Tobacco chewing

“ Smokers keep on finding chewers disgusting, and smokers of pipes and cigars frequently object to the odor of cigarettes.
Nothing more strikingly illustrates how addicted people may become to a habit than the smoking and chewing of the traditional Southern gentleman of the old school, whom any other [Pg 141] personal uncleanliness would have horrified. Young men most fastidious about their apparel seem quite unaware that it is saturated with the smell of tobacco. The odor of a cigarette is probably as offensive to some of those who do not smoke as any other smell under heaven. ”

“ Before the full maturity of the system is attained, even the smallest amount of smoking is hurtful; subsequently, the habit is generally prejudicial. Smoked just after a meal a cigar is said to act as a digestive stimulant, and as a food when other forms of nourishment are not procurable. In some persons smoking increases, in others diminishes mental activity. Chewing is considered the most deleterious form in which to use tobacco. The different kinds of tobacco exert a different influence on the smoker according to the amount of noxious ingredients which they contain. ”

“ The taste of the tobacco makes the saliva flow from the glands into the mouth. This dissolves the poison out of the tobacco and it is then spit out. If the tobacco-soaked saliva were all swallowed, the man would be poisoned.
The chewing of tobacco causes the loss of much saliva which is needed to help digest the food. Anyone who tires his jaw by chewing tobacco is not likely to chew his food well. Some of the poison in the tobacco is taken into the body through the blood vessels in the lining of the mouth. ”

“ Chewing prevails par excellence in our own country, and among the sailors of most nations,—to some extent also in Switzerland, Iceland, and among the Northern races. It is the safest and most convenient form at sea.
By smoking, each of the three active ingredients of tobacco is rendered capable of absorption. The empyreumatic oil is produced by combustion. The pipe retains this and a portion of the nicotin in its pores. The cigar, alone, conveys all the essential elements into the system. ”

“ To the use of tobacco is ascribed an acid dyspepsia—this, however, is noticed more particularly in habitual chewers and in this case the nicotine not being burnt has no chance of [Pg 188] being decomposed. All writers have agreed that chewing is the worst way that tobacco can be used. ”

“ The influences of smoking and snuffing on politics and war are ascertainable. What the effect of chewing is on political and military affairs, it is not so easy to discover. We recommend the subject for meditation to the profoundest metaphysicians. How many of the American politicians and generals have been chewers as well as snuffers and smokers? Is there to be some mysterious affinity between chewing and the revolutions, especially the social revolutions of the future? May not apocalyptic interpreters be able to show that chewing is the symbol of anarchy and annihilation? ”

“ Any one who has seen the discomfort and even torments endured by a man who, after he had chewed tobacco for many years, tried to stop will appreciate fully what a firm hold the habit has obtained. I have known a serious business man who almost had to give up business, who lost his sleep and his appetite and went through a nervous crisis merely by trying to break the habit of chewing tobacco.
In the Orient they chew betel nut. It is an extremely hot material which burns the tongue and which a man can stand for only a very short time when he first tries it. ”

“ The worst form in which tobacco is employed is in chewing. This vegetable is one of the most powerful of narcotics. A very small portion of it—say a couple of drachms, and perhaps even less—received into the stomach might prove fatal. When it is taken into the mouth in smaller portions, and there retained some time, an absorption of part of it into the system takes place, which has a most debilitating effect. If we wished to reduce our physical powers in a slow yet certain way, we could not adopt a more convenient process. ”

“ Taken in large quantities into the stomach, tobacco not only causes an excretion of mucus from the mouth, throat, and breathing organs, but it produces an overtaxing of the liver; that is, this organ overworks in order to counteract the presence of the poison. But one asks, If tobacco is so injurious, why is it used with such apparent pleasure? A small quantity of tobacco received into the system by smoking, chewing, or snuffing is carried through the circulation to the skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, and to all the organs of the body, by which it is moderately resisted. ”

“ Nature protects itself by salivation. It is possible, that, in smoking one hundred grains of tobacco, there may be drawn into the mouth two grains or more of the same poison; "for, as nicotin volatilizes at a temperature below that of burning tobacco, it is constantly present in the smoke." It is not probable that here, again, so much is absorbed.
But we will return to this question of the relative effects of chewing, cigar- and pipe-smoking, and snuff-taking, presently. ”

“ Smoking is to some extent gradually replacing betel-nut chewing, especially with the children, who now take to the weed when they are about five or six years old. The native tobacco is very strong, and when smoked as a cigarette wrapped in dried banana-leaf, it is decidedly unpalatable to the European. Light cigarette tobaccos of foreign manufacture are now much in vogue. Those who can afford it, roll up the tobacco in lotus leaf. ”

“ The evil effects occasioned by man's indulging too frequently in tobacco have been the subject of many a fierce debate between the friends and foes of the "great plant." Many, however, are not aware of the fatality attending its use by the brute creation. A modern English poet on hearing of the result produced on a cow from chewing tobacco, penned the following sad lines which he entitles—"An elegy on somebody's Cow." ”

“ The Americans, it is to be observed, generally smoke cigars; and tobacco in this form burns very fast away in the open air, more especially when the consumer is rapidly locomotive, whether upon his own legs, the back of a horse, the top of a coach, the deck of a steamboat, or in an open railway carriage. The habit of chewing tobacco is also (p. 279) prevalent in 'the States,' nor is it, as in Great Britain and Ireland, almost entirely confined to the poorer classes. ”

“ In another State it is allowed to smoke cigars but not cigarettes, although of the three modes of using tobacco, snuffing, chewing and smoking, the cigar is the worst of the last mode, because, as a rule, it combines the effects of chewing and smoking. ”

“ Their chewing tobacco not only offends, but makes us apprehensive at the same time that the poor things will be sick," as they certainly well deserved to be. To chew might be "manly," but it will be observed that smoking is not mentioned. No reputation for manliness could be achieved by even the affectation of a pipe. Similarly, in Bramston's "Man of Taste," various fashionable tastes are described, but there is no mention of tobacco. ”

“ A little of the strong yellow “Circassian” tobacco used by the Russians for trading is occasionally brought up from the southwest, and perhaps also by the Nunatañmiun, and is very highly prized, probably because it was in this form that they first saw tobacco. Snuff seems to be unknown; tobacco is used only for chewing and smoking. The habit of chewing tobacco is almost universal. Men, women, and even children, though the latter be but 2 or 3 years old and unweaned,114 when tobacco is to be obtained, keep a “chew,” often of enormous size, constantly in the mouth. ”

“ HOW TOBACCO IS USED. Tobacco is used in two ways, smoking and chewing. Both are filthy, sickening habits, the latter being the more disgusting. For any boy to chew is to exemplify bad manners doubtless influenced by bad morals. A few years ago a call was issued from London, to the scientists of the world to assemble for the discussion of whatever scientific subjects might be presented, every statement to undergo rigid scrutiny. One member said: “Tobacco is not injurious. ”

“ IN speaking of the physiological position of tobacco, we have to deal with the action of the essential principles of that plant upon the human system. The peculiar effects of tobacco are due to the action of the essential oil of tobacco in the case of chewing and snuffing, and to that combined with the empyreumatic oil in smoking. Nicotine, as this essential principle is called, is so deadly an alkaloid, that the amount of it contained in one cigar, if extracted and administered in a pure state, would suffice to kill two men. ”

“ Foreign varieties are used only to a limited extent, being chiefly confined to those of transatlantic birth and tastes. The custom of chewing and smoking seems to be more popular with the male sex than snuff-taking, and one rarely finds a man addicted to the latter habit, unless it be one somewhat advanced in years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When you are chewing gum, you look as if you were chewing tobacco. No one likes to see a boy or girl even appearing to chew tobacco. If you form a habit of chewing gum you will be more likely to chew tobacco when you are grown.
WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED
1. Men use tobacco for the sake of its nicotine. Nicotine is a very strong poison.
2. Tobacco causes a man to waste his saliva.
3. Tobacco makes the mouth dry.
4. Tobacco hinders digestion.
5. Tobacco stains the teeth, and makes the breath smell bad. [Pg 36]
6. Tobacco makes a person sick at the stomach.
7. Tobacco weakens the muscles. ”

“ 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 ”

“ These kinds are favourites with those who chew tobacco. Besides smoking and chewing, tobacco is used as a sternutatory by inhaling through the nose, and the practice of snuff-taking in Britain is nearly coeval with smoking; the habit, which is highly objectionable in many respects, especially in a sanitary point of view, is certainly declining. ”

“ YOUNG SMOKERS.
Some boys, nowadays, would gladly undergo the “flogging” if they could be permitted to enjoy a smoke afterwards.
There are but few people inhabiting the eastern coast, and following fishing for a vocation, who do not smoke or chew tobacco; and their wives and children also smoke.
Sailors are proverbially addicted to smoking and chewing. Their love of tobacco far exceeds their appetite for grog. ”

“ This is the worst way for the health in which tobacco can be used. The waste of saliva is greater than even in smoking, and the derangements of the digestive organs proportionably severe. All confirmed chewers are more than usually subject to dyspepsia and hypochondriasis; and many of them are afflicted with liver complaint, brought on by their imprudent habit.
The most innocent, and, at the same time, most disgusting way of using tobacco, is plugging, which consists in inserting a short roll of the plant in the nostril and allowing it to remain there so long as the person feels disposed. ”

“ We find nowadays that smokers as well as non-smokers are suspicious of any form of tobacco-taking to which they have not become used. Smokers who for the first time meet chewers or snuffers or those who “dip” tobacco, as in the South, are affected unpleasantly. ”

“ Inhalation is harmful because it not only exposes the absorbent tissues of the mouth and upper throat to the smoke, but thrusts the smoke throughout the throat, lungs, and nose, all of which are lined with a specially sensitive membrane of great absorptive capacity. Thus from the smoke of the cigarette the system takes up many times as much poison as it takes up from the uninhaled smoke of the pipe or cigar. Indeed, it may be added that the purer and higher the grade of the tobacco, the more harmful it is to the smoker, for the more will it tempt him into inhalation. ”

“ After a while, he becomes used to it, and an ordinary chew or smoke does not make him sick. But a large chew or smoke will always make him sick again. When a person is sick from tobacco he is very weak. Even if he is not sick, the tobacco [Pg 33] poisons his muscles and makes his strength less. When a man trains for a hard race he never uses tobacco.
49. Tobacco hinders digestion.—Tobacco and its smoke both have a burning taste. This makes the throat sore, and causes a cough. Tobacco does not help the stomach to digest food. Smokers and chewers often have headaches and coated tongues. ”

“ It must be borne in mind that these three chemical ingredients are united when smoking, and produce to a greater or less degree their respective effects. A cigar when smoked to the end effectually discharges into the smoker’s mouth everything produced by its combustion. When saliva is retained in the mouth, the effects of tobacco in one sense become more markedly developed on the nervous system. On the other hand, when constant expectoration takes place, digestion becomes impaired, from the diminution of saliva, which plays an important part in this function. ”