Tobacco : its history, nature, and effects on the body and mind : with the opinions of Rev. Dr. Nott, L.N. Fowler, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Hon. Horace Greeley, Dr. Jennings, O.S. Fowler, Dr. R.T. Trall, and others / by Joel Shew.

  • Shew, Joel, 1816-1855.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tobacco : its history, nature, and effects on the body and mind : with the opinions of Rev. Dr. Nott, L.N. Fowler, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Hon. Horace Greeley, Dr. Jennings, O.S. Fowler, Dr. R.T. Trall, and others / by Joel Shew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    those even there are probably better. But as a thing of daily and general use, it is an abominable drug- But one thing may appear singular to the reader: 1 have written this little work with the expectation of changing the habits of only a few. One might at first think that a book which should in a tol- erable degree set forth the great evils of tobacco, would necessarily be the means of reforming multitudes of foolish men. But it is not so. All that the philanthropist, the physician, and the priest can accomplish with those who have become addicted to the use of tobacco, is but as a sand on the sea-shore, or a drop amid the wide ocean. Now and then only a man, such as John Quincy Adams, or the reverend and venerable Doctor Nott, can be found of self-denial sufficient to enable him to cleanse his system of the disgusting, abominable, and life-destroying habit of using tobacco. Often enough we can succeed in convincing a man's judgment; we can get him for a time to leave off his bad habit. But in a short time—a few months at most—we find that he has again slunk back into his old career of misery, disease, and death. If, then, by this work, I shall be the means of warning the un- initiated, and such as desire light, on an important subject, and thus of keeping them out of a most evil habit, I shall not have spent my efforts in vain. J. S. New Yokk, 1849.