Tobacco : an essay / by Henry Gibbons.

  • Gibbons, Henry, 1808-1884.
Date:
[1873]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tobacco : an essay / by Henry Gibbons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    both father and mother were drunkards there were seven idiotic children! The breeders of cattle recognise the law which we have stated, and observe it in a practical and rational manner. To improve their stock they take pains to provide the animals with wholesome food, and to avoid everything liable to impair their health or vigom',' Nothing poisonous, nothing that is even suspected of being hurtful, is permitted to enter the mouth of the favourite beast. What a blessing it would be to Christendom if parents everywhere would take as much care for their children and of their children as farmers do with their horses, and oxen, and hogs ! Tobacco and strong drink would then be banished from the civilised world ! III. Effects on the Mind. We have dwelt at greater length on the physical effects of tobacco, because intellectual and moral injury must of necessity result from physical injury. The brain is the organ of the mind. A sound mind requires, if not a sound body, at least a sound brain. With that organ or implement the mind does all its work. And how shall the work be well done with an imperfect or damaged tool ? The effect of tobacco on the memory, under certain circumstances, has already been noticed. It is not to be supposed that memory alone should suffer, and that the other faculties can escape. In extreme cases the reason is dethroned. In the Annual Report of the Massachusetts General Hospital for 1843 eight cases of insanity are ascribed to the excessive use of tobacco, and four cases in the Report of the Pennsylvania Insane Hospital for 1849. Physicians who have practised medicine in the border States and on the Pacific Coast have had the best opportunity to observe both the bodily and the mental effects of tobacco. In the excitements incident to those localities, without the enjoyments and restraints of home and of female society, men give up much more to the mastery of the lower appetites. There one beholds the victims of indulgence hanging round the door of the physician, or running from one to another for relief, or decoyed into the dens of advertising impostors whose trade it is to frighten timid people into their toils by acting the alarmist through the newspapers. Thin and haggard; nervous, trembling, restless, and sleepless; timid, apprehensive, irresolute, and desponding—no language can define their sufferings. Not that tobacco is the sole cause, nor always the principal cause, of their troubles; but, like a wily foe watching its opportnnity, it comes in at the critical moment when it has power to turn the scale against the wretched victim; and then, like a millstone about his neck, it prevents him from ever raising his head above the waves of despair.