when he takes a foul pipe into his mouth, is due
to the bitter extract. It is this, Dr. Richardson
believes, which creates vomiting in persons
unaccustomed to tobacco, and of which the body
becomes tolerant after a time.

It has been the custom, up to the present
time, to consider the alkaloid nicotine as the
author, one and indivisible, of all the smoker's
pleasures and pains. The hypothesis, as we
have seen, is utterly groundless. For the
production of the effects caused by tobacco on the
human body there are several and different
substances. Nicotine, although the most potent,
is the last, owing to its small amount, and its
slight volatility, to exert effects upon the
smoker. It is only after prolonged smoking
that it reaches the blood at all; then truly it
becomes the most active poison of the group,
exciting symptoms which are at all times dangerous,
sometimes fatal; and which, but for the rarity
of their occurrence, would have excluded
tobacco as a luxury at its first origin, without any
aid from the moral crusaders against the weed.

In common conversation we speak of tobacco
as a narcotic poison, and anti-tobacconists are
everlastingly dinging into our ears their
statements respecting this terrible "stupifying"
drug; but, in truth, the idea that tobacco is a
narcotic is as false as it can be. Tobacco is no
more a narcotic than strychnia is: if it were, it
would be an infinitely more agreeable friend at
first sight than it is. Your true narcotic is
really a seducing body, that asks you to apply
to it again, with a meaning that is pleasant at
the time, and not unpleasant afterwards to the
recollection; but tobacco raises its victim's
whole soul into a fervour of abhorrence; witness
the pleasant time of probation commonly known
as "learning to smoke." It is so candid that it
tells you at once, "I am a devil, and these are
my tortures: try them again, if you dare."
Tobacco, then, is not a narcotic; that is to say,
it does not remove sensation, nor excite pleasurable
emotion. If it be a friend, it is not very
friendly at the first introduction. Fortunately,
or unfortunately, it becomes milder as it grows
more familiar. But for all that, if any person
who was asking himself whether or not he should
cultivate its acquaintance, had seen what Dr.
Richardson has seen, he would surely decline
the honour, and that even though he might
know of certain after advantages to be derived
from the friendship.

The body, after being subjected for a few
times to the poisons of tobacco-smoke, becomes
accustomed to their influence, and ceases to
offer any of the immediate and active signs of
opposition. There is set up what is technically
called "a tolerance," and the direct mischief
seems to be over. The fact is, the animal
organism is formed to adapt itself to many
impressions and influences which at first application
are objectionable, by virtue of the power of
quickly getting rid of the offending bodies. This
occurs in respect to tobacco. After a short time,
the products of the tobacco find a ready exit out
of the system. They are thrown off by the three
great eliminatories—the lungs, the skin, and the
kidneys. The volatile matters exhale by the
lungs. We have evidence of that in the breath
of every heavy smoker. In confirmed smokers,
their every garment becomes impregnated with
the smell of tobacco; and we say that the smoke
hangs about their clothes, as though the smoke
had simply fallen on them from without; but
this is not quite the fact. The vapour has, in
reality, largely exhaled from the skin and
saturated the clothing. When, as will sometimes
happen, the smoker carries about with him the
odour of a single pipe, he has some defect in his
breathing apparatus; he cannot eliminate by his
lungs the volatile empyreumatic product and
the ammonia with the needful rapidity: so the
skin doing more work than is natural to it, in
order to relieve the lungs, the tobacco products
pass off by it, saturating the clothing and
concentrating the perfume.

As to the question whether the habit of
tobacco-smoking produces insanity, Dr. Richardson
believes there is no evidence whatever of the
production of any form of insanity by smoking.
If such a source of insanity existed, as is
supposed, it would show itself immediately and
broadly in the differences of numbers between
the insane of the different sexes; the proportion
of insane male patients would naturally be
increased in proportion to the excess of males who
smoke, over both insane males and females who
do not smoke. But no such a rule is even
approached; no special asylum has shown such
a rule; no country, through its asylums
altogether, has shown such a rule.

Passing over several details for which the
treatise itself may be consulted with advantage,
we arrived at Dr. Richardson's admission that,
of nearly every luxury, tobacco is the least
injurious. It is innocuous as compared with
alcohol; it does infinitely less harm than opium;
it is in no sense, he says, worse than tea and
sugar; (!) and by the side of high living
altogether, it contrasts most favourably. A thorough
smoker may or may not be a hard drinker; but
there is one thing he never is, a glutton. And
yet the doctor comes to the conclusion that,
taking it all in all, stripping from the argument
the puerilities and exaggerations of those
who claim to be professed antagonists of the
practice, it is fair to say that, in the main,
smoking is a luxury which any nation, of natural
habits, would be better without. The luxury is
not directly fatal to life; but its use conveys to
the mind of the man who looks upon it calmly,
the unmistakable idea of physical degradation.
At any rate, if tobacco-smoke be a poison, it is
in some cases a very slow one.

Finally, the dangers of tobacco are not
confined to smoke alone; for there is no smoke
without fire. The destruction of property by
the carelessness of smokers—the corn-stacks,
hayricks, barns, and houses burnt—amount to
a very heavy total loss, not to mention the
suffering occasionally inflicted on innocent
women and children by heedlessly tossed-away
lucifers. Now and then, the author of the evil