[1]

Smoking and Drinking. By James Parton. Boston, Ticknor & Fields, 1868. 12mo, pp. 151.

[2]

When we first read this remark, we took it for a mere burst of impassioned rhetoric; but on second thoughts, it appears to have a meaning. Another knight-errant in physiology charges tobacco with producing "giddiness, sickness, vomiting, vitiated taste of the mouth, loose bowels, diseased liver, congestion of the brain, apoplexy, palsy, mania, loss of memory, amaurosis, deafness, nervousness, emasculation, and cowardice." Lizars, On Tobacco, p. 29. A goodly array of bugbears, quite aptly illustrating the remark of one of our medical professors, that hygienic reformers, in the length of their lists of imaginary diseases, are excelled only by the itinerant charlatans who vend panaceas. There is, however, no scientific foundation for the statement that tobacco "takes off the edge of virility." The reader who is interested in this question may consult Orfila, Toxicologie, tom. II. p. 527; Annales d'HygiÈne, tom. XXXVIII.; and a Memoir by Laycock in the London Medical Gazette, 1846, tom. III.

[3]

"I am not acquainted with any well-ascertained ill effects resulting from the habitual practice of smoking."—Pereira, Materia Medica, vol. ii., p. 1431. Tobacco "is used in immense quantities over the whole world as an article of luxury, without any bad effect having ever been clearly traced to it."—Christison on Poisons, p. 730. These two short sentences, from such consummate masters of their science as Christison and Pereira, should far more than outweigh all the volumes of ignorant denunciation which have been written by crammers, smatterers, and puritanical reformers, from King James down.

[4]

Only a basis, however. The argument as applied to tobacco, though a necessary corollary from Dr. Anstie's doctrines, is in no sense Dr. Anstie's argument. We are ourselves solely responsible for it.

[5]

Sleep is caused by a diminution of blood in the cerebrum; stupor and delirium, as well as insomnia, or nocturnal wakefulness, are probably caused by excess of blood in the cerebrum. We feel sleepy after a heavy meal, because the stomach, intestines and liver appropriate blood which would ordinarily be sent to the brain. But after a drunken debauch, a man sinks in stupor because the brain is partially congested. The blood rushes to the paralyzed part, just as it rushes to an inflamed part; and in the paralysis, as in the inflammation, nutrition and the products of nutrition are lowered. The habitual drunkard lowers the quality of his nervous system, and impairs its sensitiveness,—hence the necessity of increasing the dose. It will be seen, therefore, that it is not the function of a narcotic, as such, to induce sleep, though in a vast number of cases it may induce stupor. The headache felt on awaking from stupor, is the index of impaired nutrition, quite the reverse of the vigor felt on arising from sleep.

[6]

Mr. Lizars (On Tobacco, p. 54) has the impudence to cite Pereira (vol. ii. p. 1426) as an opponent of smoking, because he calls nicotine a deadly poison! And on p. 58 he similarly misrepresents Johnston. This is the way in which popular writers contrive to marshal an array of scientific authorities on their side. In the case of tobacco, however, it is difficult to find physiologists who will justify the popular clamour. They have a way of taking the opposite view; and when Mr. Lizars cannot get rid of them in any other way, he insinuates that all writings in favour of tobacco "have been got up from more than questionable motives." (p. 137.) This is in the richest vein of what, for want of a better word, we have called radicalism; and may be compared with Mr. Parton's belief that physicians recommend alcoholic drinks because they like to fatten on human suffering! (Smoking and Drinking, p. 56.)

[7]

Clendon, On the Causes of the Evils of Infant Dentition.

[8]

Curling, On Tetanus, p. 168; Earle, in Med. Chir. Trans., vol. vi., p. 92; and O'Beirne, in Dublin Hospital Reports, vols. i. and ii.

[9]

Wood, U. S. Dispensatory.

[10]

Sigmond, in Lancet, vol. ii., p. 253.

[11]

Currie, Med. Rep., vol. i., p. 163.

[12]

Indeed, there are many fatal cases in which tubercles never appear. See Niemeyer on Pulmonary PhthÏsis.

[13]

Stimulants and Narcotics, p. 144.

[14]

Stimulants and Narcotics, p. 148.

[15]

Id. p. 224.

[16]

"The origin of the belief that stimulation is necessarily followed by a depressive recoil is obviously to be found in the old vitalistic ideas. It is our old acquaintance, the ArchÆus, whose exhaustion, after his violent efforts in resentment of the goadings which he has endured, is represented in modern phraseology by the term 'depressive reaction.' This idea once being firmly established in the medical mind, the change from professed vitalism to dynamical explanations of physiology has not materially shaken its hold." Id. p. 146. An interesting example of the way in which quite obsolete and forgotten theories will continue clandestinely to influence men's conclusions. The subject is well treated by Lemoine, Le Vitalisme et l'Animisme de Stahl. Paris, 1864.

[1]

Opium, as used in moderation by Orientals, has not been proved to exercise any deleterious effects. Very likely it is a healthful stimulant; but it does not appear to agree with the constitutions of the Western races. See Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xi. p. 364. Probably tea, tobacco and alcohol are the only stimulants adapted alike to all races, and to nearly all kinds of people.

[2]

Lewes, Life of Goethe, vol. II. p. 267.

[3]

In illustration it may be noted that as soon as a man has just transgressed the physiological limit which divides stimulation from narcosis, he is liable to throw overboard all prudential considerations and drink until he is completely drunk. This is one of the chief dangers of convivial after-dinner drinking.

[4]

For the physiology of this pupil-change, not uncommon in various kinds of acute narcosis, see the Appendix to Anstie.

[5]

Stimulants and Narcotics, pp. 174-178.

[6]

For this and parallel cases see Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. XVIII.

[7]

It has been asserted by teetotalers that the mortality from intemperance is 50,000 a year in the United States alone!! It is to be regretted that friends of temperance are to be found who will persist in injuring the cause by such wanton exaggerations. In the United States, in 1860, the whole number of deaths from all causes was a trifle less than 374,000: the whole number of deaths from intemperance was 931,—that is to say, less than one in 374. See the admirable pamphlet by the late Gov. Andrew, on The Errors of Prohibition, p. 112. In view of these facts, it appears to us many leagues within the bounds of probability to say that hardly one person in ten is a

[8]

See Anstie, op. cit. pp. 215, 216, 218.

[9]

This is not always true, however: it is well to look sharp before making a sweeping statement. The digesting power of gastric juice is increased by diluting it with a certain amount of water. See Lehmann, Physiologische Chemie, II. 47.

[10]

Dunglison, Human Physiology, vol. I. p. 148; Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, vol. I. p. 170.

[11]

Dunglison, op. cit. I. 196.

[12]

Lewes, loc. cit.

[13]

A good summary will be found in the American Journal of Medical Sciences, July, 1859.

[14]

Chemistry of Common Life, vol. I., p. 288.

[15]

Except that of contemporary physiologists. Among these there are few greater names than that of Moleschott; whose testimony to the strengthening properties of alcohol may be found in his Lehre der Nahrungsmitiel, p. 162.

[16]

We presume Mr. Parton thinks these three unprofessional opinions enough to outweigh the all but unanimous testimony of physicians to the tonic effects of beer, wine and brandy.

[17]

Anstie, op. cit. pp. 381—385.

[18]

In view of these and similar facts, Dr. Anstie remarks that "the effect of nutritious food, where it can be digested, is undistinguishable from that of alcohol upon the abnormal conditions of the nervous system which prevail in febrile diseases." p. 385. For the use of wine or brandy in infantile typhoid and typhus, see Hillier on Diseases of Children, a most admirable work.

[19]

See Chambers, Digestion and its Derangements, p. 249; and in general, Johnston, Von Bibra, and the paper of Dr. Hammond above referred to.

[20]

Carpenter, Human Physiology, p. 387.

[21]

Anstie, op. cit., p. 359.

[22]

Baudot, De la Destruction de l'Alcool dans l'Organisme, Union MÉdicale, Nov. et DÉc., 1863. See also the elaborate criticism in Anstie, op. cit., pp. 358-370.

[23]

De la Digestion des Boissons Alcooliques, in Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 1847, tom. xxi.

[24]

Ueber das Verhalten des Alkohols im thierischen Organismus, in Vierteljahrsschrift fÜr die praktische Heilkunde, Prague, 1833.

[25]

See Moleschott, Circulation de la Vie, tom. ii. p. 6.

[26]

So decisive is the paralyzing power of a narcotic dose of alcohol upon the stomach in some cases, that we have seen a drunken man vomit scarcely altered food which, it appeared, had been eaten fourteen hours before. The sum and substance of the above argument is that, as the narcotic dose of alcohol prevents the digestion of other food, it will also prevent the digestion of itself.

[27]

In typhoid and typhus the "poison-line" of alcohol is shifted, so that large quantities may be taken without risk of narcosis. Women, in this condition, have been known to consume 36 oz. of brandy (containing 18 oz. of alcohol) per diem.

[28]

It is not certain, however, that alcoholic drinks, as usually taken, materially retard the waste of tissue. These drinks contain but from 2 to 50 per cent of alcohol; the remainder being chiefly water, which is a great accelerator of waste. The weight-sustaining power of brandy, or especially of wine and ale, can, therefore, perhaps be hardly accounted for without admitting a true food-action.

[29]

Dalton, Human Physiology, p. 363.

[30]

Payen, Substances Alimentaires, p. 482.

[31]

The liquid food may be taken in the shape of free water, or of water contained in the tissues of succulent vegetables. See Pereira, Treatise on Food and Diet, p. 277.

[32]

Physiological Memoirs, Philadelphia, 1863, p. 48.

[33]

Anstie, op. cit. p. 388.

[34]

Brinton, Treatise on Food and Digestion; and Cornhill Magazine, Sept. 1862; cited in the pamphlet of Gov. Andrew, above-mentioned.

[35]

Liebig, Letters on Chemistry, p. 454.

[36]

Anstie, op. cit. p. 401.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.

The cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain.