To what, Sir, is this country coming, when such things are possible? Can it be that the whole nation is bent upon suicide? I have read that a single drop of the pure essense of nicotine dropped upon the back of a healthy and robust flea will cause the unfortunate beast to fall into convulsions, frequently terminating in a partial paralysis or total dissolution. Now, it is well known to all who make the slightest pretense to any knowledge of entomology that the flea, or Pulex irritans, is one of the most hardy insects known to man and is extremely hard to kill. Indeed, it is a matter of record that the fleas of Mexico encountered the army of Bonaparte and Maximilian and gave such a good account of themselves that the French soldiers were more in awe of the fleas than of the natives. If nicotine, then, has such a disastrous effect upon such a hearty and well-protected beast as the flea, what must be the effect of its poison upon man, who is, perhaps, the most easily killed of all living creatures? It is too horrible to contemplate! I have, by most careful calculations, proved to my entire satisfaction that the American people have already been totally exterminated through their persistence in this evil habit of using tobacco; and if, as may be said, the facts do not seem to fit in with my figures, I can only say that I am convinced that their survival is in nowise due either to their hardiness or to the innocuous character of the herb, but solely to the kindly interposition of Providence, who, unwilling to see so young and so promising a nation perish by reason of this folly, has deliberately set at naught the wiles of the Devil and robbed him of his prey by fortifying and strengthening the constitutions of this people to withstand the dread effects of this evil practise. But how long can people given over to this wicked practise look to Providence for patience and protection?
I have but now spoken of the American people as a promising nation, but I am not sure but that I should amend this to “a once promising nation.” I believe that this nation can never become truly great until it has become a nation of non-smokers. Did the Greeks smoke? No. Did the Romans smoke? No, again. Not in the history of any of the great nations of antiquity do I find a single reference to tobacco smoking. The Boers are reputed to be great smokers, and it is to this that I attribute their defeat at the hands of the English. I have heard that the Boers even went into battle with their pipes alight, and I have no doubt that it was due to their distraction and lack of attention caused by their habit of scratching matches to keep their pipes burning, that they lost many important engagements. Do you imagine, Sir, that Troy could have withstood the assault of the Greeks for ten long years, had Hector and his fellow warriors lolled upon the battlements puffing on cigarettes? Can you fancy, Sir, the grave and dignified Cicero pausing in the midst of one of his philippics to expectorate tobacco juice? Yet I am told upon good authority that this may be witnessed among the learned justices of our own Supreme Court.
The almost total destruction of the American Indian, I attribute chiefly to the debilitating effects of this narcotic. Of all of the American Indians, the Peruvians attained the highest state of civilization. And why? Because, Sir, they alone used tobacco only as a medicine and in the form of snuff. Had they forborne the use of snuff, it might well have been that the Incas had conquered the Spanish and colonized the coast of Europe. Snuff, I consider the least harmful of all forms of tobacco; but only because it is the least frequently used. There is a lady of my acquaintance, in all other respects a most estimable woman, who so far forgets her duty as a mother as to permit her offspring to utilize as a plaything a handsome silver snuff-box which she inherited from her grandfather. I, Sir, should as soon think of giving my children a whisky-flask for a toy. I am well aware that many who have been termed “gentlemen” have been addicted to the use of snuff; nay, that it was even at one time a fashion among men and women of the mode to partake of it. But I think none the better of it for that. As much might be said for rum.
Lord Chesterfield said that he was enabled to get through the last five or six books of Virgil by having frequent recourse to his snuff-box; but I say, if the taking of snuff is necessary to the enjoyment of Virgil, why then, it were better never to read that poet. I had rather fall asleep over Virgil than to inhale culture tainted with snuff. I had rather, indeed, snore over the classics, than sneeze at them. Trahit sua quemque voluptas—I suspect that his Lordship did not so much find snuff an aid to Virgil as Virgil an excuse for snuff.
Tobacco, Sir, won its way into Europe by a ruse—a pretense. It wormed its way into the confidence of the European peoples masquerading as a medicine—a panacea. Introduced by Francesco Fernandez, himself a renowned physician, and endorsed by many other men supposed to be learned in materia medica, it was taken on faith and retained through weakness. At the very outset some of the wiser heads saw the danger of it. Burton sounded a note of warning in his Anatomy of Melancholy: “Tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones, is a sovereign remedy in all disease. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medically used; but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ’tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purge of goods, lands, health,—hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.”
King James, of blessed memory, was not deceived by the fictitious virtues of this plant, and he condemned it in his noble work, The Counterblaste. Would that more had been so blessed with wisdom!
The absurdity of the extravagant claims made for the curative powers of this herb is well illustrated in the words of Master Nicholas Culpepper, author of The English Physitian, published so late as 1671:
“It is a Martial plant (governed by Mars). It is found by good experience to be available to expectorate tough Flegm from the Stomach, Chest and Lungs.... The seed hereof is very effectual to expel the toothach, & the ashes of the burnt herb, to cleanse the Gums and make the Teeth white. The herb bruised and applied to the place grieved by the Kings-Evil, helpeth it in nine or ten days effectually. Manardus, faith, it is a Counter-Poyson against the biting of any Venomous Creatures; the Herb also being outwardly applyd to the hurt place. The Distilled Water is often given with some Sugar before the fit of Ague to lessen it, and take it away in three or four times using.”
Such vaporings were, indeed, as little worthy of credence as the empty chatter of Ben Jonson’s Bobadil: “Signor, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies (where this herb grows), where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it can not be but ’tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence it should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak.... I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.”
Such were the absurd claims of those who held tobacco to be a medicine. But I contend, Sir, that tobacco has never been proven of any real medical value whatever; that it is a poison and not a blessing. I have been told, indeed, that it sometimes destroys the toothache; but for my own part I had rather taste the toothache than tobacco; and as for deadening the pain, so, for that matter, will opium or prussic acid.