Smoking and drinking : the argument stated for and against / by Medicus ; with appendix ; and a chapter on tobacco / by B.W. Richardson.

  • Farley, R. (Richard)
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Smoking and drinking : the argument stated for and against / by Medicus ; with appendix ; and a chapter on tobacco / by B.W. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for a schoolmaster in the seventeenth century, the person was required to be “ a sound Churchman, neither a Papist nor a Puritan, and no Puffer of Tobacco.” But the custom was not to be put down by such laws, nor by the stupid pedantry of James the First, who likened the smoker’s mouth to the pit of hell, and the burning herb to the struggling souls in the fire. That was some of the nonsense which was talked about the habit of smoking. Mr. James Parton, an American, who has written a small book on this subject, wherein he says little to the purpose, has added to the heap of confusion; but he has this merit, that in the headings of his chapters he puts a few shrewd questions. Thus, he asks, and answers only by inferences, “ Does it pay to smoke?” The plain reply, from one who smokes and drinks, is, that it does, and it does not. Smoking is an indulgence. Looked at from an ascetic life, in which denial figures as something gi eater than worldlings dream of, it is even a sinful indulgence; but to the weary man—brain-wearied or bone-wearied, in this fast life, which takes so much out of us, and makes us so terribly thin-skinned, sen¬ sitive, nervous, and agitated—tobacco is a very great soother: it calms the mind of the thinker, and it stays the stomach of the worker. Mr. Parton, who is furious against its use, is tempted to say that there is one man whom it does pay to smoke, and that is the hodman who toils all day and smokes in the evening, and who, plodding to work with little to eat, enjoys his morning pipe; and we may add, after his frugal dinner enjoys his pipe too, sitting down, talking, and thinking, so far as he can think, and getting rest for his limbs. He is no doubt doing the best thing he can do. He has a right to the indulgence; and, if we are not to “muzzle