Practical observations on the use and abuse of tobacco : greatly enlarged from the original communication on the effects of tobacco smoking, which appeared in Medical Times and Gazette, August 5, 1854 / by John Lizars.

  • John Lizars
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the use and abuse of tobacco : greatly enlarged from the original communication on the effects of tobacco smoking, which appeared in Medical Times and Gazette, August 5, 1854 / by John Lizars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    possible. In a fortnight the congestion of the brain was subdued, and then he was allowed gradually more and more nourishing diet and exercise in the open air. He returned to Edinburgh in two years after in good health, but still nervous even from the moderate use of cigars. He said that he had tried to give them up altogether, but that he had found it impracticable, and probably as much from his situation as a dealer in the weed. Mania is a fearful result of the excessive use of To- bacco — a consequence I have not yet witnessed. At a meeting of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London on 2nd May, 1854, a paper was read, entitled, u Additional Remarks on the Statistics and Morbid An- atomy of Mental Diseases,” by Dr. Webster, wherein he cites, among the causes, the great use of Tobacco, which opinion he supported by reference to the statistics of insanity in Germany. Loss of memory takes place in an extraordinary de- gree in the smoker, much more so than in the drunkard, evidently from Tobacco acting more on the brain than Alcohol. The cure consists in u throwing away Tobacco for ever.” Amaurosis is a very common result of smoking Tobacco to excess; but I have never seen it produced by snuffing or chewing. It occurs with or without congestion of the brain. It is commonly confined to one eye. It is generally curable, but not always, by u throwing away Tobacco for ever” — by inserting a seton in the back of the neck, another seton in the temple or temples, accord- ing as one or both eyes are affected. In the course of eight or ten days, the seton in the temple is to be with- drawn, a common fly blister applied, and the blistered
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