judicious employment of smoking as a dietetic measure in
cases of jaundice. This distressing disease occurs when the
torpid liver secretes too little bile. The biliverdine,
which would ordinarily be taken up to make bile, remains in
the blood until, seeking egress through the sweat-glands, it
colours the skin yellow. In the case of novices, however,
great care would need to be taken; as unskilful smoking is
very likely to induce narcosis.
Thus far we find tobacco to be a friend and not an enemy. Now, in the
second place, when we smoke, we stimulate the medulla oblongata, and
through this we send a wave of stimulus down the pneumogastric nerve,
and this makes the heart's action easier. One of the earliest
stimulant effects of tobacco to be noted is the slightly increased
frequency and strength of the pulse.[20] A narcotic dose produces
quite the opposite effect. It begins by greatly increasing the
frequency while diminishing the strength, so as to make a feeble,
fluttering pulse; and it ends by reducing the frequency likewise.
After some years of temperate smoking we accidentally felt, for the
first time, the narcotic effects of tobacco. Eight or nine cigars
(large twenty-cent ones, such as Mr. Parton delights in the
recollection of) smoked consecutively while taking a cold midnight
drive, were followed by unmistakable symptoms of narcosis. Along with
the muscular tremour of the stomach, much more acute than that of
ordinary nausea, it was observed that the pulse, normally strong and
regular at 80, had been reduced to 69, and was feeble and flickering.
Similar, no doubt, are the symptoms which ordinarily worry the novice,
in whom acute narcosis is liable to result from the lack of skill with
which he draws in too large a quantity of the narcotic constituents of
his cigar. The effects of tobacco, through the medulla and
pneumogastric, upon the heart, are among its most notable effects. A
dose of pure nicotine stops the heart instantly, a narcotic dose
interferes with its action, but a stimulant dose facilitates it. The
same results are attainable by means of electricity.[21] A powerful
current through the pneumogastric of a frog or rabbit will stop the
heart, a less powerful current will slacken it, a slight current will
somewhat accelerate it. Emotional effects are precisely similar.
Sudden overwhelming joy or sorrow may operate as a true narcotic,
arresting the heart's contractions, while steady diffusive pleasure
always facilitates them.
[20] See a paper by Dr. E. Smith, read before the British
Association in 1862.
[21] See an admirable paper by Lewes in the _Fortnightly
Review_, May 15th, 1865.
The stimulant action of tobacco upon the heart is precisely the same
as that of sunlight, which, by inciting the nervous expanse of the
retina, indirectly strengthens and accelerates the pulse. So far as
the circulation is concerned, there is no difference between the two.
The one stimulus may indeed be popularly called "natural," while the
other is called "artificial," but such a distinction is
physiologically meaningless. The molecular action is the same and the
consequences to the organism are the same in both cases. The heart's
normal action being facilitated, the blood is poured more vigorously
through every artery, every vein, and every network of capillaries.
Every tissue receives with greater promptness its quota of assimilable
nutriment. And, the web-like plexuses of nerve-fibres distributed
throughout the tissues being simultaneously stimulated, the work of
nutrition goes on with enhanced vigour and efficacy. Nor is it
possible for the excreting organs to escape the influence. Lungs,
skin, and kidneys must be alike incited; and the removal from the
blood of noxious disintegrated matters, the products of organic waste,
is thus hastened.
So much is to be inferred from the stimulant action of tobacco upon
the medulla. Of all this complicated benefit, the brain receives
perhaps the largest share. The brain receives one-fifth, or according
to some authorities one-third, of all the blood that is pumped from
the heart. More than any other organ it demands for its due nutrition
a prompt supply of arterial blood; and more than any other organ it
partakes of the advantages resulting from vigorous circulation.
The stimulant action of tobacco upon the spinal cord and the cerebral
hemispheres is less conspicuous. Yet even here its familiar influence
in stilling nervous tremour and allaying nocturnal wakefulness is good
testimony to its essentially beneficent character. Wakefulness and
tremour are alike symptoms of diminished vitality; and the agent which
removes them is not to be called, as Mr. Parton in his mediæval
language calls it, "hostile to the vital principle."
So much for the net results of the stimulant action of tobacco. So far
we have travelled on firm ground, and we have not found much to
countenance Mr. Parton's view of the subject. But now some curious
inquirer may ask, what _is_ this stimulant action? What is the
physiological expression for it, reduced to its lowest terms? Here we
must keep still, or else venture upon ground that is very unfamiliar
and somewhat hypothetical. There is no help for it; for we cannot yet
give the physiological expression for unstimulated nervous action,
reduced to its lowest terms. We know what kind of work nerves perform,
but how they perform it we can as yet only guess. Nor, as far as the
practical bearings of our subject are concerned, does it matter
whether this abstruse point be settled or not. Still, even upon this
dark subject recent research has thrown some gleams of light. A
nerve-centre is a place where force is liberated by the lapse of the
chemically-unstable nerve-molecules into a state of relative
stability.[22] To raise them to their previous unstable state, thereby
enabling them to fall again and liberate more force, is the function
of food. Now our own hypothesis is, that tobacco and other narcotic
stimulants enable force to be liberated by the isomeric transformation
of the highly complex nerve-molecules, which retain in the process
their state of relative instability, and are thus left competent to
send forth a second discharge of force without the aid of food.
[22] We fear that this explanation will be rather
unintelligible to the general reader. But it is hardly
practicable for us to insert here a disquisition on
physiological chemistry. Those who are familiar with modern
physiology will readily catch our meaning. Those who are not
may skip, if they choose, this parenthetical paragraph.
In support of this hypothesis we have the well-known fact that
tobacco, like tea, coffee, alcohol and coca, universally retards
organic waste. These substances effect this result in all the tissues,
and more especially may they be expected to accomplish it in nervous
tissue, where their action is so conspicuously manifest.
Thus is explained the familiar action of narcotic-stimulants in
relieving weariness. Weariness, in its origin, is either muscular or
nervous. It implies a diminution--owing to failing nutrition--of the
total amount of contractile or of nervous force in the organism; and
it shows that the weary person must either go to sleep or eat
something. Now every one knows how a cup of tea, a glass of wine, or a
cigar, dispels weariness. Of the three agents, tobacco is perhaps the
most efficacious, and it can produce its effect in only one
way--namely, by economizing nervous force, and arresting the
disintegration of tissue.
Thus also is explained the marvellous food-action of these substances.
Tea and coffee enable a man to live on less beefsteak. The Peruvian
mountaineer, chewing his coca-leaf, accomplishes incredibly long
tramps without stopping to eat. And every hardy soldier, in spite of
Mr. Parton, has that within him which tells him that he can better
endure severe marches and wearisome picket-service if he now and then
lights his pipe. The personal experience of any one man is, we are
aware, not always conclusive; but our own, so far as it goes, bears
out the general conclusion. It was when we were engaged in severe
daily mental labour, that we first conceived the idea of employing
tobacco as a means of husbanding our resources. Narcosis being
steadily avoided, the experiment was completely, even unexpectedly,
successful. Not only was the daily fatigue sensibly diminished, but
the recurrent periods of headache, gloom, and nervous depression were
absolutely and finally done away with. That this result was due to
improved nutrition was shown by the fact that, during the first three
months after the habit of smoking was adopted, the average weight of
the body was increased by twenty-four pounds--an increase which has
been permanent. No other dietetic or hygienic change was made at the
time, by which the direct effects of the tobacco might have been
complicated and obscured.
The statement that smoking increases the average weight of the
body[23] is not, however, universally true. We have here an excellent
illustration of the impracticability of laying down sweeping rules in
physiology. Many persons find their weight notably diminished by the
use of tobacco; and we frequently hear it said that smoking will not
do for thin people, although for those who are fleshy it may not be
injurious. In this there is a very natural but very gross confusion of
ideas, which a little reflection upon the subject will readily clear
up. It is true that moderate smoking sometimes increases and sometimes
diminishes the weight; and it is no less true that in each case the
result is the index of heightened nutrition! This seems, of course,
paradoxical. But physiology, quite as much as astronomy, is a science
which is constantly obliging us to reconsider and rectify our crude
off-hand conceptions.
[23] "Tobacco, when the food is sufficient to preserve the
weight of the body, increases that weight, and when the food
is not sufficient, and the body in consequence loses weight,
tobacco restrains that loss." Hammond, _Physiological
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco_, Am. Journal of Medical
Sciences, tom. XXXII. N.S., p. 319.
It is by no means true that increase of the tissues in bulk and
density is always a sign of improved health. We are accustomed to
congratulate each other upon looking plump and rosy. But too much
rosiness may be a symptom of ill-health; and, similarly with
plumpness, there is a point beyond which obesity is a mere weariness
to the spirit. Nor does a person need to become as rotund as Wouter
Van Twiller in order to reach and pass this point. Many persons, who
are not actually corpulent, would lose weight if their nutrition could
be improved. And the explanation is quite simple.
Normal nutrition is not merely the repair of tissue: it is the repair
of all the tissues in the body _in due proportion_. This is a very
essential qualification. Fibrous and areolar tissue, muscle, nerve,
and fat are daily and hourly wasting in various degrees; and the
repair, whether great or small, must be nicely proportioned to the
waste in each tissue. If a pound is added to the weight of the body,
it makes all the difference in the world whether one ounce is muscle,
another ounce nerve, a third ounce fat, and so on, or whether the
whole pound is fat. When one tissue gets more than its fair share, the
chances are that all the others must go a-begging. The co-ordinating,
controlling power of the organism over its several parts is
diminished,--which is the same as saying that nutrition is impaired.
Evidence of this soon appears in the circumstance that the deposit of
adipose tissue is no longer confined to the proper places. Fat begins
to accumulate all over the body, in localities where little or no fat
is wanted, and notably about the stomach and diaphragm, causing
laborious movement of the thorax and wheezing respiration. When a man
gets into this state, it is a sign that the ratio between the waste
and the repair of his tissues has become seriously dislocated. You can
relieve him of his fat only by improving his nutrition. The German
who drinks his forty glasses of lager bier _per diem_ is said to be
bloated; and we have heard it gravely surmised that the ale, getting
into his system, swells him up--as if the human body were a sort of
bladder or balloon! The explanation is not quite so simple. But it
is easy to see how this immense quantity of liquid, continually
loading the stomach and intestines, and entailing extra labour upon
all the excreting organs, should so damage the assimilative powers
as to occasion an excessive deposit of coarse fat and of flabby,
imperfectly-elaborated connective tissue, over the entire surface of
the body. And the state of chronic, though mild, narcosis in which the
guzzler keeps himself, by still further injuring his reparative
powers, contributes to the general result.
There are consequently four ways in which tobacco may exhibit its
effects upon the nutrition of the body.
I. In stimulant doses, by improving nutrition, it may increase the
normal weight.
II. In stimulant doses, by improving nutrition, it may cause a
diminution of weight abnormally produced.
III. In narcotic doses, by impairing nutrition, it may cause
emaciation.
IV. In narcotic doses, by impairing nutrition, it may aggravate
obesity instead of relieving it.[24]
[24] In this exposition we have assumed that the tobacco is
smoked and the saliva retained. If the saliva be frequently
ejected, the case is entirely altered. Habitual spitting
incites the salivary glands to excessive secretion, thereby
weakening the system to a surprising extent, and probably
lowering nutrition. Many temperate smokers, who think
themselves hurt by tobacco, are probably hurt only because,
though in all other respects gentlemen, they will persist in
the filthy habit of spitting. There is no excuse for the
habit, for with very little practice the desire to get rid
of the saliva entirely ceases, and is never again felt.
In chewing, the saliva is so impregnated with the nicotinous
constituents of the leaf, that the choice lies far more
narrowly between spitting and narcosis. Of the two evils we
shall not venture to say which is the least. In snuffing,
too, the question is complicated by the acute local
irritation caused by the contact of the stimulant with the
nasal membranes. This, no doubt, has its medicinal virtues.
But for a healthy man it is probable that smoking is the
only rational, as it is certainly the only decent, way in
which to use tobacco.
We may see, by this example, how much room is always left for fallacy
in the empirical tracing of physiological effects to their causes. The
phænomena are so complex that induction is of but little avail, unless
supported and confirmed by deduction.[25] In the case of tobacco, our
conclusions are so confirmed. Deduction, supported by cautious
induction, shows the stimulant action of tobacco to be of permanent
benefit to the system; and hence the statements of those smokers who
believe themselves injured by the habit must be received with due
qualifications. Yielding unsuspiciously to the influence of a
prejudice which originated in an absurd puritanical notion of
"morality,"[26] many smokers are in the habit of reviling the practice
which they nevertheless will not abandon. Having once begun to smoke,
they persist in laying to the account of tobacco sundry aches and ails
which in the hurry and turmoil of modern life no one can expect wholly
to escape, and many of which are such as tobacco could not possibly
give rise to. If their teeth, for instance, begin to decay, tobacco
gets the blame, although it is notorious to dentists that tobacco
preserves the enamel of the teeth as hardly anything else will. We
have seen teeth which had been kept for months in a preparation of
nicotine and were in excellent condition. Then the headache, due
perhaps to an overdose of hot risen biscuit or viands cooked in
pork-fat, is quite likely to be laid to the charge of the general
scape-goat; although to produce a headache directly by means of
tobacco requires a powerful narcotic dose.[27] One of the chief causes
of ordinary headache is doubtless the use of the execrable anthracite
which Pennsylvania protectionists force upon us by means of their
unrighteous prohibitory tariff upon English coal.[28] We have even
heard it alleged that smoking impairs the eyesight. Students smoke
much, and are nearsighted, is the complacent argument--it being
apparently forgotten that sailors smoke much and are far-sighted, and
that in each case the result is due to the way in which the eyes are
used.
[25] Mill's _System of Logic_, 6th ed. vol. I. pp. 503-508.
[26] "The Puritans, from the earliest days of their
'plantation' among us, abhorred the fume of the pipe."
Fairholt, _Tobacco, its History, etc._, p. 111.
[27] Smoking has also been charged with acting as a
predisposing, or even as an exciting, cause of insanity,--a
notion effectually disposed of by Dr. Bucknill, in the
_Lancet_, Feb. 28th, 1857.
Before leaving this subject, it may be well to allude to Mr. Parton's
remarks (p. 35) about "pallid," "yellow," "sickly," and "cadaverous,"
tobacco-manufacturers. He evidently means to convey the impression
that workers in tobacco are more unhealthy than other workmen. Upon
this point we shall content ourselves with transcribing the following
passage from Christison, _On Poisons_, p. 731:--"Writers on the
diseases of artisans have made many vague statements on the supposed
baneful effects of the manufacture of snuff on the workmen. It is said
they are liable to bronchitis, dysentery, ophthalmia, carbuncles, and
furuncles. At a meeting of the Royal Medical Society of Paris,
however, before which a memoir to this purport was lately read, the
facts were contradicted by reference to the state of the workmen at
the Royal Snuff Manufactory of Gros-Caillou, where 1000 people are
constantly employed without detriment to their health. (_Revue
Médicale_, 1827, tom. III. p. 168.) This subject has been since
investigated with great care by Messrs. Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet,
who inquired minutely into the state of the workmen employed at all
the great tobacco-manufactories of France, comprising a population of
above 4000 persons; and the results at which they have arrived
are,--that the workmen very easily become habituated to the atmosphere
of the manufactory,--that they are not particularly subject either to
special diseases, or to disease generally,--and that they live on an
average quite as long as other tradesmen. These facts are derived from
very accurate statistical returns. (_Annales d'Hygiène_, 1829, tom. I.
p. 169.)" The reader may also consult an instructive notice in
Hammond's _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, Oct. 1868, vol. II. p.
828.
[28] See Dr. Derby's pamphlet on _Anthracite and Health_,
Boston, 1868; and an article by the present writer, in the
_World_, April 11th, 1868.
These examples show with what well-meaning recklessness people find
fault with anything which they are at all events bound to condemn. It
is not to be denied, however, that many persons are continually
hurting themselves by the flagrant abuse of tobacco. Many men are
doubtless in a state of chronic tobacco-narcosis; just as many men and
women keep themselves in a state of chronic narcosis from the abuse of
tea and coffee. Probably three-fourths of the ill-health which
afflicts the community is due to barbarous neglect of the plainest
principles of dietetics. When a thing tickles the palate, or refreshes
the nervous system, people do not seem to be as yet sufficiently
civilized to let it go until they have made themselves miserable with
it. Half the inhabitants of the United States, says Mr. Parton,
violate the laws of nature every time they go to the dinner-table. He
might safely have put the figure higher. Owing to the shortcomings of
our present methods of education, we rarely get taught physiology at
school or college, we never thoroughly learn the principles of
hygiene, or if we acquire some of them by hearsay, we seldom realize
them in such a way as to shape our behaviour accordingly. It is not to
be wondered at, therefore, that people eat imprudently and smoke
imprudently. They smoke just before dinner, they smoke rank,
badly-cured tobacco, they smoke much, and they smoke fast, thus
narcotizing instead of stimulating their nervous systems. A
plum-pudding is good and nourishing, but it would hardly be wise to
eat it before meat, or to eat it to the verge of nausea.
This lesson of _dosage_ is one which cannot be learned too thoroughly.
The would-be reformer says, "Touch not the unclean thing;" but the
reply is, "No hurt has ever yet come to me from smoking: I will
therefore smoke all the more, to confute these idle crotchets." This
is the very crudity of undisciplined inference. In physiology we
cannot go by the rule of three. Doctors can tell us how they prescribe
brandy for epilepsy: exulting in his signal relief, the patient
persists in taking a second dose, and--brings on another fit!
Stimulation gives way to narcosis. In delirium tremens the stimulus of
opium is often found to be of great service. But sometimes the
unscientific physician, wishing to increase the beneficial effect,
keeps on until he has administered a narcotic dose; when lo! all is
undone, the enfeebled nerves, needing nothing but stimulus, have
received the final shock, the medulla is paralyzed, and the heart
ceases to beat. Let no one imagine, then, that this distinction
between large and small quantities is trivial or wire-drawn. In
therapeutics it is often the one all-important distinction. In dealing
with narcotics, it is the root of the whole matter.
And now the question arises, what _is_ a stimulant dose? How much
tobacco can a man take daily with benefit to himself? The reply is
obvious, that no universal rule can be given. In dealing with the
science of life, to indulge in sweeping statements and glittering
generalities is the surest mark of a charlatan. Mr. Parton says, with
reference to alcohol, that he devoutly wishes the thing could be
proved to be, always, everywhere, under any circumstances, and in any
quantities, injurious, (p. 59.) If this could be proved, alcohol would
be shown to be a substance all but unique in nature. So much as this
cannot be said of arsenic, prussic acid, or strychnine. Science cannot
be made to harmonize with the exaggerations of radicalism. With regard
to tobacco, every man, moderately endowed with common sense, can soon
tell how much he ought to take. The muscular tremour of narcosis is
unmistakable, and a depressed or fluttering pulse is easily detected.
When a man has smoked until these symptoms are awakened, let him stop
short,--he has gone too far already. Let him take good care never to
repeat the dose. The true Epicurean, to whom [Greek: mêden agan] has
become second nature, who knows how to live, and who is instinctively
disgusted by vulgar excess, will not be likely to oversmoke himself
more than once. So much we say, in view of the impossibility of laying
down universal rules. But it is well for the smoker to bear in mind
that the more gradually the nicotine is absorbed into his circulating
system, the better. For this reason a pipe, with porous bowl and long
porous stem, is better than a cigar,[29] which is besides liable by
direct contact to irritate the tongue and lips. And, likewise, it is
better to smoke mild tobacco for an hour than strong tobacco for half
an hour. Probably four or five pipes daily are enough for most healthy
persons; but no such rule can be quoted as inflexible or infallible.
Some persons, as we have said, are never stimulated by tobacco, and
therefore ought never to smoke at all. Others can take relatively
large quantities with little risk of narcosis. Dr. Parr would smoke
twenty pipes in a single evening. The illustrious Hobbes sat always
wrapped in a dense cloud of smoke, while he wrote his immortal works;
yet he lived, hale and hearty, to the age of ninety-two.