This statement, could it be substantiated,
would serve as a very powerful argument to those who inveigh against
the use of tobacco. Hitherto the fundamental point on which the
opponents of the weed have dwelt is that as the active principle of
tobacco, nicotine, is acknowledged to be in its isolated form a
poison, its introduction into the system in any shape or form must be
injurious, and that it is difficult to point to any human organ which
may not be detrimentally affected by smoking, snuffing, or chewing.
From a cognate point of view, it is worthy of remark that a
contemporary, in a curiously interesting study of the originals of
the characters in the famous "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," draws
attention to the circumstance that Henri Murger's consumption of
coffee was so excessive as to bring on fever and delirium. Exhaustion
and nervousness followed; and finally he was attacked by an obscure
disorder of the sympathetic nerves which control the veins, at times
turning his whole body to the colour of purple. The doctors who
treated him seem to have known nothing of the ailment, for they dosed
him with sulphur and aconite. He died a horrible--and very painful
death, at the age of thirty-eight. This was in 1860; but only four
years afterwards we find the English physician quoted above, Dr.
Anstie, in his "Stimulants and Narcotics," recognising "a kind of
chronic narcotism, the very existence of which is usually ignored, but
which is, in truth, well marked and easy to identify as produced by
habitual excess in tea and coffee.
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