Why All Smokers Do Not Die of Tobacco Poisoning.
It is often objected that while chemistry and scientific experiments seem to prove that tobacco is a powerful poison, the experience of thousands of persons disproves the theory of its poisonous character, since if it were so intense a poison as described, cases of death from tobacco poisoning would be much more frequent. To this objection we answer:— 1. One reason why so few persons are reputed to die of nicotine, or tobacco poisoning, is the wonderful faculty the system possesses of accommodating itself to circumstances. Through this means the worst poisons may by degrees be tolerated, until enormous doses can be taken without immediately fatal effects. Corrosive sublimate, strychnia, belladonna, and many other poisons, may be thus tolerated. 2. In our opinion the majority of tobacco-users do die of tobacco poisoning. Death as surely results, ultimately, from chronic as from acute poisoning, though the full effects are delayed, it may be for years. A man who dies five or ten years sooner than he should, in consequence of tobacco-using, is killed by the poison just as truly as though he died instantly from an overdose.—Good Health.