We shall see hereafter what a host of enemies tobacco found also among medical writers. We speak here particularly of the moderns; for many of the older physicians extolled its healing virtues to the skies, and they were giants in knowledge; but as an old author says, "Pigmei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident." Indeed it must be admitted, as a very powerful argument against the efficacy of tobacco as a medicine, that the physicians of our day have in many cases abandoned its use, and in others adopted some less dangerous succedaneum.
It may not be unamusing to the curious reader to know in what manner this subject is handled by King James. The "Counterblaste" commences by denouncing tobacco, because "the vile and stinking custome comes from the wilde, godlesse, and slavish Indians," by whom it was used as an antidote against the most dreadful of all diseases. Its use was introduced "neither by a king, great conqueror, nor learned Doctor of Physicke, but by some Indians who were brought over;" they died, but the "savage custome" survived. King James contents himself by examining only four of the principal grounds or arguments upon which tobacco is used, two founded "on the theoricke of a deceivable appearance of reason," and two "upon the mistaken practicke of generall experience." Thus, "1. An aphorisme in the Physickes that the brains of all men being naturally cold and wet, all dry and hote things should be good for them." Ergo, this "stinking suffumigation."—2. The argument grounded on a show of reason, is "that this filthy smoke, as well through the heat and strength thereof, as by a natural force and quality, is able and fit to purge both the head and stomach of rhewmes and distillations, as experience teacheth by the spitting and avoiding fleame immediately after the taking of it."—3. That "the whole people would not have taken so general a good liking thereof, if they had not by experience found it very soveraigne and good for them."—4. That "by the taking of tobacco, divers and very many doe finde themselves cured of divers diseases; as on the other hand no man ever received harme thereby." The King after having, as he trusts, sufficiently answered "the most principal arguments" that are used in defence of this "vile custome," proceeds "to speake of the sinnes and vanities committed in the filthy abuse thereof." And 1. As being a sinneful and shameful lust.—2. As a branch of drunkennesse.—3. As disabling both persons and goods. His majesty concludes the "Counterblaste" by calling the smoking of tobacco "a custome loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmeful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke and stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse."[40]
Let it not be supposed that tobacco has been without friends, wise, learned, and distinguished; but space forces us to pretermit the mention of many who have ascribed to it as many virtues as were ever ascribed to the grand elixir of Alchemy. We shall content ourselves with two or three miscellaneous testimonies.—Thus Acosta tells us it is a plant, "which hath in it rare virtues, as amongst others it serves for a counterpoison—for the Creator hath imparted his virtues at his pleasure, not willing that any thing should grow idle."[41] Lord Bacon speaks of its "cheering and comforting the spirits," and that it relieves in lassitude.[42] Again he says, "doubtless it contributes to alleviate fatigues and discharge the body of weariness. 'T is also commonly said to open the passages, and draw off humours; but its virtues may be more justly attributed to its condensing the spirits."[43] "It is a good companion," says Howell, "to one that converseth with dead men, for if one hath bin poring long upon a book, or is toiled with the pen, or stupified with study, it quickeneth him, and dispels those clouds that usually oreset the brain. The smoke of it is one of the wholesomest sents that is against all contagious airs, for it oremasters all other smells; as King James they say found true, when being once a hunting, a showr of rain drave him into a pigsty for shelter, where he caused a pipe full to be taken of purpose."[44] It were easy to multiply quotations both in prose and verse, but it is to the latter, most especially, that we must look for the most glowing ascriptions—to poetry which has ever delighted.[45]
"To sing the praises of that glorious weed—
Dear to mankind, whate'er his race, his creed,
Condition, colour, dwelling, or degree!
From Zembla's snows to parched Arabia's sands,
Loved by all lips, and common to all hands!
Hail sole cosmopolite, tobacco, hail!
Shag, long-cut, short-cut, pig-tail, quid, or roll,
Dark Negrohead, or Orinooka pale,
In every form congenial to the soul."
Before we proceed to consider the use of tobacco as a habit, which modern physicians are pleased to consider so pestiferous and baleful, let us attend for a few moments to what has been said concerning its culture and manufacture. Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes, says that its culture is productive of infinite wretchedness; that it is found easier to make 100 bushels of wheat than 1000 pounds of tobacco, and that they are worth more when made.[46] Davies, in his History of the Carriby Islands, after giving an account of the culture and preparation of tobacco, adds, "that if the people of Europe who are so fond of it, had themselves seen the poor servants and slaves who are employed about this painful work, exposed the greatest part of the day to the scorching heat of the sun, and spending one half of the night in reducing it to that posture wherein it is transported into Europe; no doubt they would have a greater esteem for, and think much more precious that herb which is procured with the sweat and labours of so many miserable creatures."[47]
Numerous medical writers, of the justest celebrity, have assured us, that endless and dreadful evils are the portion of all who are engaged in the manufacture of tobacco; that the workmen are in general meagre, jaundiced, emaciated, asthmatic, subject to colic, diarrheas, to vertigo, violent headach, and muscular twitchings, to narcotism, and to various diseases of the breast and lungs.[48] They have also declared that some of these evils have befallen families from the fact alone of being in the neighbourhood of a tobacco manufactory.[49] Ramazzini says that even the horses employed in the tobacco mills are most powerfully affected by the particles of the tobacco. Now if these things be true, when we call to mind the countless multitudes employed in this "dreadful trade," what a throng of evils present themselves upon the very threshold of our subject.[50] In this view of the case, one could not pass such a manufactory without an involuntary shudder, regarding it as a charnel house, or rather as a Pandora's box, to those wretched beings who are doomed to work or dwell within its pestilential precincts.[51] But in spite of the various and respectable testimony which has been produced by writers opposed to the use of tobacco, we cannot help regarding their statements as exceedingly exaggerated. We have not space to enter into a more minute examination of this portion of our subject, but to such of our readers as may feel desirous of prosecuting the inquiry, we take great pleasure in recommending a very able memoir by Messieurs Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet,[52] in which the whole subject of the effects of tobacco upon the persons connected with its manufacture, is most satisfactorily discussed, and the opinions and assertions of those who have gone so far as to declare that it was even necessary to the public health that the manufactories of tobacco should be removed out of large towns because of their great insalubrity, shown to be either without any just grounds, or the results of prejudice and ignorance.
The fecundity of this plant is marvellous. Linnæus has calculated that a single plant of tobacco contains 40,320 grains, and says that if each seed came to perfection, the plants of tobacco in vegetation in the course of four years, would be more than sufficient to cover the whole surface of the earth. We are elsewhere informed that these seeds preserve their germinative properties for six years and even longer. "Sir Thomas Browne observes," says Mather, "that of the seeds of tobacco, a thousand make not one grain, (though Otto de Guericke, as I remember, says, fifty-two cyphers with one figure would give the number of those which would fill the space between us and the stars,) a plant which has extended its empire over the whole world, and has a larger dominion than any of all the vegetable kingdom."[53] Our readers may very easily amuse themselves by making calculations on the immense consumption and value of this plant. The following account from a French medical writer,[54] will be sufficient. On a rough calculation, the tobacco sold yearly in France amounts to 40,000,000 pounds weight, which at three francs per pound, the ordinary price, will make the enormous annual sum of 120,000,000 francs. One-fourth of the French population use tobacco, so that of 8,000,000 of human beings, each individual consumes annually, in the various forms of snuffing, chewing, and smoking, about six pounds. This quantity may seem too great for some persons, but it should be remembered that there are many who use a dozen or twenty pounds in the course of the year.
If we contemplate man in connexion with tobacco as a necessary, the juxtaposition cannot fail to strike us as exceedingly ludicrous. From the earliest ages of philosophy, it has been a favourite employment of the wise to propose such definitions of man as should fully distinguish him from the rest of animated nature, and yet no definition of ancient times will, we are satisfied, appear so excellently discriminative as one which grows out of our present subject, and which denominates him the only tobacco loving animal, for (to pass over the tobacco-worm) the only creature known beside man, whose nature does not abhor tobacco, is, as Dr. Rush informs us, the solitary rock goat of Africa, one of the wildest and most filthy of animals. "Were it possible," says he, "for a being who had resided on our globe, to visit the inhabitants of a planet where reason governed, and to tell them that a vile weed was in general use among the inhabitants of the globe it had left, which afforded no nourishment; that this weed was cultivated with immense care, that it was an important article of commerce, that the want of it produced real misery, that its taste was extremely nauseous, that it was unfriendly to health and morals, and that its use was attended with a considerable loss of time and property, the account would be thought incredible."[55] It is idle to speak of tobacco, as being "extremely nauseous," that it is the "meanest and most paltry of all gratifications," &c. Had not man discovered in it a delight and comfort which was to be derived from few other sources, the habitual use of tobacco would long since have been neglected. To say man uses tobacco for no other reason but its offensiveness, is a solecism; scarcely would it be more absurd to adopt the habitual use of castor oil as a cordial, or assafœtida as a perfume. On this subject Mr. Chamberet[56] has a very interesting passage, which, as it is so well expressed by the author, we take the liberty of offering to our readers in his own language.
"Observons," says he, "que l'homme, en vertu de son organization a sans cesse besoin de sentir, que presque toujours il est malheureux, soit par les fleaux que la nature lui envoie, soit par les tristes resultats de ses passions aveugles, de ses erreurs de ses prejugés, de son ignorance, &c. Le tabac exercant sur nos organes une impression vive et forte, susceptible d'etre renouvelée frequemment et a volonté, on s'est livré avec d'autant plus d'ardeur a l'usage d'un semblable stimulant qu'on y a trouvé a la fois le moyen de satisfaire le besoin imperieux de sentir, qui caracterise la nature humaine, et celui d'etre distrait momentanément des sensations pénibles ou douloureuses qui assiégent sans cesse notre espèce, que le tabac aide ainsi a supporter l'accablant fardeau de la vie. Avec le tabac, le sauvage endure plus courageusement la faim, la soif, et toutes les vicissitudes atmospheriques, l'esclave endure plus patiemment la servitude, &c. Parmi les hommes qui se disent civilisés, son recours est souvent invoqué contre l'ennui, la tristesse; il soulage quelquefois momentanément les tourmens de l'ambition déçues de ses esperances, et concourt a consoler, dans certains cas les malheureuses victimes de l'injustice."
Dr. Walsh says that tobacco used with coffee, after the Turkish fashion, "is singularly grateful to the taste, and refreshing to the spirits; counteracting the effects of fatigue and cold, and appeasing the cravings of hunger, as I have often experienced. Hearne, I think, in his journey to the mouth of the Coppermine river, mentions his experience of similar effects of tobacco. He had been frequently wandering without food for five or six days, in the most inclement weather, and supported it all, he says, in good health and spirits, by smoking tobacco, &c."[57] Willis, as quoted by Mons. Merat, recommends the use of tobacco in armies, as able to supply the necessaries of life to a great extent, and also as an excellent preventive against various diseases.[58] And Dr. Rush relates that he was informed by Colonel Burr, that the greatest complaints of dissatisfaction and suffering which he heard among the soldiers who accompanied General Arnold in his march from Boston to Quebec through the wilderness, in the year 1775, were from the want of tobacco. This was the more remarkable, as they were so destitute of provisions as to be obliged to kill and eat their dogs.[59]