The conclusions which followed from these widely extended researches were—

1. That in the greater part of the factories there was never known an example of an individual who could not accustom himself to the emanations of tobacco, and that in the rare cases where it proved injurious, it was always in a particular part of the process, which merely obliged the workman to be transferred to another department of the factory.

2. That all which has been said on the frequency of nausea, of vomitings, of diarrhœa, of colic, and of haemorrhages, is pure supposition. That it is so no less with respect to the headaches, sneezings, loss of appetite, foulness of breath, acute and chronic affections of the chest, cancers, and other similar diseases. What the same authors say on the discolouration of the skin of the workmen engaged in the preparation of tobacco, on the yellow hue of their complexion, their leanness, and emaciation, proves that they have not observed for themselves, or have only seen the exceptions to the rule, or have not compared this class of people with other workmen of the same town, who were engaged in occupations of a totally different kind.

3. That tobacco, far from producing, in those who prepare it, death and narcotism, does not even influence their nervous system; and that vertigo, syncope, muscular tremor, convulsions, and other like evils, which have been charged against it, have never existed in the manufactories, though the men sleep in the midst of the most subtil preparations, or, at least, are not to be attributed to that cause.

4. Not only is the tobacco without any effect on the health during the first years devoted to its preparation, it has not the least ill consequences in more advanced life. Feebleness and great age, or causes altogether accidental, have been the sole ground for dismissing the workmen.

5. There are some professions which, without destroying health in an evident manner, abridge life; but a great number of those who work on tobacco reach, and even surpass, the ordinary limit of human existence.

6. It is proved by innumerable facts, that the manufactories of tobacco are not in anywise injurious to the men, animals, or plants, which may exist in their vicinity.

It thus turns out, upon examination, that this much maligned substance is perfectly innocuous. “Yet what practitioner,” say MM. Parent Duchâtelet and D’Arcet, “who had not had occasion to visit the workshops and study their influence, would not be forced into belief by the imposing authorities we have quoted above; who of them would hesitate to regard as demonstrated opinions on which Ramazzini, Fourcroy, Cadet Gassicourt, Tourtelle, Percy, Patissier, Merat and others are unanimous, without a single person having uttered a contrary assertion? There are found among these authorities two members of the Royal Academy of Medicine, three members of the Academy of Sciences, two professors of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, one professor of the Faculty of Medicine of Strasbourg, two chemists, and two celebrated physicians—one French, the other Italian; in a word, six physicians and an apothecary, who held, and still hold, the most eminent places in the learned world. It is therefore evident that it is of the highest importance that trades and professions should be investigated differently from what they have hitherto been; and this importance daily increases, because of the progress and extension of arts and manufactures.”

18.—On the Habitations of the Lower Orders of Paris.
No. 1.

The labouring classes are obliged to live in houses almost always dilapidated, insufficient, or unhealthy. Such is the lot of the poor man in all countries: the force of circumstances, the hard law of necessity, compel it. Yet, if it is impossible to remedy completely this state of things, may we not approximate to it, by building houses for every grade of the lower orders—not only of the honest poor, but of the debased and depraved? It appears to me that these houses would have a double advantage;—they would diminish the causes of public insalubrity, and offer to the honest and economical workman the means to procure a residence equal to his necessities, and capable of producing in him the taste for retirement and domestic peace so favourable to morals. It is especially in this last point of view that the amelioration of the dwellings of the poor and laborious class is to be ranked among the preservatives against vicious habits.