If we examine these positions in the light of truth, we shall find them
both defective.
"The varieties in point of health," says an eminent physiologist, "are
numerous and considerable. There is, indeed, a certain state of health,
which may be said to be peculiar to each individual. Such persons as we
suppose to be in the enjoyment of the most perfect health, differ
surprisingly, not only from each other, but from their own condition at
other times, as well in consequence of a difference in the constitution
of the blood, as a diversity of tone and other vital energies." One
state may be said to be healthy compared with another; and the same may
be affirmed of persons. One may enjoy health when compared with an
invalid. In all these cases it will be seen that health is only
comparative. But to sustain this part of the objection it would be
necessary to prove, what I presume will not be attempted, "that the
thousands who daily use tobacco, are enjoying the maximum of health and
strength;" i. e. that every function of the system is performed to
absolute perfection. For if it be admitted that any function is
deranged, it would be difficult, I apprehend, to prove, that that
derangement was not occasioned by the use of tobacco.
That men accustomed to hard labor will endure more fatigue, than those
of sedentary or enervated habits, needs no argument to prove. That the
arm of the blacksmith acquires strength beyond the arm of the literary
recluse, is altogether obvious.
The laborer will consume more food; consequently his frame will acquire
a proportionate degree of strength, and, all other things being equal,
it will be able to resist the influence of extraneous causes, to a much
greater extent than that of the voluptuary.
Let now the blacksmith use tobacco, and although there may be no
perceptible diminution of vigor, (since you have no perfect standard to
try it by,) because he still exceeds in strength persons possessing
constitutions naturally less vigorous, or constitutions less hardened by
toil; yet, whether the same hardy son of Vulcan can endure more
hardship, while using tobacco, than he could have done had he never used
the baneful plant, is the question?
That many persons apparently enjoy good health, and yet use tobacco,
cannot be denied. And the same may be affirmed with equal propriety of
opium and alcohol. I once knew a man who, from his youth till he had
reached his sixty-ninth year, became intoxicated, whenever he could
procure sufficient liquor to produce this effect; and during that time
he was never so ill as to require medical advice. I have known others to
be literally steeped in ardent spirit, who were seldom sick; and yet
few, I apprehend, will affirm, that alcohol used to such excess is not
injurious.
The Turks, who, for aught to the contrary that appears in their history,
enjoy as good health as the people of the United States, and are said to
attain a longevity as great, use opium for the purpose of intoxication,
much in the same manner in which the latter employ alcohol and wine,
these being forbidden to the former by their creed. Yet, after all, the
man who could adduce these facts to prove the harmlessness of the
substances under consideration, must be destitute of that physiological
knowledge which is necessary to understand the natural operations of the
human system.
There is a principle in the animal economy, which powerfully resists
morbid impressions, and tends to expel whatever is noxious. This
principle, called by some "the medical power of nature," is roused to
action by the application of an offending agent to any part of the human
system. On the first intimation of the assault, this vigilant sentinel
rallies her forces, and flies to the point of attack.
If she succeed in expelling the invader before any serious mischief has
been done, the system again reposes in quiet; but if not, a more general
tumult arises, and the assistance of art is often required to second her
ineffectual efforts. These phenomena are exhibited in the first use of
tobacco, in all its forms.
Apply snuff to the nostrils of one unaccustomed to it; and a violent
sneezing, with a copious secretion of mucus will follow. Put tobacco
into the mouth and it immediately produces a profuse discharge of
saliva; and if this proves unsuccessful in expelling the unwelcome
intruder, severe nausea and vomiting ensue. Smoking also produces
similar effects. Apply the moistened leaves of tobacco to any part of
the surface of the body, and its deadly effects are soon perceived in an
entire prostration of strength, accompanied with ghastly paleness and
vomiting.
If it were not in a high degree poisonous, no such results would follow
its first application to the living fibre; for they do not follow the
first application of those substances which were, by our wise and
bountiful Creator, designed for the _use_ of man.
Though the effects above described are less violent, when the nerves
(the media through which it operates) become accustomed to the stimulus
of the noxious substance; yet it by no means proves, even in these
circumstances, that it does no injury to the system, any more than the
fact that some men drink a quart of proof spirit daily without
producing death, proves that that amount does them no harm, when half
the quantity taken by a beginner would prove fatal.
In the course of twelve years' observation on the effects of narcotics
upon the human system, I became acquainted with a delicate female, who,
for thirty years, had taken a sufficient quantity of opium daily to kill
the hardiest son of New-England, provided he had been unaccustomed to
its pernicious influence. She, nevertheless, lived to an advanced age,
and was eighty-four years old when I last saw her, though she, at that
time, took every day two scruples of solid opium.
I had the unpleasant task to attend this lady in a fit of sickness. And
with the exception of a few cases, in which similar results have
followed the excessive use of alcohol, it was, without exaggeration, the
most troublesome case that has ever fallen under my care.
All the frightful symptoms of _delirium tremens_ waited around and
haunted her imagination through the day; while shrieks, and groans, and
all the signs of woe attended her nightly couch, to add a gloomy horror
to her unrefreshing and broken slumbers. And so far as my observations
extend, the most inveterate derangements of the nervous system are
either produced or aggravated by the habitual use of narcotics.
The inherent power of the constitution to sustain itself amid the
ever-varying changes to which it is exposed, has been learned by common
observation, as well by the peasant as by the man of erudition. The
fact, that man, "made of one blood, can dwell" in all the varieties of
climate, "on the face of the whole earth," and can sustain himself,
without any change of organization, at one period on the burning sands
of a Numidian desert, at another among the ice-bergs of a Greenland
winter--exhibits in the most convincing light the extent of this
wonderful power.
A curious field of speculation, on this sanative power in the physical
constitution of man, lies open to out view, had we time to pursue it, in
contemplating the habits, customs, and manners of the North American
Indian. Guided by the simple dictates of nature, he gratifies his
appetite with such food as comes most readily within his reach, and
slakes his thirst at the first mountain brook. Sometimes, for days, he
lies sleeping in his smoky wigwam without the means of appeasing hunger;
then rises and follows his game with the fierceness of a tiger, until
the object of his pursuit is overtaken; after which, with the voracity
of a dog, he loads his stomach with food sufficient to satisfy the
cravings of nature, for as many days as he had previously fasted, and
again betakes himself to sleep and inactivity. With all this
irregularity, he is a total stranger to lingering complaints, and to
that numerous as well as fashionable class of diseases denominated
"Nervous." That formidable ailment, _Dyspepsia_, which, like a fiend,
has, for the last few years pervaded the whole land, is unknown to the
Indian; having its origin in the abuses introduced by civilization and
refinement. But to return:
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a man who daily uses tobacco,
enjoys equal health with one who uses none, and is no more liable to
disease; let him once be attacked by disease, and then it will be far
more difficult to remove it, than to do so in one free from such habit.
This will appear from the following considerations:
Remedial agents ordinarily act on the system, by exciting the living
power through the medium of the nerves; hence when these have long been
deadened by the habitual use of any narcotic, common sense, aside from
the lights of science and philosophy, would teach us the difficulty of
making an impression on a system whose nerves had thus been previously
paralyzed.
Perhaps the man, who daily drinks ardent spirit, may, from the greater
insensibility of his system, in some cases escape sickness as long as
the most temperate, (though this is by no means a common fact); yet, let
disease once commence, and then we learn, by painful experience, the
disadvantage of having broken down the nervous system by needless and
vicious excess.
Tobacco is acknowledged to be one of the most deadly of the vegetable
narcotics: yet experience proves that the nerves, by habit, become so
accustomed to its stimulus, that it in a great measure loses its power.
How then can we hope with ordinary remedies to make an impression, when
even this powerful agent has itself lost its proper and natural effect?
The unparalleled mortality of the great epidemic of 1812 and 1813, was
in a good measure owing to the immense quantities of ardent spirit
consumed by the victims of that fatal malady. In the town in which I
then resided, about forty adults died in the course of the winter and
spring; and most of those were in the habit of using ardent spirit
freely. And though numbers of temperate persons were attacked, yet many
of these recovered; while every instance within my knowledge, where an
intemperate person was attacked with this formidable disease, it proved
fatal.
The ravages of the _cholera_ in India and Persia, since 1816: and in the
North of Europe, for the last eighteen months; settle the point in
question beyond reasonable doubt. In one hundred cases where the cholera
proved fatal, ninety of them had been in the liberal use of ardent
spirit. And this fact should be carefully noted, when this formidable
disease has reached Great Britain, and threatens us with its visitation.
If then the habitual use of alcohol, by exhausting the nervous energy,
predisposes the system to disease, and at the same time renders the
disease, when it has commenced, so much more intractable; what shall be
said of the common use of tobacco, which is allowed by all to be a still
more deadly poison, and of course must exhaust the power of the nerves
in a proportionate degree?
A female, aged 27 years, was attacked in December 1829 with a sore
mouth, accompanied with diarrhoea and profuse salivation. These
complaints continued to increase, notwithstanding the application of a
variety of remedies, prescribed by her medical attendant, until the 5th
of March following, when I was called to take charge of the patient. She
was much emaciated. The discharge from the bowels continued unabated,
and was often attended with severe pain and great prostration of
strength. The salivation was accompanied with a burning or scalding
sensation in the mouth and stomach, which proved excessively irritating
to the patient, as well as perplexing to me. On examining her case, I
found the nervous system entirely deranged and much broken by the habit
of smoking, which she had practiced to great excess from the age of
eleven years. I learned, to my surprise and regret, that she commenced
this habit, which afterwards cost her so much suffering, by the advice
of some wise member of the Faculty, who had prescribed it for some
slight derangement of the stomach.
My first efforts were directed to repair the injuries inflicted by the
tobacco-pipe; and though the difficulties to be overcome were many and
obstinate, by patience and perseverance they were all surmounted, and
the woman was at length restored.
The conflict which this poor woman endured, in overcoming a habit that
not only injured her health, but nearly destroyed her life, was dreadful
beyond description. When her pain and distress were great, she would
complain more of this privation, than of all her other sufferings; and
so strong was the desire for smoking, that she, several times during her
recovery, contrary to my orders, indulged in it a few minutes, and each
time with manifest injury; so that she finally was induced to abandon it
altogether, and thus recovered her health. Indeed, she now enjoys better
health than she has done for years.
Any one acquainted with this ordinary effects of this foolish indulgence
in the free use of narcotics, on the nervous system of its victims, will
be convinced by a few years close observation, that such persons
especially, if they are of sedentary habits, are more subject to fits of
despondency, and to a far greater degree, than persons of the same
general health and of the same employment, but who have escaped
contamination.
I shall here introduce the following extract of a letter, from a
respectable clergyman to the author, as illustrative of this point.
"When I say that the effects of the habitual use of tobacco on the human
system, are injurious; I speak from years of painful experience. I
commenced the use of tobacco when young, like many others, without any
definite object, but experienced no very injurious consequences from it
until I entered the ministry. Then my system began to feel its dreadful
effects. My voice, appetite, and strength soon failed; and I become
affected with sickness at the stomach, indigestion, emaciation, and
melancholy, with a prostration of the whole nervous system. For years my
health has been so much impaired as to render me almost useless in the
ministry, and all this I attribute to the pernicious habit of smoking
and chewing tobacco. And had I continued the practice, I doubt not but
that it would have brought me to an untimely grave. I was often advised
to leave it off, and made several unsuccessful attempts. At length I
became fully convinced that I must quit tobacco or die. I summoned all
my resolution for the fearful exigency, and after a long and desperate
struggle I obtained the victory. I soon began to experience the
beneficial results of my conquest. My appetite has returned; my voice
grows stronger, and I am in a measure freed from that mental dejection
to which I once was subject. My general health is much improved, and I
feel that I am gradually recovering; though it is not to be expected I
shall ever regain what I have lost by this needless and vicious
indulgence. I am satisfied that the common use of tobacco is injurious
to most people, especially those of sedentary habits. On them it
operates with ten-fold energy. I am acquainted with many in the
ministry, who are travelling this road to the grave. I uniformly say to
them: "Lay aside your pipes and tobacco, or you are undone--your labors
in the ministry will soon be at an end.""[F]
[Footnote F: Another Clergyman writes as follows. "I thank
God, and I thank you for your advice to abandon smoking. My
strength has _doubled_ since I quitted this abominable
practice."]
A mere hint at these evils would seem to be sufficient to awaken
inquiry, among the votaries of the plant in question. I shall therefore
leave it to their candid decision, after a full and free investigation
enables them to arrive at a just conclusion.
The great increase of _dyspepsia_ within the last twenty years, with the
dark and lengthened catalogue of nervous complaints that follow in its
train, is, I have no doubt, in part owing to the universal prevalence of
practices, the propriety of which we are calling in question.
The misery to which the consumers of this drug are subject, when from
any cause they are temporarily deprived or it, would go far to deter a
reflecting man from voluntarily binding himself to this most ignominious
servitude. I have known a hard laboring farmer, who would have resented
the name of _slave_, as much as did the Jews, arise from his bed in the
middle of the night and travel half a mile to procure a quid of tobacco,
because his uneasiness was such, that he could neither sleep nor rest
without it. This uneasiness is more distressing than bodily pain, and
has in some instances produced an agitation of mind bordering upon
distraction.
Col. Burr informed Dr. Rush, that the greatest complaints of
dissatisfaction and suffering, that he heard among the soldiers who
accompanied General Arnold in his march from Boston through the
wilderness to Quebec, in the year 1775, arose from the want of tobacco.
This was the more remarkable, as they were so destitute of provisions as
to be obliged to kill and eat their dogs.
The Persians, we are informed, often expatriate themselves, when they
are prohibited the use of tobacco, in order to enjoy unmolested this
luxury in a foreign country. Nor are these facts incredible to those,
who are familiar with the laws that regulate the animal economy.
Long and obstinate is the conflict with nature, before the taste or
smell of such disgusting things as alcohol, opium, and tobacco can be
endured. But when she, worn out by repeated and continued assaults,
abandons her post, and gives up the dominion to the artificial appetite,
the order of things is reversed, and we at last find, to our sorrow,
that this unnatural appetite is vastly more ungovernable than the one
implanted by our Creator for things originally pleasant and agreeable.
Add to all these considerations the well attested fact, that no sensible
man, who has himself used the baneful weed, ever advised his neighbor or
child to follow his example, but often the contrary; and its inutility
is sufficiently proved.
Having thus far endeavored to shew the futility of the objection raised
against our doctrine, by the consumers of this drug; let us now, in our
turn, call on them to give a good reason why so much money should be
expended, and so much time wasted, as are annually squandered in the
various departments of raising, preparing, and consuming this plant; and
to point out, if they can, in what manner a poison so deadly acts on the
healthy system without producing evil consequences.
To make out the case, it will be necessary for its advocates to prove
one of the following positions; either,