R. D. Mussey

“ For organs so enfeebled as his, and for so long a time, to regain their powers to so great an extent, denotes a native energy of constitution, far above the standard of mediocrity.
How can a temperance man use tobacco? With what consistency can he ask his neighbor to abstain from alcohol, on the ground of its being injurious to body and mind, while he indulges himself in the habitual gratification of an appetite, unnatural and pernicious, and holding, in some respects, a strong alliance with that produced by an alcoholic beverage? ”

“ The foregoing facts serve to show, that tobacco is one of the most active and deadly vegetable poisons known; it acts directly upon the nervous power, enfeebling, deranging, or extinguishing the actions of life. Is it possible, that the habitual use of an article of so actively poisonous properties can promote health, or indeed fail to exert an injurious influence upon health? ”

“ The opinion that tobacco is necessary to promote digestion is altogether erroneous. If it be capable of soothing the uneasiness of the nerves of the stomach, occurring after a meal, that very uneasiness has been caused by some error of diet or regimen, and may be removed by other means. If tobacco facilitate digestion, how comes it, that, after laying aside the habitual use of it, most individuals experience an increase of appetite and of digestive energy, and an accumulation of flesh? ”

“ It will readily be admitted, that the daily use of any article, which causes an exhaustion of the nervous power, beyond what is necessarily occasioned by unstimulating food and drink, and the ordinary physical agents, as heat, cold, light, together with mental and corporeal exertion, &c., is not only useless but hurtful, tending directly to produce disease and premature decay. Such is tobacco. Ample evidence of this is furnished by a departure, more or less obvious, from healthy action, in the organic, vital movements of a large majority of tobacco consumers. ”

“ The using of tobacco, especially by smoking, is any thing but kindness or the kindly expression of it, when it creates an atmosphere, which, whether it comes directly from the pipe, the cigar, or deeply imbued clothing, or worse than alligator breath, is absolutely insupportable to many, who do not use it, causing depression of strength, dizziness, headache, sickness at the stomach, and sometimes vomiting. ”

“ The vital principle, in the human body, can so far resist the influences of a variety of poisons, slowly introduced into it, that their effects shall be unobserved, till, under the operation of an exciting or disturbing cause, their accumulated force breaks out, in the form of some fearful or incurable disease. The poison, which comes from vegetable decompositions, on extensive marshes and the borders of lakes, after being received into the body, remains apparently harmless, in some instances, a whole year, before it kindles up a wasting intermittent, or a destructive bilious remittent fever. ”

“ It is an alleged fact, that, previously to the age of forty years, a larger mortality exists in Spanish America than in Europe. The very general habit of smoking tobacco, existing among children and youth as well as adults, it has been supposed, and not without reason, might explain this great mortality. Like ardent spirits, tobacco must be peculiarly pernicious in childhood, when all the nervous energy is required to aid in accomplishing the full and perfect developement of the different organs of the body, and in ushering in the period of manhood. ”

“ The use of tobacco, like that of alcoholic liquor, should be abandoned totally and forever. The plan of taking less and less daily, is seldom successful. This is what is called "trying to leave off." If a little less be taken one day, generally a little more is taken the next. A respectable patient, for whom I have prescribed on account of a severe nervous affection, has been "trying" for the last six months to quit her snuff, and she is apparently no nearer the accomplishment of her object than when she began. ”

“ The tea of tobacco has been known to destroy the life of a horse, when forced into his stomach to relieve indisposition. When used as a wash, to destroy vermin upon certain domestic animals, tobacco tea has been known to kill the animals themselves. A farmer not long since assured me, that he had destroyed a calf in this manner.
"A woman applied to the heads of three children, for a disease of the scalp, an ointment prepared with the powder of tobacco and butter; soon after, they experienced dizziness, violent vomitings and faintings, accompanied with profuse sweats." ”

“ The man, who can live long under the use of tobacco and rum, can live longer without them.
An opinion has prevailed in some communities, that the use of tobacco operates, as a preservative against infectious and epidemic diseases. ”

“ The celebrated French poet, Santeuil, came to his death through horrible pains and convulsions, from having taken a glass of wine, with which some snuff had been mixed.
The tea of twenty or thirty grains of tobacco introduced into the human body, for the purpose of relieving spasm, has been known repeatedly to destroy life. ”

“ To individuals of sedentary habits and literary pursuits, tobacco is peculiarly injurious, inasmuch as these classes of persons are, in a measure, deprived of the partially counteracting influence of air and exercise. I have prescribed for scores of young men, pursuing either college or professional studies, who had been more or less injured by the habitual use of this plant. ”

“ My appetite has returned, my food nourishes me, and after thirty successive years of debility, I have become strong.
"My weight, during the time I used tobacco, varied from 130 to 140 pounds, but never exceeded 150; I now weigh over 180 and am a vigorous old man. I am in a great measure, free from those stomach and liver complaints, which followed me for thirty years. I do more work than I did fifteen years ago, and use none of what you Doctors call artificial stimulants; for I have more recently reformed as to tea, which I had drank, at least twice a day, for forty-five years. ”

“ In the practice of smoking there is no small danger. It tends to produce a huskiness of the [24] mouth, which calls for some liquid. Water is too insipid, as the nerves of taste are in a half-palsied state, from the influence of the tobacco smoke; hence, in order to be tasted, an article of a pungent or stimulating character is resorted to, and hence the kindred habits of smoking and drinking. A writer in one of the American periodicals, speaking of the effect of tobacco, in his own case, says, that smoking and chewing "produced a continual thirst for stimulating drinks ”

“ In those animals, whose lives were suddenly destroyed by the tobacco, no coagulation of the blood took place. The bodies of several cats were examined the next day after death, and only in a single instance was a slight coagulum observed; and this was in a cat, whose constitution possessed strong powers of resistance, and whose death was comparatively lingering.
It is not improbable, that the charge of inhumanity may be made against experiments prosecuted upon defenceless animals, with a poison so painful and destructive in its operation as tobacco ”

“ I can now count ten persons who were in a feeble state of health, and who have renounced tobacco by my advice, most of whom were troubled with nervous diseases and dyspepsia. They have all acquired better health. ”

“ We accordingly find, that tobacco consumers are not favored with better teeth than others; and, on the average, they exhibit these organs in a less perfect state of preservation. Sailors make a free use of tobacco and they have bad teeth.
The grinding surfaces of the teeth are, on the average, more rapidly worn down or absorbed, from the chewing or smoking of tobacco for a series of years; being observed in some instances to project but a little way beyond the gums. ”

“ In the early records of Harvard University is a regulation ordering that "no scholar shall take tobacco unless permitted by the President, with the consent of his parents, on good reason first given by a physician, and then only in a sober and private manner." ”

“ While the myriads of sentient beings, spread over the earth, adhere, with unyielding fidelity, to the laws of their several existences, man exerts his superior intellect in attempting to outwit nature, and to show that she has made an important mistake, in his own case. ”

“ Whatever tends to weaken or depress the powers of the nervous system predisposes it to be operated upon, by the causes of these diseases. If tobacco afford protection, in such cases, why does it not secure those who use it, against cholera? In no communities, perhaps, has that disease committed more frightful ravages, than where all classes of persons are addicted to the free use of this article. In Havana, in 1833, containing a stationary population of about one hundred and twenty thousand, cholera carried off, in a few weeks, if we may credit the public journals, sixteen thousand ”

“ The poor man goes away, in a struggle between the convictions of truth and the overwhelming force of confirmed habit. Under the sustaining power of a good constitution, and in the activity of business, he never dreamed of injury from the moderate indulgence, as he regarded it, in the use of stimulants, as spirit, wine, tobacco, &c., till the work was done. ”

“ From the habitual use of tobacco, in either of its forms of snuff, cud, or cigar, the following symptoms may arise; a sense of weakness, sinking, or pain at the pit of the stomach; dizziness or pain in the head; occasional dimness or temporary loss of sight; paleness and sallowness of the countenance, and sometimes swelling of the feet; an enfeebled state of the voluntary muscles, manifesting itself sometimes by tremors of the hands, sometimes by weakness, tremulousness, squeaking or hoarseness of the voice, rarely a loss of the voice ”

“ At the age of twelve years, misled by some boyish fancy, I commenced the use of tobacco, and continued it with little restraint for about nineteen years. Generally I was in the habit of chewing tobacco, but sometimes for two, three or four months together, I exchanged chewing for smoking. I have always led a sedentary life. After attaining to manhood, my ordinary weight was about 130 pounds ”

“ It is a great mistake, into which thousands are led, to suppose that every unfavorable effect or influence of an article of food, or drink, or luxury, must be felt immediately after it is taken. Physicians often have the opportunity of witnessing this among their patients.
The confirmed dyspeptic consults his physician for pain or wind in the stomach, accompanied with headache or dizziness, occasional pains of the limbs, or numbness or tremors in the hands and feet, and sometimes with difficult breathing, disturbed sleep, and a dry cough, and huskiness of the voice in the morning. ”

“ How long shall the widow's mite, consecrated, under many personal privations, to the great object of doing good to mankind, be perverted to sustain a disgustful and hurtful habit, by the beneficiary of an Education Society? ”

“ I was present each time when he threw away his tobacco.
"The patient," says he, "at the early age of fourteen, under the impression that it was a manly habit, commenced chewing tobacco; and a long and painful course of training was required before the stomach could be brought to retain it. At length the natural aversion of this organ to the poison was so overcome, that an exceedingly large quantity might be taken without producing nausea. ”

“ The degree, in which the practice of smoking prevails, may be judged of by a fact, stated by Dr. Abbot in his Letters from Cuba, namely, that, in 1828, it was then the common estimate, that, in Havana, there was an average consumption of ten thousand dollars' worth of cigars in a day.
Dr. Moore, who resides in the province of Yucatan, in Mexico, assures me that the city of Campeachy, containing a population of twenty thousand, lost, by cholera, in about thirty days, commencing early in July, four thousand three hundred and a fraction, of its inhabitants. ”

“ From the foregoing, and from additional experiments, which it is not necessary to give in detail, it appeared, that when applied to a wound made in the most sensitive parts of the integuments, the oil of tobacco, though it caused a good deal of pain, had a far less general effect than when applied to the tongue. Rats were less affected than cats. ”

“ Not satisfied with the symmetry and elegance of form given him by his Creator, he transforms himself into a hideous monster, or copies upon his own [4] person, the proportions of some disgusting creature, far down in the scale of animal being. ”

“ His voice gradually returned, and in one year was pretty good; his flesh and strength were greatly increased, and he now has a younger look than when he laid aside his narcotic."
April, 1834.
The case of Mr. L. B., a shoemaker, now about fifty-two years of age, exhibits strikingly the injurious effects of tobacco. About fourteen years ago, he consulted me on account of dyspepsia, obstinate costiveness, [35] and palpitation of the heart, which symptoms had existed for several years. The palpitation he had observed about seven years before. In a small degree it occurred almost daily. ”

“ There groweth a certain kind of herbe, whereof in sommer, they make great provision for all the yeere, making great account of it, and onely men use it; and first they cause it to be dried in the sunne, then weare it about their necks wrapped in a little beaste's skinne, made like a little bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe ”

“ It is sometimes urged, that men occasionally live to an advanced age, who are habitual consumers of this [25] article; true, and so do some men who habitually drink rum, and who occasionally get drunk ”