Tobacco use

“ From bodies thus imperfectly nourished, we demand excessive exertions of all kinds.
Hence, the universal craving for artificial aids to digestion. Hence, the universal use of stimulants,—whiskey, Worcestershire sauce, beer, wine, coffee, tea, tobacco. This is the only reason I can discover in the nature of things here for the widespread, increasing propensity to smoke. As all the virtues are akin, and give loyal aid to one another, so are all the vices in alliance, and play into one another's hands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are slaves, and tobacco is their master.
Cigarettes and Health.—A cigarette is a tube of paper filled with tobacco. The tobacco is usually not so strong as that used in cigars and pipes. For this reason, boys like it better, and because it is so mild they draw the smoke down into the lungs. This gives the poison a better chance to be taken up by the blood. On this account, and because one is likely to smoke oftener when he smokes a small piece of tobacco, cigarettes are thought by some to be more harmful than the use of tobacco in pipes and cigars. ”

“ Tobacco, as a luxury, has been used for the two last centuries over all the civilized, and the greater portion of the [17] uncivilized world. The modes have been snuffing, smoking, and chewing. Its effects, when habitually used in each of these modes, will now be examined. As far as my observations extend, few, if any, of all the devotees to this stupefying substance, ever resort to its use without some supposed necessity; and often, alas too often, by the advice of physicians. ”

“ He flies for relief to his pipe, his cigar, his quid, or his bottle, with the vain hope of escaping from himself. To accomplish an object so desirable, he hesitates not to stupify those noble faculties which he cannot hope to extinguish, and with which he has been endowed by the God of nature, for wise and benevolent purposes. And will you, gentlemen, by precept and example, longer sanction such a course of conduct,—conduct so degrading to us as intelligent beings, and as conservators of the public health?
The third mode of habitually using tobacco, is chewing. ”

“ He says, ‘Tobacco taken in the vulgar way at the mouth through a pipe has effects not only manifold but diverse,’ and he explains that its use, when it may be had, seems not only necessary but profitable for soldiers and mariners, for that it renders them both fearless of any danger, and patient of hunger, cold, and labour.’ Army experiences of recent years bear testimony to the beneficial use of tobacco in almost the same words. ”

“ Rush, "is it possible to contemplate the creature man in a more absurd and ridiculous light, than in his foolish and disgusting attachment to the poisonous weed, tobacco." Who then can witness groups of boys ten or twelve years old [36] in our streets, smoking cigars, without anticipating such a depreciation in our posterity with regard to health and character, as can scarcely be contemplated without pain and horror! ”

“ Excessive smoking causes mental and physical laziness in boys and men.
The following organs, fluids, functions, etc., of the body, especially of the young, are frequently more or less affected by the use of tobacco:—The blood, the heart, the nerves, the brain, the liver, the lungs, the stomach, the throat, the saliva, the taste, the voice, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, the tongue, the palate, the pancreas, the lips, the teeth, the bones, the skin. ”

“ The stale excuse, so often repeated by the lovers of tobacco, that they have been advised to use it by physicians, for the mitigation or removal of some bodily infirmity, may be urged with equal force and propriety by the tippler and the sot; for many, very many, have been advised by members of the Faculty, to drink the deadly draught, in some form or other, either to ease the pains of dyspepsia, to allay the horrors of tedium vitæ, or to drown the anguish of a guilty conscience. ”

“ Those who live constantly in the region of tobacco, by the effect of habit cease to be stimulated and over excited by the diffusion of its lighter particles in the air they breathe. But those who employ it, occasionally, whether in smoking, chewing or snuffing, undergo an excitement, more or less considerable; which is infallibly followed by a proportionate debility, in which state, they would be subject to the attacks of a disease they might otherwise have escaped. ”

“ The development of cigar-smoking among those classes from which tobacco had long been practically banished, and the natural consequent spread downwards of the use of cigars—in accordance with the invariable law of fashion—together with the continued devotion to the pipe among those whose love of tobacco had never slackened, made smoking a much more general practice than it had been for some generations. ”

“ Then there are the cannibals of the South Seas—they love tender babies to eat, but not an old tobacco-soaked sailor will they masticate.
Tobacco kills lice, bugs, fops, small boys, and other vermin.
Tobacco fees doctors, and fills hospitals.
Tobacco fills insane asylums and jails.
Tobacco fills pauper houses and graveyards.
Tobacco makes drunkards.
Tobacco and rum go hand and hand; they are one, inseparable; they are twins, yea, Siamese twins, the Chang and Eng of all villanies. I never saw a drunkard who did not first use tobacco. ”

“ A medical gentleman of high standing, in an adjoining county, who has recently abandoned the common use of tobacco, informed me, that on a certain occasion his muscular and vital energies were so overcome, by chewing, that in attempting to put his horse into the stable, he was obliged to lie down until he had so far recovered his strength as to enable him to proceed to his house. ”

“ Tens of thousands of people have been asking the question during the past two months, asking it with great pathos and great earnestness: "Does the use of tobacco produce cancerous and other troubles?" ”

“ The body already weakened by the poison of the alcohol is then easily overcome by the disease.
Tobacco and the Lungs.—The occasional use of tobacco does not seem to hurt the lungs when fully grown. A study of many young persons has shown that the chest of smokers grows much more slowly than in those who do not use tobacco. As the lungs cannot grow any faster than the chest, they must grow slowly in boys using much tobacco. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now if tobacco produces no effect, why are such results witnessed by its consumers, and why do the candid among them acknowledge that these evils arise from its use? The health of the medical gentleman above named was materially improved after laying aside tobacco ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is furthermore positive that persons of a certain disposition and with certain ailments are injured by even a moderate use of tobacco. The above facts serve as arms for the opponents of the habit; the robust who smoke and drink to excess and meet with an accidental death on a railroad or from an acute disease that overtakes [181] them in the midst of perfect health, serve as arguments for the defenders, to prove the innocence of the custom. ”

“ Tobacco injures morally. It heads the list of vices. It is the first step to bad companionship, lewd conversation and liquor drinking. The latter and tobacco-using are twin habits; and do you wonder at it when tobacco is saturated with Jamaica rum; while “plug” tobacco which is composed of licorice, sugar, cabbage, burdock and the refuse of tobacco leaves and other weeds, is often found nailed at the bottom of whiskey barrels? Said Horace Greeley, “Show me a drunkard who does not use tobacco, and I will show you a white blackbird.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The use of tobacco in sufficient quantities to produce intoxication seemed to be a favorite remedy for most diseases among them and was administered by their doctors or medicine-men in large quantities. ”

“ All clever physicians have judged, and have also shown by experiment, that one of the constituents of tobacco is a mortal poison and that smokers are exposed to different indispositions and maladies. That is why cleanly people have a marked aversion for its use. ”

“ They both chew and smoke tobacco, but they do not use pipes for smoking; they roll up the tobacco in a strip of dried leaf, take three or four whiffs, emitting the smoke through their nostrils, and then they extinguish it. ”

“ That the habitual use of tobacco is a wide spread, and spreading evil, will be acknowledged by all. This has been felt for years by the most enlightened members of the Faculty. That it causes many diseases, particularly visceral obstructions, and renders many others exceedingly difficult to cure, is demonstrated in the daily experience of every practitioner. ”

“ THE INFLUENCE UPON YOUTH.—Here, too, science utters no doubtful voice. Experience asserts only one conviction. Tobacco retards the development of mind and body. [Footnote: Cigarettes are especially injurious from the irritating smoke of the paper covering, taken into the lungs, and also because the poison fumes of the tobacco are more directly inhaled. In case of the cheap cigarettes often smoked by boys the ingredients used are harmful, while one revolts at the thought of the filthy materials, refuse cigar stumps, etc., employed in their manufacture.] ”

“ Nicotine and Social Custom.—The influences which brought about a general use of tobacco are similar to, though not identical with, those that engrafted alcohol upon society. The drug nicotine is a habit-forming substance and the plant producing it is easily cultivated.138 Its immediate effect upon the user is generally agreeable, acting as a stimulant to some, but having a soothing effect upon the nerves of others. ”

“ They appear to have a natural propensity for the fumes of tobacco, which they invariably inhale into the lungs, and eject through the nostrils. They make no use of this article except in smoking, which is an {256} indulgence of which they are exceedingly reluctant to be deprived. ”

“ When you see a habitual tobacco user in the company of his friends you will see him either squirting his poison fluid over his friend's hearth, house, floor, and stove, and breathing his loathsome poisonous breath into the face of his friend, or pouring his poison smoke into the eyes, nose, and lungs of all present. ”

“ It is estimated that there are two hundred millions of tobacco-users in the world. What a splendid regiment of sneezers, spewers, smokers, and spitters they would make! They would form a phalanx of five deep, reaching entirely around the world. ”

“ We may, upon occasion, feel for the manufacturers and venders of 'lights,' but more generally we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the purchasers of such contrivances for the ignition of pipes and cigars. The smoking of tobacco is an art; an art which, in its proper exercise, requires much care, much prudence, and not a little skill. This is a proposition which must, from its very nature, be startling to non-smokers, and surprising to many smokers. ”

“ My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor. ”