[28] See Dr. Derby's pamphlet on Anthracite and Health, Boston, 1868; and an article by the present writer, in the World, April 11th, 1868.
[29] The cigar is, however, usually made of milder tobacco. And an old pipe, saturated with nicotinous oil, may become far stronger than any ordinary cigar.
[30] Tobacco, as we have said, may, in an adequate dose, produce well-developed paralysis. Whether the ordinary excessive use of it ever does cause paralysis, is, to say the least, extremely doubtful. Dr. D. W. Cheever says, "The minor, rarely the graver, affections of the nervous system do follow the use of tobacco in excess…. Numerous cases of paralysis among tobacco-takers in France were traced to the lead in which the preparation was enveloped." Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1860. Another instance of the great care needful in correctly tracing the causes of any disease or ailment. Lead-poisoning, when chronic, brings about structural degeneration of the nerve-centres.
[31] Paraguay tea is used by 10,000,000 of people; coca by 10,000,000; chicory by 40,000,000; cocoa by 50,000,000; coffee by 100,000,000; betel by 100,000,000; haschisch by 300,000,000; opium by 400,000,000; Chinese tea by 500,000,000; tobacco by 800,000,000; the population of the world being probably not much over one thousand million. See Von Bibra, Die Narkotischen Genussmittel und der Mensch, Preface.
[32] Omitting, of course, from the comparison, the class of diseases to which woman is peculiarly subject, as a child-bearer.
[1] Opium, as used in moderation by Orientals, has not been proved to exercise any deleterious effects. Very likely it is a healthful stimulant; but it does not appear to agree with the constitutions of the Western races. See Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xi. p. 364. Probably tea, tobacco and alcohol are the only stimulants adapted alike to all races, and to nearly all kinds of people.
[2] Lewes, Life of Goethe, vol. II. p. 267.
[3] In illustration it may be noted that as soon as a man has just transgressed the physiological limit which divides stimulation from narcosis, he is liable to throw overboard all prudential considerations and drink until he is completely drunk. This is one of the chief dangers of convivial after-dinner drinking.
[4] For the physiology of this pupil-change, not uncommon in various kinds of acute narcosis, see the Appendix to Anstie.
[5] Stimulants and Narcotics, pp. 174-178.