Vanity All Is Vanity
TOBACCO
NICOTINA Nicotianin.
POISONS!
COURAGE! MAN, COURAGE!!
Strive; for the grasp of the destroyer is upon you, and if you be not
wrenched away, it will palsy you and crush you. Strive for the foe has
seized upon your vitals: he holds possession of your Fort and renders
your will a thing to be controled instead of a controling power. It
chains the intellect and bids defiance to your better judgment. Strive
like one who knows he has grappled with Death and the victory must be
won or self be lost!
TOBACCO should never be mentioned except as a poison, one of the most
active and fatal of poisons; it is the only herb known to possess two
active deadly poisons, NICOTINA and NICOTIANIN: It is really so fatal
that doctors seldom administer it, and never internally. For an over
dose of Opium, Arsenic, or Strychnine, when taken in time, there is a
cure, but for an over dose of tobacco there is none; its effect on the
system is Paleness, Nausea, Giddiness, Lessening of the heart's action,
Vomiting, Purging, Cold-sweating, and utter Prostration, such as no
other poison can induce, then death! Its evils are numerous we will
notice a few as follows.
1. It impregnates the whole system with two of the most fatal poisons,
NICOTINA, and NICOTIANIN.
2. With either of which the system is subjected to continuous repair,
therefore Doctors seldom advise one to quit it. It is too much like
taking bread and butter from their babe's mouths.
3. It enslaves a man so that it requires a powerful exertion to break
its chains and fetters to regain their freedom.
4. It causes dyspepsia by spitting off the saliva that ought to go to
digest the food, aid the digestive system, and to regulate and heal
the bowels.
5. When you breathe the smoke it produces asthma and lays the
foundation for a train of other fatal diseases.
6. In breathing the two poisons into the lungs, often produces
paralysis of the lungs and consumption.
7. It gradually weakens and destroys the whole nervous system and is
the cause of a large majority of cases of Insanity, which can readily
be found in all stages, among those who use tobacco.
8. It makes one appear to be ill-bred and extremely distasteful in
society.
9. It is said by critics to entirely destroy a certain faculty of the
mind.
10. It renders one's breath very repugnant to a companion.
11. It is continually drawing on the pocket for the small change that
might be laid up.
12. When taken as snuff it wonderfully impairs and often paralyzing
and destroys the Olfactory nerves and deprives one of the sense of
smell.
13. It creates a craving for Alcoholic drinks, it prostrates the
system to such an extent that nature calls for aid by stimulants,
hence the craving for drinks, peppers, mustards, &c., &c.
14. It creates an inordinate desire for excitement such as Noose and
Novel reading, and a loathing of Science and Philosophy.
15. The smoke has a wonderful tendency to weaken and impair the
eye-sight.
16. Its use is an evil example to the young who look to us for advice
and protection from evil.
17. It decomposes and devitalizes the electrovita fluid in the human
system.
18. The system of the tobacco users is always in a morbid condition,
as proof when you are sick you can't use it; for be it known that two
morbid conditions can not exist in the system at the same time; one
will drive out the other.
19. The poison is transmitted to the unborn infant, many times
impairing its vital organs and causing a pre-mature death: and I once
heard a Physician of much learning and practic, Dr. NILES. Say that
there never was nor ever could be a HEALTHY CHILD born of parents who
were habitual tobacco users. And I apprehend that every doctor of note
in the land will witness the same thing.
TOBACCO EATERS! Is the most appropriate name for the users of Tobacco;
as much so as the vile disgusting loathsome green worm that swallows
the poison leaf into its stomach. For the poison of the quid and the
smoke is taken up by the blood vessels and absorbents of the mouth,
and carried into the circulation, even in a more virulent form than if
introduced by the stomach.
Every doctor will tell you that he is more afraid to give tobacco,
even as an enema, than any other poison in the Materia Medica: he
never gives it by the stomach. Sometimes, in violent spasmodic colic,
or strangulation of the bowels, or spasmodic croup, tobacco is used
externally as a poultice, and if you are not very careful, it will
kill your patient even in this form. Many a colt and calf has been
killed by rubbing them with tobacco juice to kill the lice. Tobacco is
death to all kinds of parasitical vermin; it will kill the most
venomous reptiles very quick. Many children have been killed by the
application of tobacco for lice titter sores &c. Dr. Mussey tells of
a woman that rubbed a little tobacco juice on a ring worm, not larger
than a 25 cts. on her little girl's face; and if a physician had not
been quickly summoned the child would have died. He tells of a father
who killed his son by putting tobacco spit on a sore on his head. You
would do well to read what various medical men have written on the
subject. Every other poison vegetable is content with one poison; but
tobacco has two of the most deadly poisons in the vegetable kingdom.
This is no scare-crow put up to frighten you Tobacco Eaters; if you
don't believe me just examine a vegetable chemistry, and to convince
your self more thoroughly, just drop one drop of nicotina or
nicotianin on the tongue of a Cat or a Dog, that you don't wish to
kill by the tedious method or shooting or drowning, and see what the
effect will be. See if Strychnine will do its work so quick.
Doctors: men whose profession is to play with poisons as with so many
deadly vipers, stand back and behold its poisoned fangs with horrow,
not daring to lay hold on it and use it as a medicine for his sick
wife or child. No he shuns it with a deathly horrow! Though himself
may be a SLAVE to the slower action of its devitalizing powers on mind
and body.
An over dose of tobacco is incureable because of its peculiar effect
upon the system. The effect is known by a deathly paleness and
sickness, then the air suddenly becomes too warm and oppressive, the
patient desires a cool situation, a drink of cold water and a fresh
breeze, the strangest of all is at the same time the patient is so
stimulated the action of the heart decreases, and to give a stimulant
to increase it, it increases its virulence in proportion to the
increase of the suffocating and sickening sensation: and to give the
medicine to allay that, still decreases the motion of the heart's
action. Thus an antidote is instantly transformed into fuel to feed
the unquenchable flame that is already devouring the human vitals.
It is no use in telling you by this time that I talk not about tobacco
like a book, but like one who has been tobacconized. For I have been
one of those unfortunate boys who never had an opportunity of learning
any thing except from that cross old pedagogue Experience, who
invariably compelled me to work out my own problems, often have I in
scalding tears of bitter regret.
Tobacco like alcohol gives a temporary stimulus, and to slack off the
use of it, it will produce similar effects.
Nicotina and Nicotianin are the proper fathers to the following
diseases,--Dispepsia, Water-brash, Cancer, Ramollissement, Impotence,
Fatuity, Caries, Consumption, Laryngitis, Cardialgia, Angina Pectoris,
Neuralgia, Paralysis, Amaurosis, Deafness, Liver Complaint, Apoplexy,
Insanity, Hippochondriasis, Horrors, Blues, and so on through the
greater part of the Nosological family.
Because you are not killed outright you flatter your self that you are
not poisoned, but I tell you that you are, and you are dying by inches
or by sixteenths of inches if you please, how ever small the effect on
you it has some effect and finally by a continual pressing of that
effect it will kill you. Put your ear to the huge locust tree and hear
the gentle grating of a bore worm. Thou insignificant worm! What dost
thou hope to do with that monster tree? Grate, grate, grate! For years
that almost imperceptible grating goes on, while the mighty locust
lifts its towering branches in fancied security. Finally, a storm
comes and the locust hopes to brave it as he has many others; but,
alas, its strength is undermined; Its vitals are eaten away, and it
falls,--a victim to the tiny worm. Thus does tobacco, or alcohol, or
opium, or any other poison when taken habitually, undermine the
system, slowly, imperceptibly,--but surely.
Go into any tobacco factory of cigars, snuff, or plug, and bring out
a healthy man if you can.
Tobacco so destroys the sensations and functions of the mouth that,
mild natural drinks, are not tasted; hence one craves strong drinks,
something that will goad the deadened nerves into action. It produces
a state of exhaustion in the whole system that calls for an artificial
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