Opium resembles wine, spirit, and ales, in affecting the brain and disposing to apoplexy. Taken in an overdose, it is fatal in from six to twenty-four hours, according to the quantity swallowed, and the constitution, habits, &c., of the person submitted to its operation. The following are the principal symptoms of poisoning from opium. Giddiness succeeded by stupor; insensibility to light, while the eyes are closed, and the pupil immoveable, and sometimes dilated. The pulse is generally small and feeble, but, occasionally, slow and full, as in common apoplexy. The breathing at first is scarcely perceptible, but is apt to become stertorous. Foam sometimes issues from the mouth: in other cases there is vomiting. The countenance is cadaverous and pale or livid. A narcotic odour is often perceptible in the breath. The skin is cold, and the body exceedingly relaxed; now and then it is convulsed. By being struck, shaken, or excited any way, the person sometimes recovers for a short period from his stupor, and stares wildly around him, but only to relapse into lethargy. At last death ensues, but shortly before this event, a deceitful show of animation occasionally makes its appearance, and may impose upon superficial observers.
I extract the following interesting case of opium-eating from a London paper:—
“An inquest was held at Walpole lately, on the body of Rebecca Eason, aged five years, who had been diseased from her birth, was unable to walk or articulate, and from her size did not appear to be more than five weeks old. The mother had for many years been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities, (nearly a quarter of an ounce a-day;[16]) and, it is supposed, had entailed a disease on her child which caused its death; it was reduced to a mere skeleton, and had been in that state from birth. Verdict; ‘Died by the visitation of God; but from the great quantity of opium taken by the mother during her pregnancy of the said child, and of suckling it, she had greatly injured its health.’ It appeared that the mother of the deceased had had five children; that she began to take opium after the birth and weaning of her first child, which was and is remarkably healthy; and that the other children have all lingered and died in the same emaciated state as the child who was the subject of this investigation. The mother is under thirty: she was severely censured by the coroner for indulging in so pernicious a practice.”
V. Modified by Tobacco.—A variety of drunkenness is excited by tobacco. This luxury was introduced into Europe from the New World, in 1559, by a Spanish gentleman, named Hernandez de Toledo, who brought a small quantity into Spain and Portugal. From thence, by the agency of the French ambassador at Lisbon, it found its way to Paris, where it was used in the form of powder by Catherine de Medicis, the abandoned instigator of the massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s day. This woman, therefore, may be considered the inventor of snuff, as well as the contriver of that most atrocious transaction. It then came under the patronage of the Cardinal Santa Crocé, the Pope’s nuncio, who returning from his embassy at the Spanish and Portuguese courts, carried the plant to his own country, and thus acquired a fame little inferior to that which, at another period, he had won by piously bringing a portion of the real cross from the Holy Land. It was received with general enthusiasm in the Papal States, and hardly less favourably in England, into which it was introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1585. It was not, however, without opposition that it gained a footing either in this country or in the rest of Europe. Its principal opponents were the priests, the physicians, and the sovereign princes: by the former, its use was declared sinful; and in 1624, Pope Urban VIII. published a bull, excommunicating all persons found guilty of taking snuff when in church. This bull was renewed in 1690 by Pope Innocent; and about twenty-nine years afterwards, the Sultan Amurath IV. made smoking a capital offence, on the ground of its producing infertility. For a long time smoking was forbidden in Russia, under the pain of having the nose cut off: and in some parts of Switzerland, it was likewise made a subject of public prosecution—the public regulations of the Canton of Berne, in 1661, placing the prohibition of smoking in the list of the ten commandments, immediately under that against adultery. Nay, that British Solomon, James I., did not think it beneath the royal dignity to take up his pen upon the subject. He accordingly, in 1603, published his famous “Counterblaste to Tobacco,” in which the following remarkable passage occurs:—“It is a custom loathesome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”[17] But notwithstanding this regal and sacerdotal wrath, the plant extended itself far and wide, and is at this moment the most universal luxury in existence.
The effects of tobacco are considerably different from those of any other inebriating agent. Instead of quickening, it lowers the pulse, and, when used to excess, produces languor, depression of the system, giddiness, confusion of ideas, violent pain in the stomach, vomiting, convulsions, and even death. Its essential oil is so intensely powerful, that two or three drops inserted into a raw wound, would prove almost instantly fatal.[18] Mr. Barrow, in his travels, speaks of the use made by the Hottentots of this plant, for the purpose of destroying snakes. “A Hottentot,” says he, “applied some of it from the short end of his wooden tobacco pipe to the mouth of a snake while darting out his tongue. The effect was as instantaneous as an electric shock; with a convulsive motion that was momentary, the snake half untwisted itself, and never stirred more; and the muscles were so contracted, that the whole animal felt hard and rigid, as if dried in the sun.” When used in moderation, tobacco has a soothing effect upon the mind, disposing to placid enjoyment, and mellowing every passion into repose. Its effects, therefore, are inebriating; and those who habitually indulge in it may with propriety be denominated drunkards. In whatever form it is used, it produces sickness, stupor, bewilderment, and staggering in those unaccustomed to its use. There is no form in which it can be taken that is not decidedly injurious and disgusting. The whole, from snuffing to plugging, are at once so utterly uncleanly and unnatural, that it is incredible in what manner they ever insinuated themselves into civilized society. A vast quantity of valuable time is wasted by the votaries of tobacco, especially by the smokers; and that the devotees of snuff are not greatly behind in this respect, will be shown by the following singular calculation of Lord Stanhope:—
“Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker,” says his Lordship, “at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in ten minutes. Every pinch, with the agreeable ceremony of blowing and wiping the nose, and other incidental circumstances, consumes a minute and a half. One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing sixteen hours to a snuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and twenty-four minutes out of every natural day, or one day out of ten. One day out of every ten, amounts to thirty-six days and a half in a year. Hence, if we suppose the practice to be persisted in forty years, two entire years of the snuff-taker’s life will be dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more to blowing it. The expense of snuff, snuff-boxes, and handkerchiefs will be the subject of a second essay, in which it will appear that this luxury encroaches as much on the income of the snuff-taker as it does on his time; and that by proper application of the time and money thus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge of the national debt.”
But this is not the worst of snuffing, for though a moderate quantity taken now and then, may do no harm, yet, in the extent to which habitual snuffers carry it, it is positively pernicious. The membrane which lines the nose gets thickened, the olfactory nerves blunted, and the sense of smell consequently impaired. Not is this all, for, by the strong inspirations which are made when the powder is drawn up, some of the latter is pretty sure to escape into the stomach. This organ is thence directly subjected to a powerful medicine, which not only acts as a narcotic but produces heartburn, and every other symptom of indigestion. It is generally believed that Napoleon owed his death to the morbid state of his stomach produced by excessive snuffing. Snuffing has also a strong tendency to give a determination to the head, and on this account plethoric subjects should be the very last ever to enter upon the habit. If it were attended with no other inconvenience, the black loathsome discharge from the nose, and swelling and rubicundity of this organ, with other circumstances equally disagreeable, ought to deter every man from becoming a snuffer.
The smoker while engaged at his occupation, is even a happier man than the snuffer. An air of peculiar satisfaction beams upon his countenance; and, as he puffs forth volumes of fragrance, he seems to dwell in an atmosphere of contented happiness. His illusions have not the elevated and magnificent character of those brought on by opium or wine. There is nothing of Raphael or Michael Angelo in their composition—nothing of the Roman or Venetian schools—nothing of Milton’s sublimity, or Ariosto’s dazzling romance; but there is something equally delightful, and in its way, equally perfect. His visions stand in the same relation to those of opium or wine, as the Dutch pictures of Ostade to the Italian ones of Paul Veronese—as Washington Irving to Lord Byron—or as Izaak Walton to Froissart. There is an air of delightful homeliness about them. He does not let his imagination run riot in the clouds, but restrains it to the lower sphere of earth, and meditates delightfully in this less elevated region. If his fancy be unusually brilliant, or somewhat heated by previous drinking, he may see thousands of strange forms floating in the tobacco smoke. He may people it, according to his temperament, with agreeable or revolting images—with flowers and gems springing up, as in dreams, before him—or with reptiles, serpents, and the whole host of diablerie, skimming, like motes in the sunshine, amid its curling wreaths.
This is all that can be said in favour of smoking, and quite enough to render the habit too common to leave any hope of its suppression, either by the weapons of ridicule, or the more summary plan of the Sultan Amurath. In no sense, except as affording a temporary gratification, can it be justified or defended. It pollutes the breath, blackens the teeth, wastes the saliva which is required for digestion, and injures the complexion. In addition to this, it is apt to produce dyspepsia, and other disorders of the stomach; and, in corpulent subjects, it disposes to apoplexy. At the present moment, smoking is fashionable, and crowds of young men are to be seen at all hours walking the streets with cigars in their mouths, annoying the passengers. They seem to consider it manly to be able to smoke a certain number, without reflecting that there is scarcely an old woman in the country who would not beat them to naught with their own weapons, and that they would gain no sort of honour were they able to outsmoke all the burgomasters of Amsterdam. As the practice, however, seems more resorted to by these young gentlemen for the sake of effect, and of exhibiting a little of the haut ton, than for any thing else, it is likely soon to die a natural death among them; particularly as jockeys and porters have lately taken the field in the same way, being determined that no class of the community shall enjoy the exclusive monopoly of street smoking.
The observations made upon the effects of snuffing and smoking, apply in a still stronger degree to chewing. This is the worst way for the health in which tobacco can be used. The waste of saliva is greater than even in smoking, and the derangements of the digestive organs proportionably severe. All confirmed chewers are more than usually subject to dyspepsia and hypochondriasis; and many of them are afflicted with liver complaint, brought on by their imprudent habit.