‘Indulgence in tobacco and alcohol are leading directly to the total annihilation of conscience … the moral sense is blunted, and degeneracy is spreading throughout Christendom. Count Tolstoy is perfectly certain of it, according to communications which have reached me through a medium of highly purified spiritual affinities.’
‘After dinner nothing ever was so good as a pipe, taken with a glass or two of brandy—not that I cared for alcohol, O dear no! but this I do say, that the more I smoked the better I worked.’
‘The depopulation of France is directly involved in the use of the pernicious plant called tobacco, as was proved by my experiments on cocks and rabbits (Dr. Depierris). The manufacture and sale of tobacco are, very properly, entirely in the hands of the government; it can, therefore, regulate the output, increase or diminish the quantity, or cut off the supply altogether, if either one or the other course be deemed advisable in the public interest. My argument was, in the first place, based upon experiments on animal organisms conducted under my own eyes, and in the second place, on reports furnished by Prefects of Departments. Those reports demonstrated the alarming fact that in ten departments where each inhabitant smoked on an average 1490 grammes of tobacco in the year, the families having seven children and upwards were in the proportion of sixty-eight in every 100,000 of the population; while in ten other departments where the average consumption of tobacco was only 451 grammes per head, the proportion of families of seven children for every 100,000 inhabitants rose to eighty-one; the still-born children numbered only 156, against 1124 in the former case. Hence the significant inference that the use of tobacco led directly to degeneracy of the human race.’
‘But tobacco may be used in moderation without injury, if men would but keep away from the little glasses of brandy, absinthe, and other similar liqueurs.’
‘Tobacco produces sluggishness and loss of will power.’
‘On dit, et c’est passé en proverbe; Le tabac c’est l’ami de l’homme, il le console de la femme.’
‘Fumer, c’est obtenir une trêve à la tristesse, aux préoccupations irritantes, aux petites misères de la vie, aux chagrins domestiques, aux tracasseries d’un ménage mal assorti; c’est aussi, en matiere de travaux intellectuels et artistiques, se procurer, au moyen d’une surexcitation légere, un développement, une clairvoyance d’idées qui souvent vous fuient, c’est un refuge contre ce qui blesse ou choque, contre le mécontentement de soi-meme ou d’autres; c’est dans les professions manuelles, une diminution des sensations de fatigue, d’ennui, de découragement; c’est aussi, une annihilation du mal qui cause une atmosphere froide, humide, malsaine, c’est enfin une jouissance émanant d’une faible congestion au cerveau, un étourdissement passager, une sorte d’ivresse légere qui caresse les idées et les empeche de vagabonder.
‘En résumé, après tout ce qui s’est dit et écrit pour ou contre le tabac, l’usage de cette plante est aujourd’hui général; il constitue de nos jours une branche très importante de culture, d’industrie et de commerce, et une source de revenus considérable pour les Etats.’
The voice of Fairholt, of rare tobacco fame, claims attention. ‘Let us get out of the region of captious criticism and come to the solid ground of fact. For is it not surpassing strange that man still exists on earth if there be death in the pipe? Is his life shorter, his morals worse, his intellect weaker, than in the days of, say, Henry VIII. before tobacco was known in Europe? For three hundred years the poisonous drug, if such it be, circulated in the veins of Europeans, and where is the degeneracy? They are at this day, the most active, energetic and intellectual beings that have ever peopled the planet. The learned doctor’s awful array of afflictions attested by experiments on small forms of animal life have no terrors for them; experiment and demonstrate as he may, experience is a better teacher. Is there any reason why men should apply to themselves the results of operations made upon creatures that perish of old age while human beings are still in their infancy?’