The origin of tobacco is shrouded in mystery. Mezen was of the opinion that the Chinese used it from antiquity. Dr. Lizards says it existed in Asia from early times. Columbus in his discovery of Cuba tells how he found the natives “carrying with them firebrands, puffing smoke from their mouths and noses, which he supposed to be the way they had of perfuming themselves.”
An ancient tradition relates that there was once a Mohammedan passing along who found a viper lying in his path, almost chilled to death. In pity the Moslem stooped, picked up the serpent, and put it into his bosom to warm it. After a while the viper fully revived and became aware of its situation. He said to the man, “I’m going to bite you.” “O, no! please don’t,” said the man. “If I had not taken you up and warmed you, you would even now have been chilled to death.” The viper replied, “There has been a deadly enmity existing between your race and mine ever since the world began, and by Allah, I am going to bite you.” “Very well,” said the man, “since you have sworn by Allah I will not prevent you, but bite me here on my hand.” He did so, and the man immediately placed the wound to his lips and sucked the venom out and spit it on the ground; and from the place where he spit the poison a little plant sprang up which was—tobacco.
Though this story be not true, yet true it is that tobacco contains a very strong poison, known as nicotine, supposed to be “the juice of cursed Hebanon,” referred to in Hamlet. In one pound of Kentucky and Virginia tobacco, there is, according to Dr. Kellog, an average of three hundred and eighty grains of this poison, which is estimated to kill two hundred and fifty people if applied in its native form. “A single leaf of tobacco dipped in hot water,” said Dr. Coles, “and laid upon the pit of the stomach will produce a powerful effect by mere absorption from the surface. By being applied to a spot where the scarf skin, or external surface of the skin is destroyed, fearful results are liable to follow, and no man can use it without being affected by it.”
HOW TOBACCO INJURES.
Tobacco injures physically. “No less,” said Dr. Shaw, “than eighty diseases arise from it, and twenty-five thousand lives perish annually from it.” A young man asked Wendell Phillips if he should smoke, and that statesman answered: “Certainly not. It is liable to injure the sight, to render the nerves unsteady, to enfeeble the will and enslave the nature to an imperious habit likely to stand in the way of duty to be performed.” Many professors of leading colleges have asserted with figures to prove that boys who begin the tobacco habit are stunted physically and never arise to the normal bodily development.
Tobacco injures mentally. Beecher said, “A man is what he is, not in one part, but all over.” And to have a strong mind, one needs a strong stomach. By the use of tobacco, the stomach is outraged and the brain becomes narcotized, “the intellect of which,” said Prof. Gause, “becomes duller and duller until at last it is painful to make any intellectual effort and one sinks into a sensuous or sensual animal, whose greatest aspiration is to benumb the nerves and befog the intellect.” Such assertions may be ridiculed, but as two and two make four, they are facts. The French government prohibits its use by students in the public schools. The Swiss government prohibits its sale to juniors. During the last fifty years no user of it has graduated from Yale, Harvard or Amherst at the head of his class. Professor Seely, of the Iowa State Normal, said, “I have not met a pupil who is addicted to the habit who will go through a single day’s work and have good lessons. I have had numbers of cases in which they have remained in the same grade for four successive years and then they were not ready to be advanced into the next higher grade.” Dr. Herbert Fisk, of the Northwestern University, Chicago, declared, “A somewhat careful observation of facts has convinced us that students who get low marks do so through the use of tobacco. Last year not one of the boys who used tobacco stood in the first rank of scholarship. This has been the usual rule. One year, out of thirty-three pupils in the first rank of scholarship, there was but one user of tobacco.” Dr. Charles A. Blandchard, President of Wheaton College, said, “Among our former students who are now physicians, the one who has the largest income never touched tobacco. Two are now judges of courts in large cities, with salaries of six or seven thousand dollars. They do not and have not for years used tobacco. Other men, who after graduation, became smokers, do not exhibit the same mental ability. They are, some of them, very able men, but they suffer in mind from the use of tobacco.”
Tobacco injures morally. It heads the list of vices. It is the first step to bad companionship, lewd conversation and liquor drinking. The latter and tobacco-using are twin habits; and do you wonder at it when tobacco is saturated with Jamaica rum; while “plug” tobacco which is composed of licorice, sugar, cabbage, burdock and the refuse of tobacco leaves and other weeds, is often found nailed at the bottom of whiskey barrels? Said Horace Greeley, “Show me a drunkard who does not use tobacco, and I will show you a white blackbird.” Many medical witnesses testify that tobacco using and drinking are kindred habits. When an investigation was made in the State prison at Auburn, N. Y., some years ago, out of six hundred prisoners confined there for crimes committed when they were under the influence of strong drink, five hundred testified that they began their intemperance by the use of tobacco. “In all my travels,” said John Hawkins, “I never saw but one drunkard who did not use tobacco.” “Pupils under the influence of the weed,” said Professor Seely, “are not truthful, practice deception and can not be depended upon. The worst characteristic of the habit is a loss of personal self-respect and of personal regard for the customs and wishes of ladies and gentlemen, especially when among strangers.”
HOW TOBACCO IS USED.
Tobacco is used in two ways, smoking and chewing. Both are filthy, sickening habits, the latter being the more disgusting. For any boy to chew is to exemplify bad manners doubtless influenced by bad morals. A few years ago a call was issued from London, to the scientists of the world to assemble for the discussion of whatever scientific subjects might be presented, every statement to undergo rigid scrutiny. One member said: “Tobacco is not injurious. I have chewed it for fifty years, and my father for sixty years, without perceptible damage. All this cry about it is nonsense.” The chairman answered: “Step forward, sir, and let us canvass this matter thoroughly. How much do you chew?” “I chew regularly three quids per day, of about this size,” cutting off three pieces from his plug. One of these was given to a Russian and another to a French chemist, with “please return the extract.” Then the presiding officer said, “Will any young man unaccustomed to the use of tobacco, chew this third quid before the audience? Here are four pounds ($20) to anyone who will.” A young man stepped forward. The audience was requested to scan his looks, cheeks, eyes and general appearance, before he took it, and closely watch its effects. He soon became pale from sickness, then vomited and fainted before the assembly. The extract from one quid was given to a powerful cat. He flew wildly around, and died in a few minutes. The other extract was put upon the tongue of a premium dog, which uttered a yelp, leaped frantically, laid down and expired.