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TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL

 _I. IT DOES PAY TO SMOKE._

_II. THE COMING MAN WILL DRINK WINE._


BY

JOHN FISKE, M.A., LL.B.


--"_Quaeres a me lector amabilis quod plerique sciscitantur laudemne an
vero damnem tabaci usum? Respondeo tabacum optimum esse. Tu mi lector
tabaco utere non abutere._"--MAGNENUS Exercitationes de Tabaco,
_Ticino_, 1658.

NEW YORK:
LEYPOLDT & HOLT.
1869.


ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1868, BY

LEYPOLDT & HOLT,

IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN
DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Stereotyped by LITTLE, RENNIE & CO.,
430 Broome St., New York.




PREFACE.


Five weeks ago to-day the idea of writing an essay upon the
physiological effects of Tobacco and Alcohol had never occurred to us.
Nevertheless, the study of physiology and pathology--especially as
relating to the action of narcotic-stimulants upon nutrition--has for
several years afforded us, from time to time, agreeable recreation.
And being called upon, in the discharge of a regularly-recurring duty,
to review Mr. Parton's book entitled "Smoking and Drinking," it seemed
worth while, in justice to the subject, to go on writing,--until the
present volume was the result.

This essay is therefore to be regarded as a review article, rewritten
and separately published. It is nothing more, as regards either the
time and thought directly bestowed upon it, or the completeness with
which it treats the subject. Bearing this in mind, the reader will
understand the somewhat fantastic sub-titles of the book, and the
presence of a number of citations and comments which would ordinarily
be neither essential nor desirable in a serious discussion. Had we
been writing a systematic treatise, with the object of stating
exhaustively our theory of the action of Tobacco and Alcohol, we
should have found it needful to be far more abstruse and technical;
and we should certainly have had no occasion whatever to mention Mr.
Parton's name. As it is, the ideal requirements of a complete
statement have been subordinated--though by no means sacrificed--to
the obvious desideratum of making a summary at once generally
intelligible and briefly conclusive.


The materials used especially in the preparation of this volume were
the following:

Anstie: Stimulants and Narcotics. Philadelphia, 1865.

Lallemand, Duroy, et Perrin: Du Role de l'Alcool et des Anesthesiques.
Paris, 1860.

Baudot: De la Destruction de l'Alcool dans l'Organisme. Union
Medicale, Nov. et Dec., 1863.

Bouchardat et Sandras: De la Digestion des Boissons Alcooliques.
Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 1847, tom. XXI.

Duchek: Ueber das Verhalten des Alkohols im thierischen Organismus.
Vierteljahrschrift fuer die praktische Heilkunde. Prague, 1833.

Von Bibra: Die Narkotischen Genussmittel und der Mensch. Nuernberg,
1855.

And the works of Taylor, Orfila, Christison, and Pereira, on Materia
Medica and Poisons; of Flint, Dalton, Dunglison, Draper, Carpenter,
Liebig, Lehmann, and Moleschott, on general Physiology; several of the
special works on Tobacco mentioned in the Appendix; and the current
medical journals.

OXFORD STREET, CAMBRIDGE, _November 23, 1868_.




TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL




I.

IT DOES PAY TO SMOKE.


Mr. James Parton having abandoned the habit of smoking, has lately
entered upon the task of persuading the rest of mankind to abandon
it also.[1] His "victory over himself"--to use the favourite
expression--would be incomplete unless followed up by a victory over
others; and he therefore desists for a season from his congenial
labours in panegyrizing Aaron Burr, B. +F. Butler, and other popular
heroes, in order that he may briefly descant upon the evil characters
of tobacco and its kindred stimulants. Some of the sophisms and
exaggerations which he has brought into play while doing so, invite
attention before we attempt what he did not attempt at all--to state
squarely and honestly the latest conclusions of science on the
subject.

          [1] Smoking and Drinking. By James Parton. Boston, Ticknor &
          Fields, 1868. 12mo, pp. 151.

According to Mr. Parton, tobacco is responsible for nearly all the
ills which in modern times have afflicted humanity. As will be seen,
he makes no half-way work of the matter. He must have the whole loaf,
or he will not touch a crumb. He scorns all carefully-limited,
compromising, philosophical statements of the case. Whatever the
verdict of science may turn out to be, he _knows_ that no good ever
did come, ever does come, or ever will come, from the use of tobacco.
All bad things which tobacco can do, as well as all bad things which
it cannot do--all probable, possible, improbable, impossible,
inconceivable, and nonsensical evil results--are by Mr. Parton
indiscriminately lumped together and laid at its door. It is simply a
diabolical poison which, since he has happily eschewed the use of it,
had better be at once extirpated from the face of the earth. Of all
this, Mr. Parton is so very sure that he evidently thinks any
reasoning on the subject quite superfluous and out of place.

The paucity of his arguments is, however, compensated by the multitude
and hardihood of his assertions. A sailor, he says, should not smoke;
for "why should he go round this beautiful world drugged?" Note the
_petitio principii_ in the use of the word "drugged." That the smoker
is, in the bad sense of the word, drugging himself, is the very point
to be determined; but Mr. Parton feels so sure that he substitutes
a sly question-begging participle for a conscientious course of
investigation. With nine readers out of ten this takes just as well;
and then it is so much easier and safer, you know. Neither should
soldiers smoke, for the glare of their pipes may enable some hostile
picket to take deadly aim at them. Moreover, a "forward car," in which
a crowd of smoking veterans are returning from the seat of war, is a
disgusting place. And "that two and two make four is not a truth more
unquestionably certain than that smoking does diminish a soldier's
power of endurance, and does make him more susceptible to imaginary
dangers." (p. 17.) This statement, by the way, is an excellent
specimen of Mr. Parton's favourite style of assertion. He does not
say that his private opinion on this complex question in nervous
physiology is well supported by observation, experiment and deduction.
He does not say that there is at least a preponderance of evidence in
its favour. He does not call it as probable as any opinion on such an
intricate matter can ever be. But he says "it is as unquestionably
certain as that two and two make four." Nothing less will satisfy him.
Let it no longer be said that, in the difficult science of physiology,
absolute certainty is not attainable!

Then again, the soldier should not smoke, because he ought always to
be in training; and no Harvard oarsman needs to be told "that smoking
reduces the tone of the system and diminishes all the forces of the
body--he _knows_ it." The profound physiological knowledge of the
average Harvard under-graduate it would perhaps seem ungracious to
question; but upon this point, be it said with due reverence, doctors
disagree. We have known athletes who told a different story. Waiving
argument for the present, however, we go on presenting Mr. Parton's
"certainties." One of these is that every man should be kept all his
life in what prizefighters call "condition," which term Mr. Parton
supposes to mean "the natural state of the body, uncontaminated by
poison, and unimpaired by indolence or excess." Awhile ago we had
"drugs," now we have "poison," but not a syllable of argument to show
that either term is properly applicable to tobacco. But Mr. Parton's
romantic idea of the state of the body which accompanies training is
one which is likely to amuse, if it does not edify, the physiologist.
So far from "condition" being the "natural (i.e. healthy) state of the
body," it is an extremely unnatural state. It is a condition which
generally exhausts a man by the time he is thirty-five years old,
rendering him what prizefighters call "stale." It is not "natural," or
normal, for the powers either of the muscular or of the nervous system
to be kept constantly at the maximum. What our minds and bodies need
is intermittent, rhythmical activity. "In books and work and healthful
play," not "in work and work and work alway," should our earlier and
later years be passed; and a man who is always training for a boatrace
is no more likely to hold out in the plenitude of his powers than a
man who is always studying sixteen hours a day. The only reason why
our boys at Yale and Harvard are sometimes permanently benefited by
their extravagant athleticism is that they usually leave off before it
is too late, and begin to live more normally. For the blood to be
continually determined toward the muscles, and for the stomach to be
continually digesting none but concentrated food, is a state of things
by no means favourable to a normal rate and distribution of nutritive
action; and it is upon this normal rate and distribution of nutrition
that life, health and strength depend. It is as assisting this process
that we shall presently show the temperate use of tobacco to be
beneficial. Mr. Parton's idea well illustrates the spirit of that
species of "radical" philosophy which holds its own opinions as
absolutely and universally, not as relatively and partially, true;
which, consequently, is incapable of seeing that one man's meat may be
another man's poison, and which is unable to steer safely by Scylla
without turning the helm so far as to pitch head foremost into
Charybdis. Mr. Parton sees that athletic exercise is healthful, and he
jumps at once to the conclusion that every man should always and in
all circumstances keep himself in training. Such was not the theory of
the ancient Athenians: [Greek: medhen agan] was their principle of
life,--the principle by virtue of which they made themselves competent
to instruct mankind.

Having thus said his say about muscular men, Mr. Parton goes on to
declare that smoking is a barbarism. "There is something in the
practice that allies a man with barbarians, and constantly tends to
make him think and talk like a barbarian." We suppose Mr. Parton must
_know_ this; for he does not attempt to prove it, unless indeed he
considers a rather stupid anecdote to be proof. He tells us how he
listened for an hour or so to half a dozen Yale students in one of the
public rooms of a New-Haven hotel, talking with a stable-keeper about
boat-racing. They swore horribly; and of course Mr. Parton believes
that if they had not been smokers they would neither have used profane
language nor have condescended to talk with stable-keepers. _Sancta
simplicitas!_

"We must admit, too, I think, that smoking dulls a man's sense of the
rights of others. Horace Greeley is accustomed to sum up his opinions
upon this branch of the subject by saying: 'When a man begins to
smoke, he immediately becomes a hog.'" Our keen enjoyment of Mr.
Greeley's lightness of touch and refined delicacy of expression should
not be allowed to blind us to the possible incompleteness of his
generalization. What! Milton a hog? Locke, Addison, Scott, Thackeray,
Robert Hall, Christopher North--hogs?

And then smoking is an expensive habit. If a man smoke ten cigars
daily, at twenty cents each, his smoking will cost him from seven to
eight hundred dollars a year. This dark view of the case needs to be
enlivened by a little contrast. "While at Cambridge the other day,
looking about among the ancient barracks in which the students live, I
had the curiosity to ask concerning the salaries of the professors in
Harvard College." Probably he inquired of a _Goody_, or of one of the
_Pocos_ who are to be found earning bread by the sweat of their brows
in the neighbourhood of these venerable shanties, for it seems they
told him that the professors were paid fifteen or eighteen hundred
dollars a year. Had he taken the trouble to step into the steward's
office, he might have learned that they are paid three thousand
dollars a year. Such is the truly artistic way in which Mr. Parton
makes contrasts--$1500 _per annum_ for a professor, $800 for cigars!
Therefore, it does not pay to smoke.

Smoking, moreover, makes men slaves. The Turks and Persians are great
smokers, and they live under a despotic form of government. Q.E.D. The
extreme liberality of Oriental institutions _before_ the introduction
of tobacco Mr. Parton probably thinks so well known as not to require
mention. But still worse, the Turks and Persians are great despisers
of women; and this is evidently because they smoke. For woman and
tobacco are natural enemies. The most perfect of men, the
"highly-groomed" Goethe--as Mr. Parton elegantly calls him--loved
women and hated tobacco. This aspect of the question is really a
serious one. Tobacco, says our reformer, is woman's rival,--and her
successful rival; therefore she hates it. For as Mr. Parton, with
profound insight into the mysteries of the feminine character, gravely
observes, "women do not disapprove their rivals; they hate them." This
"ridiculous brown leaf," then, is not only in general the cause of all
evil, but in particular it is the foe of woman. "It takes off the edge
of virility"!![2] It makes us regard woman from the Black Crook point
of view. If it had not been for tobacco, that wretched phantasmagoria
would not have had a run of a dozen nights. "Science" justifies this
conjecture, and even if it did not, Mr. Parton intimates that he
should make it. Doubtless!

          [2] When we first read this remark, we took it for a mere
          burst of impassioned rhetoric; but on second thoughts, it
          appears to have a meaning. Another knight-errant in
          physiology charges tobacco with producing "giddiness,
          sickness, vomiting, vitiated taste of the mouth, loose
          bowels, diseased liver, congestion of the brain, apoplexy,
          palsy, mania, loss of memory, amaurosis, deafness,
          nervousness, _emasculation_, and cowardice." Lizars, _On
          Tobacco_, p. 29. A goodly array of bugbears, quite aptly
          illustrating the remark of one of our medical professors,
          that hygienic reformers, in the length of their lists of
          imaginary diseases, are excelled only by the itinerant
          charlatans who vend panaceas. There is, however, no
          scientific foundation for the statement that tobacco "takes
          off the edge of virility." The reader who is interested in
          this question may consult Orfila, _Toxicologie_, tom. II. p.
          527; _Annales d'Hygiene_, tom. XXXVIII.; and a Memoir by
          Laycock in the _London Medical Gazette_, 1846, tom. III.

One bit of Mr. Parton's philosophy still calls for brief comment. He
wishes to speak of the general tendency of the poor man's pipe; and he
means to say "that it tends to make him satisfied with a lot which it
is his chief and immediate duty to alleviate,--he ought to hate and
loathe his tenement-house home." A fine specimen of the dyspeptic
philosophy of radicalism! Despise all you have got, because you cannot
have something better. We believe it is sometimes described as the
philosophy of progress. There can of course be no doubt that Mr.
Parton's hod-carrier will work all the better next day, if he only
spends the night in fretting and getting peevish over his
"tenement-house home."

Such then, in sum and substance, is our reformer's indictment against
tobacco. It lowers the tone of our systems, and it makes us contented;
it wastes money, it allies us with barbarians, and it transforms
us--_mira quadam metamorphosi_--into swine. Goethe, therefore, did not
smoke, the Coming Man will not smoke, and General Grant, with tardy
repentance, "has reduced his daily allowance of cigars." And as for
Mr. Buckle, the author of an able book which Mr. Parton rather too
enthusiastically calls "the most