Whether the nicotine
of the tobacco can act on nerve-cells as alcohol acts may be doubtful,
but the victim of excess in the use of tobacco certainly often very
closely resembles the habitual drinker of small drams--the tippler who
seldom becomes actually drunk--and he readily falls into the same
maudlin state as that which seems characteristic of the subject of
slow intoxication by chloral, or of the victim of bromide.--_The
Lancet_, Nov. 12, 1881.]
The question is often asked, "Does tobacco shorten life?" No evidence
has yet been adduced proving that moderate smoking is injurious,
though Sir Benjamin Brodie believed that, if accurate statistics could
be obtained, it would be found that the value of life in inveterate
smokers is considerably below the average; and the early deaths of
some of the men whose names are so frequently quoted in defence of
smoking, favours the idea that all smoking is injurious. Few literary
men live out their days. It is a matter of general belief that Mr.
Edward Miall weakened his body and shortened his life through his
habit of incessant smoking. "Bayard Taylor," says Mr. James Parton,
"was always laughing at me for the articles which I wrote in the
_Atlantic Monthly_, one called 'Does it pay to smoke?' and the
other, 'Will the Coming Man drink Wine?' I had ventured to answer both
these questions in the negative. He, on the contrary, not only drank
wine in moderation, but smoked freely, and he was accustomed to point
to his fine proportions and rosy cheeks, comparing them with my own
meagre form, as an argument for the use of those stimulants.
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