17.—Instance by MM. Duchâtelet and D’Arcet of the erroneous Medical Inferences as to the insalubrity of particular Trades.
Ramazzini is, as far as we know, the first who has treated professedly of the maladies produced by the fumes of tobacco. In his great work, De Morbis Artificum, he states that the workmen employed in the manufacture of tobacco are seized with great pains in the head, with vertigo, nausea, and perpetual sneezing; and that so great is the subtilty of this substance, that all the neighbourhood, particularly in summer, experience nausea. He adds, that those who work on tobacco lose their appetite, and that their breath is insupportable.
Fourcroy, after repeating in his translation of Ramazzini all the passages from this author, adds, in a note, several observations to prove the dangers of tobacco; such as, that a lady died from a cancer in the nose in consequence of taking too much snuff; another from a polypus in the œsophagus, which prevented her swallowing; another from frightful convulsions produced by sleeping in a room in which tobacco had been rasped. Fourcroy states, however, that there are some privileged persons who become accustomed to the action of tobacco, and experience no inconvenience from it.
Cadet-Gassicourt, in a memoir addressed to the prefect of police on the maladies incident to the trades carried on in Paris, says that the workmen occupied in the preparation of tobacco are subject to vomitings, colics, and acute and chronic affections of the chest; that they have often vertigo, bloody fluxes, and are addicted to drink.
Tourtelle, in his Elémens d’Hygiène, affirms that it is very dangerous to sleep in warehouses of tobacco; and he quotes a case, mentioned by Buchoz, of a young girl of five, who died in a short time from dreadful vomitings, occasioned by this sole cause.
Percy, in the article Chapeau, in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, mentions, that some soldiers, exercising in the Champ-de-Mars in very warm weather, were overcome by syncope, which he attributes to some tobacco that these men had put in their caps.
In a new edition of Ramazzini and Fourcroy, by Patissier, we find the opinions of these authors without observation or comment. The editor is content to add, that those who have to do with tobacco are, in general, wasted, discoloured, yellow, and asthmatical.
Finally, Merat, in the article Tabac, in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, says, that men engaged in the preparation of this substance are wasted, discoloured, yellow, asthmatic, subject to colic, diarrhœa, the bloody flux, but, above all, to vertigo, cephalalgia, muscular tremor, to true narcotism, and to diseases, more or less acute, of the chest. “All these assertions,” he continues, “are the fruit of my observations in the hospitals of Paris. Tobacco causes not only evils without number, but even death to those who prepare it. It deranges the memory of all who inhale it, and renders it less clear and entire; it weakens the tissues, especially the nervous tissues; it causes trembling of the limbs; diminishes strength; it produces emaciation, and even consumption, particularly among females; and sometimes begets entire imbecility.”
“We might multiply these quotations. The just celebrity of the authors who have furnished them gives to their opinion a force which imposes belief, and makes us reject every species of doubt. Let us recall, however, the maxim of Descartes; let us cease to believe the words of a master; let us dare to doubt for an instant, and, observing for ourselves, let us learn to form an opinion, based on what our own senses and judgment have taught us.”
Acting in this spirit, Parent Duchâtelet and D’Arcet carried on a minute investigation, in a vast manufactory of tobacco at Paris, containing 1,054 workmen. Not content with the results afforded by a single establishment, they directed questions to the nine other great manufactories of tobacco which France contains, and the answers were prepared by the physicians, surgeons, and officers of each establishment in conjunction. “The observations,” say MM. Duchâtelet and D’Arcet, “which compose this memoir, have been collected from a sum total of 4518 workmen. They appear to us so much the more valuable and conclusive, that they have been made simultaneously in the most opposite parts of France, by men who had not, and could not have, any connexion. There is thus no possibility to suspect the influence of a preconceived opinion; and if those to whom our inquiries were addressed are unanimous in their replies, and if these replies agree with our own observations, we shall be sure that we have arrived at the truth.”