A curious field of speculation, on this sanative power in the physical constitution of man, lies open to out view, had we time to pursue it, in contemplating the habits, customs, and manners of the North American Indian. Guided by the simple dictates of nature, he gratifies his appetite with such food as comes most readily within his reach, and slakes his thirst at the first mountain brook. Sometimes, for days, he lies sleeping in his smoky wigwam without the means of appeasing hunger; then rises and follows his game with the fierceness of a tiger, until the object of his pursuit is overtaken; after which, with the voracity of a dog, he loads his stomach with food sufficient to satisfy the cravings of nature, for as many days as he had previously fasted, and again betakes himself to sleep and inactivity. With all this irregularity, he is a total stranger to lingering complaints, and to that numerous as well as fashionable class of diseases denominated "Nervous." That formidable ailment, Dyspepsia, which, like a fiend, has, for the last few years pervaded the whole land, is unknown to the Indian; having its origin in the abuses introduced by civilization and refinement. But to return:
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a man who daily uses tobacco, enjoys equal health with one who uses none, and is no more liable to disease; let him once be attacked by disease, and then it will be far more difficult to remove it, than to do so in one free from such habit.
This will appear from the following considerations[:]
Remedial agents ordinarily act on the system, by exciting the living power through the medium of the nerves; hence when these have long been deadened by the habitual use of any narcotic, common sense, aside from the lights of science and philosophy, would teach us the difficulty of making an impression on a system whose nerves had thus been previously paralyzed.
Perhaps the man, who daily drinks ardent spirit, may, from the greater insensibility of his system, in some cases escape sickness as long as the most temperate, (though this is by no means a common fact); yet, let disease once commence, and then we learn, by painful experience, the disadvantage of having broken down the nervous system by needless and vicious excess.
Tobacco is acknowledged to be one of the most deadly of the vegetable narcotics: yet experience proves that the nerves, by habit, become so accustomed to its stimulus, that it in a great measure loses its power. How then can we hope with ordinary remedies to make an impression, when even this powerful agent has itself lost its proper and natural effect?
The unparalleled mortality of the great epidemic of 1812 and 1813, was in a good measure owing to the immense quantities of ardent spirit consumed by the victims of that fatal malady. In the town in which I then resided, about forty adults died in the course of the winter and spring; and most of those were in the habit of using ardent spirit freely. And though numbers of temperate persons were attacked, yet many of these recovered; while every instance within my knowledge, where an intemperate person was attacked with this formidable disease, it proved fatal.
The ravages of the cholera in India and Persia, since 1816: and in the North of Europe, for the last eighteen months; settle the point in question beyond reasonable doubt. In one hundred cases where the cholera proved fatal, ninety of them had been in the liberal use of ardent spirit. And this fact should be carefully noted, when this formidable disease has reached Great Britain, and threatens us with its visitation.
If then the habitual use of alcohol, by exhausting the nervous energy, predisposes the system to disease, and at the same time renders the disease, when it has commenced, so much more intractable; what shall be said of the common use of tobacco, which is allowed by all to be a still more deadly poison, and of course must exhaust the power of the nerves in a proportionate degree?
A female, aged 27 years, was attacked in December 1829 with a sore mouth, accompanied with diarrhœa and profuse salivation. These complaints continued to increase, notwithstanding the application of a variety of remedies, prescribed by her medical attendant, until the 5th of March following, when I was called to take charge of the patient. She was much emaciated. The discharge from the bowels continued unabated, and was often attended with severe pain and great prostration of strength. The salivation was accompanied with a burning or scalding sensation in the mouth and stomach, which proved excessively irritating to the patient, as well as perplexing to me. On examining her case, I found the nervous system entirely deranged and much broken by the habit of smoking, which she had practiced to great excess from the age of eleven years. I learned, to my surprise and regret, that she commenced this habit, which afterwards cost her so much suffering, by the advice of some wise member of the Faculty, who had prescribed it for some slight derangement of the stomach.