fallacious. We have met with instances where the poisonous effects of
tobacco were manifest after every smoke, even where the attempt to
accustom the system to its use had been persevered in for many years;
and yet the men never realized what was the matter with them, until they
had, under medical advice, ceased to use the drug.
Before the discovery of anæsthetics, tobacco was used as a remedy to
produce relaxation in cases of strangulated hernia; and although very
cautiously administered in the form of tea, or smoke per rectum, proved
fatal in many instances. As little as twelve grains in six ounces of
water having thus acted; and from half a drachm to two drachms in a
number of instances. When men chew as high as a pound and a quarter of
strong navy tobacco a week, or three packages of fine-cut in a day, it
must certainly tell upon them sooner or later; or even in much less
quantity.
If men used tobacco in moderation, there would be much less objection to
it, if it was not so intimately
ASSOCIATED WITH THE HABIT OF DRINKING.
This is recognized by the trade, in the fact that we see many tobacco
stores as the entrance to drinking saloons. Ninety-three per cent. of
the men who have been admitted to the Franklin Reformatory Home used
tobacco, and eighty per cent. of them chewed it. There may be possibly
as high as ninety-three per cent. of male adults who smoke, but eighty
per cent. of chewers is undoubtedly a large proportion as compared with
those in the same ranks of society who do not drink.
Although the poisonous symptoms of tobacco are, in a great degree, the
same in different persons at the inception of the habit, the effects
vary materially in after years according to the quantity and variety
used, the form employed and the habits and temperament of the user. One
man will chew a paper a week, another four, many use one a day, and a
few from one and a half to three a day, besides smoking. Occasionally,
but very rarely, we find a man who limits himself to one cigar a day, a
number allow themselves but three, but of later years even these are
moderate compared with those who use eight, ten or more.
There are many men who, for years, preserve a robust, hale appearance
under both tobacco and whisky, who are, notwithstanding their apparent
health, steadily laying the foundation of diseased heart, or
DERANGEMENT OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS
or nervous system from the former, or an organic fatal disease of the
liver or kidneys from the latter.
Healthy-looking men are often rejected by examiners of life insurance
companies because of irregular and intermittent action of the heart from
tobacco; and equally robust subjects are forced to abandon the habit
because of tremors, vertigo or a peculiar form of dyspepsia. We have
known men who died from the use of tobacco, and others who met a like
fate from whisky, who were never fully in the state denominated drunk.
Men may earn a hobnail liver and dropsy by the constant, steady use of
alcoholic drink taken systematically, so as always to keep within the
limits of intoxication; or they may, in the same way, get a diabetes or
Bright's disease.
Abundant testimony in regard to the effects of tobacco in creating an
appetite for strong drink has been given by the inmates of the Franklin
Home. In a few exceptional cases the use of tobacco does not appear to
create any sense of thirst; and this is specially the case with the
smokers who do not spit when smoking. Some men seem to be free from any
alcoholic craving when using tobacco, and say that when they commence to
drink they give up the drug for the time being. These are exceptional
cases, for excess in drinking generally leads to an excess in the use of
tobacco, often to double the amount ordinarily employed. We have often
been told by moderate drinkers, that they frequently
FELT A DESIRE FOR A LITTLE WHISKY AFTER A SMOKE,
and they have confessed that they were only saved from a habit of
drinking to excess by the fact that they had no innate fondness for
alcoholic stimulation. Unfortunately, there is a large and increasing
class of men who, finding that water does not, but that alcohol does,
relieve the dryness of throat and diseased thirst resulting from
tobacco, are led, little by little, into the habit of using whisky to
excess. Such men, after, it may be, a long abstinence, are not
unfrequently led back into their old habits by an attack of nervousness,
resulting from a temporary excessive use of tobacco, and a feeling that
all that is wanting to relieve this is a glass of whisky, which being
taken, at once determines a debauch of long or short duration, according
to the habits and character of the party. Many a _so-called periodical
drinker_ fixes the return of his period by an act of this kind, and with
such cases it is all-important to their permanent reformation, that they
should cease entirely and forever from the use of tobacco. We have, in a
few instances, prevailed upon men to do this, but in a large majority of
cases, where they have admitted the connection between the two habits,
in their own person, or volunteered to tell how much tobacco had acted
in forming and keeping up their appetite for whisky, they have failed in
being able to sum up sufficient resolution to abandon the use of the
drug, saying that they felt the importance of the step, and would be
glad to be able to give it up, but that the habit was
TEN TIMES AS DIFFICULT TO CONQUER AS THAT OF WHISKY-DRINKING.
All that we have been able to accomplish in such cases has been to check
the excessive use. We have repeatedly assured men, after a careful
examination of their peculiar cases, that they would certainly drink
again unless they gave up their tobacco, and have seen this opinion
verified, because they took no heed to the warning. We have also been
gratified in a few instances by hearing a man say that he felt confident
that he could never have accomplished his reformation as he had done, if
he had not taken the advice given him about abandoning his tobacco. In
contrast with the men of weak purpose, we have to admire one who had
resolution enough to break off the three habits of opium-eating,
whisky-drinking and tobacco-chewing--no trifling matter--when the first
was of ten and the last of more than thirty years' duration.
We have been repeatedly asked which was the most injurious, smoking or
chewing, and have replied, that everything depended upon the amount of
nicotine absorbed in the process, and the loss to the system in the
saliva spit out. Men have died from the direct effect of excessive
smoking, and quite recently a death in a child was reported from the
result of blowing soap-bubbles with an old wooden pipe. We have known a
little boy to vomit from drawing air a few times through the empty
meerschaum pipe of his German teacher. The smoking of two pipes as the
first essay, very nearly caused the death of a young man, whose case was
reported by Dr. Marshall Hall.
The least poisonous tobaccos are those of Syria and Turkey, but the
cigarettes made of them in the East and imported into this country are
said to be impregnated with opium. Virginia tobacco, for the pipe or
chewing, contains a large percentage of nicotine, and the former is
often impregnated with foreign matters, recognizable by the choking
effect of the smoke when inhaled, or by the removal of the epithelium
(outer skin) of the tongue at the point under the end of the pipe-stem.
If we fail in our efforts to reform the tobacco habit, the next best
thing to do, is to show men what the nature and capabilities of the
poison are, and endeavor to persuade them to use the milder varieties
and in a moderate quantity.
ONE OF THE GREAT CURSES OF THE RISING GENERATION
is the passion for imitating and acquiring the evil habits of men, under
an impression that it hastens their approach to manhood. Weak, frail,
delicate boys, with inherited tendencies to disease, who should, by all
means, never use tobacco, or anything injurious, are often as
obstinately bent upon learning to smoke, in spite of medical advice, as
those in whom a moderate use would be far less objectionable. A recent
observer, in examining into the cases of thirty-eight boys who had
formed the habit of using tobacco, found that twenty-seven of them had
also a fondness for alcoholic stimulants. A large proportion of the
Franklin Home inmates attribute their habit of drinking to the effects
of company; many commenced in the army, and many were induced to drink
at first by invitation. If smoking was a solitary habit, it would be
less likely to lead to drinking; but the same companionship, and habits
of treating prevail, as in the saloon, and the step from the _estaminet_
to the bar-room under invitation, is an easy one, where the diseased
thirst, so often induced by tobacco, favors the movement to treat.
We have no prejudice against tobacco, other than what would naturally
arise in the mind from a careful examination of the effects of the
poison in hundreds of cases. We have seen large, hale-looking men forced
in time to abandon, although very reluctantly, the use of tobacco in
every form; and the most bitter enemy we have ever met to the _vile
weed_ as he termed it, was a physician, who had been forced to give up
chewing on account of the state of his heart, after years of indulgence.
We have seen many such instances, and, in one case, the abandonment of
the habit entirely cured a dyspepsia of twenty-eight years' standing.