"As to smoking stupefying a man's faculties or blunting his energy, that allegation I take to be mainly nonsense. The greatest workers and thinkers of modern times have been inveterate smokers. At the same time, it is idle to deny that smoking to excess weakens the eyesight, impairs the digestion, plays havoc with the nerves, and interferes with the action of the heart. I have been a constant smoker for nearly forty years; but had I my life to live over again I would never touch tobacco in any shape or form. It is to the man who sits all day long at a desk, poring over books and scribbling 'copy,' that smoking is deleterious."

Illustrated London News, Sep. 30, 1882.