The Tobacco Habit by Neal Dow

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 21, 1882

The Tobacco Habit.

By Neal Dow

THE tobacco habit has become an evil so great in many ways that serious efforts ought to be made to check it, if not to eradicate it from good society. I do not think there is in the world any custom or habit more absurd than this, or with less reason to be. There is none which shows its victims to be more the abject slaves of foolish example than this.

A great many years ago there was cast away at Nootka Sound, on the northwest coast of America, an American ship, of which an account was published under the title of "Jewett's Narrative." At that time all that region was an unknown land. Among the curious customs of the Nootka Sound savages, Jewett says, was that of wearing a stick, about eight or ten inches long, thrust horizontally through the gristle of the nose, projecting about four or five inches on each side. The sailors called it the "spritsail yard," and sometimes, accidentally, would hit one end of it, almost tearing it away from its insertion. The natives of some regions have in the under lip a long, horizontal slit, into which is inserted a broad piece of wood, which extends the lip and makes a sort of shelf of it. The negroes of some African tribes have the two upper front teeth extracted. Of some other tribes the front teeth are filed to exactly resemble saw teeth. Some savages are tattooed, and others have the head flattened by compression, in infancy, between two pieces of board. Not one of these customs is more absurd and without reason than the tobacco habit.

It is far more absurd than the liquor habit. I do not say more injurious to society or to the victim, but more absurd. The victims of the latter are originally, in most cases, drawn into the habit by the example and influence of others, which it is hard to resist. But the moderate indulgence in alcoholics is pleasant to the taste and agreeable in its effects from the very first glass, so that it is easy for a weak or thoughtless youth, without experience or the opportunity for observation, to be drawn on, step by step, until he finds retreat so difficult as to be practically almost impossible.

But it is not so with the tobacco habit. At the very first the use of tobacco is a dreadful disgust. It is even worse than this. It inflicts upon its future victim a nausea, a retching, a vomiting, a headache, to which the horrors of sea-sickness are not to be compared. There is the blue upper lip, the livid, ghastly hue of the face, the eye like that of a dead fish, the limbs limp and powerless, the muscles pulpy and flaccid, a violent and painful vomiting, every symptom of death, which it would soon be in reality if the unutterable horror of the suffering did not compel the poor fool to postpone the attempt to become a man in that way. Here endeth the first lesson. The silly youth always resolves that he will never touch tobacco again, and holds to the purpose until he has entirely recovered from the effects of the first lesson. Then he sees other youngsters like himself who have succeeded in conquering their disgust of tobacco. They have done it. Why not he? They laugh at him as white-livered; they assure him that the worst of it will be over in a few days, or, at most, in a few weeks. They strut through the streets or in other public places so grandly; they have such a manly way with them; there is such a grace in their style of holding the cigar between finger and thumb, and striking off the ashes with the little finger. When they put the cigar into their mouths again, it is with such a flourish, and their heads are thrown back, a little on one side, with so much self-consciousness, their eyes at the same moment cast slily right and left, to see who observes and admires them! Ah! this is quite irresistible, and our poor, foolish youngster goes off behind the barn, or into some other out-of-the-way place, and takes the second lesson. All this is carefully concealed from the parents, so the tobacco pupil must go to bed before supper, under pretense of headache. Pretense? It is no sham. He has a racking and splitting headache, with the return of dreadful nausea. In a few weeks, more or less, our youngster has learned to smoke or chew, as the case may be.

Now, in doing this, he has expended far more resolution and right-down hard work than would be necessary to acquire a fair knowledge of geometry, French, German, or Italian. But what has he acquired, in fact? Any good? None whatever. Any means of good? None. Any pleasure or means of gratification of any kind? None whatever. Then what has he really acquired? The tobacco habit. Is that all of it? Yes; that is absolutely the whole of it. But, surely, there must be some result to it, else we should not see people smoking or chewing through life. Yes, there is a result to it. What is it? This, and only this, that the victim of the tobacco habit has acquired an absolute need, which he cannot forego. He is in agony if by any mischance he loses his tobacco. The need of it to him is as imperious as that of food or drink to others. He suffers more cut off from tobacco than if he were cut off from food or drink. On an expedition of any kind, to lay in a store of tobacco is an absolute necessity to him, as a store of food and drink is to others. But then, surely, he derives a great pleasure from tobacco? No; there is no pleasure in it whatever. The smoking or chewing does this to him and only this: It prevents the suffering he would experience without it, or he is relieved from the suffering if it has already set in.

A gentleman told me this story, which exactly illustrates the condition of the victim of the tobacco habit. He was subject to headache. In a small spot over the right eye the pain was excruciating, but it disappeared instantly when his wife laid her hand upon it. I was in his house one day, when he came in and threw himself down in the rocking-chair, in an agony of pain, with his feet upon a stool. His wife ran to him and put her hand upon the spot. Instantly he exclaimed: "How delicious that is. The dreadful pain is all gone, and I am so comfortable."

"But how long must your wife's hand remain there to drive off the headache?" I asked.

"Perhaps fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes," he said.

Now that describes exactly the condition of the tobacco victim. Without his smoke or chew he is in an agony of pain; but with his tobacco there is no pain, or the pain, if any, passes away. Here are two men just from the dinner-table—one with a cigar, the other with none. Why is this? One has acquired the tobacco habit; the other has not. One would be most miserable without his cigar, in spite of the good dinner; the other is perfectly comfortable with the dinner, without a cigar. The one would take the cigar, without the dinner, if he could not have both, because he would suffer far more from want of the tobacco than from want of food. The other would not accept a ship-load of the best cigars in the world for his own use. The one would give his last dime for a cigar, and go without food, if he had fasted for a day; the other would sooner put into his mouth a pebble from the roadside than a cigar.

But, surely, there must be some pleasure, some real gratification in the use of tobacco, else sensible men would not addict themselves to so nasty a habit? No; there is absolutely no pleasure, no gratification whatever in the use of tobacco, except that which results from preventing or relieving the great suffering that would come from the want of it. Here we are on a steamer on a fine summer's day, upon an excursion up-river, across the lake, or among the islands, a large company of gentlemen and ladies. We see some gentlemen around the deck smoking. Why do they do this? Because they would be most uncomfortable, or, in fact, in great suffering, without it. They cannot endure abstinence from tobacco until the return home. They are tobacco slaves without knowing it.

Some of them are around among the ladies and other non-smokers, with their disgusting smell. Why is this?

These are men whose moral sense is dulled, if not deadened, by the tobacco habit. They do not even consider, they do not think of it, that these people have a right to the pure, fresh air, so important to their comfort and health, and they poison it with tobacco-smoke. The pure air is as much their right as the purse in their pocket, and the forcibly taking it away by the tobacco-smoke is as much stealing in the moral sense as picking the pocket; but these tobacco victims do not think of it, or do not heed.

The eminent English Dr. B. W. Richardson says that lying is a symptom of the alcoholic habit—an utter disregard of truth, a perfect indifference to it. In the same way and to the same degree the tobacco habit so deadens the moral sense that its victim will not hesitate to inflict any amount of discomfort upon others in gratifying his sensual appetite. He does not even think of the comfort or rights of others, or he has become indifferent to them.

Why should not the Sabbath-schools be increased in value and importance to the young by utilizing them in teaching, at proper times and in a proper way, the great evils in many ways coming inevitably from the tobacco habit, while no good whatever results from it?—Hon. Neal Dow.