A Cigar Scientifically Dissected.
A polite visitor, who, during his interview with us, had rendered our sanctum redolent with the fumes of a fragrant Havanna, has just left a cigar on our table with the laughing request that we smoke it. Despite the fact that it is an exceptionally fine cigar, we are unable to gratify our friend’s desire, seeing that we don’t smoke; but the thought occurs that we can show our appreciation of the gift by applying the light, not of a match, but of science, to it, thus giving our friend and his brother smokers something to ponder over each time “the blue up-curling smoke” leads them to reverie. To the world in general, a cigar is merely a tightly rolled packet having brittle fragments of dry leaves within, and a smooth silky leaf for its outer wrapper. When it is burnt, and the pleasantly flavored smoke inhaled, the habitual smoker claims for it a soothing luxury that quiets the irritable nervous organism, relieves weariness, and entices repose. Science, scorning so superficial a description, examines first the smoke, secondly the leaf, thirdly the ash. In the smoke is discovered water in vaporous state, soot (free carbon), carbonic acid and carbonic oxide, and a vaporous substance condensable into oily nicotine. These are the general divisions, which Vohl and Eulenberg have still further split up; and in so doing they have found acetic, formic, butyric, valeric, and propionic acids, prussic acid, creosote, and carbolic acid, ammonia, sulphuretted hydrogen, pyridine, viridine, picoline, lutidine, collodine, parvoline, coridine, and rubidine. These last are a series of oily bases belonging to the homologues of aniline, first discovered in coal tar. Applying chemical tests to the leaves, other chemists have found nicotia, tobacco camphor or nicotianine (about which not much is known), a bitter, extractive matter, gum, chlorophyll, malate of lime, sundry albuminoids, malic acid, woody fiber, and various salts. The feathery white ash, which in its cohesion and whiteness is indicative of the good cigar, yields potash, soda, magnesia, lime, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, silica, and chlorine. Our friend has kindly left us a fine cigar; had it been a poor and cheap one, the ingredients we should extract would be fearful and wonderful to contemplate. Here is the list from an English parliamentary report on adulterations in tobacco: Sugar, alum, lime, flour or meal, rhubarb leaves, saltpeter, fuller’s earth, starch, malt commings, chromate of lead, peat moss, molasses, burdock leaves, common salt, endive leaves, lampblack, gum, red dye, a black dye composed of vegetable red, iron, and liquorice, scraps of newspaper, cinnamon stick, cabbage leaves, and straw brown paper. Returning now to the smoke, or rather its ingredients, Dr. B. W. Richardson, in his “Diseases of Modern Life,” considers the effect of the same on the body, at considerable length, basing his conclusions on actual investigation. He tells us that water, of course, is harmless; free carbon acts mechanically as an irritant, and tends to discolor the secretions and the teeth. Ammonia bites the tongue, exercises a solvent influence on the blood, excites the salivary glands, and thus causes a desire to drink while smoking. The tendency of carbonic acid is to produce sleepiness, headache, and lassitude. When a cigar is smoked badly, that is, when the combustion of the tobacco is slow and incomplete, carbonic oxide is produced in small quantities, and is an active poisoning agent, resulting in irregular motion of the heart, vomiting, convulsions of the muscles, and drowsiness. The nicotine tends to cause tremor, palpitation of the heart, and paralysis. The volatile empyreumatic substance produces a sense of oppression, and taints the breath and surroundings of the smoker with the well known “stale tobacco smoke” smell. The bitter extract causes that sharp, nauseous taste peculiar to a re-lighted cigar or an old pipe. By trying the effect of tobacco smoke on lower animals, we can obtain an idea of its influence on ourselves. Small insects are stupefied rapidly, but recover in fresh air. Cold-blooded animals succumb slowly to the smoke, birds rapidly. Some animals, such as the goat, can eat tobacco with impunity; but none escape the effects of the fumes. Persons suffer most from tobacco while learning to smoke. Dr. Richardson says that the spasmodic seizures are sometimes terrible, especially in boys. There is a sensation of imminent death, the heart nearly ceases to beat, and sharp pains shoot through the chest. Examination of inferior animals under such conditions shows that “the brain is pale and empty of blood; the stomach reddened in round spots, so raised and pile-like that they resemble patches of Utrecht velvet.” The blood is preternaturally fluid, the lungs are as pale as those of a dead calf, and the heart is feebly trembling: such is the primary action of one’s first cigar. After a time, however, the body becomes accustomed to the influences of the poison; and with the exception of constant functional disturbances (owing to the excretory155organs, notably the kidneys, being compelled to do work not essential to their duties), no distressing results are felt. There are numerous instances where the evil effects are scarcely appreciable, the physical and nervous constitution of the smoker being capable of resisting the influence. In many cases copious salivation attends smoking, and in this circumstance the opponents of tobacco have found a strong argument. Still, either to expectorate or not to do so is a choice of two evils. In the latter case, the result is to swallow the saliva charged with poisonous matter; in the former, the saliva needed to prepare food for digestion is lost, and besides, as it contains salts of lime in solution, the effect is to produce large formations of tartar on the teeth. “Smoker’s sore throat” is a special irritable state of the mucous membrane induced by cigar smoking, which soon disappears when the habit is broken off. Tobacco smoke does not induce consumption or bronchitis, but it tends to aggravate both maladies. Its effect on the organs of sense is to cause, in the extreme degree, dilation of the pupils of the eye, confusion of vision, bright lines, luminous or cobweb specks, and long retention of images on the retina, with other and analogous symptoms affecting the ear, namely, inability to define sounds clearly and the occurrence of a sharp ringing sound like that of a whistle or a bell. Its effect on the brain is to impair the activity of that organ and to oppress it if it be duly nourished, but to soothe it if it be exhausted. It leads to paralysis in the volitional and in the sympathetic or organic nerves, and to over-secretion from the glandular structures. Science was not wise enough to prepare so formidable an indictment of the nicotian weed as the above in King James’ time, else that monarch might have had better ground than his personal dislike, for stigmatizing the habit of smoking as a “custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse.” And yet, despite all that Science can say, the habit is increasing. Two centuries ago, the Turks regarded smoking as a religious offense, and paraded a smoker through the streets of Constantinople with his pipe stuck through his nose as a warning to others. Who can disconnect the Turk now from the ideas of chibouque or nargileh, or fragrant Latakia? Look at the best cigar wrappers the world can produce, raised on tobacco fields in the heart of New England, where the Puritan fathers once visited the direst of blue law vengeance on the wretch who profaned his Maker’s handiwork by “making a chimney of his nostrils.” The value of our tobacco crop last year reached nearly $30,000,000. We consume annually some 75,000 hogsheads of the leaf; we imported about 83,000 bales of cigars etc., from Cuba in 1875. What is the end of it all? Effects on individuals likewise affect communities; these in turn influence the nation. No person that smokes can be in perfect health, and an imperfect organism cannot reproduce a perfect one. Therefore it is logical to conclude that, were smoking the practice of every individual of a nation, then that people would degenerate into a physically inferior race. It would follow, moreover, that, in those countries where smoking is most practiced, a lower physical, and consequently a lower intellectual, development must be found. Such, we think, will be conceded to be true of Spain, of Cuba, of Portugal, of Turkey, of Greece, and of the South American countries, where those who are addicted to the habit vastly outnumber those who do not smoke.—Scientific American.