TOBACCO by John Norton Loughborough

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1862

TOBACCO.

By John Norton Loughborough

BRO. WHITE: Much has been said in the Review on this question and especially concerning its physical effects. I wish to relate two circumstances that have transpired in the vicinity of my labors the last winter as a still further warning to tobacco users. In the town of Johnstown 12 miles northwest of Battle Creek about one year since a man (whose name I will not mention) began to fall in health and consulted with several physicians who told him he was destroying his stomach by the use of tobacco. He died about six months since. On examining his stomach it was found that the coating was almost entirely eaten up by tobacco. But say you he must not swallow the juice. He did not, or at least was not conscious of doing it. The poison was carried into his stomach by the saliva being impregnated with it in the glans of the throat.

Another case is of an individual in the town of Somerset Hillsdale Co. Mich. A person who ten years since was of a bright intellect has become an idiot, no other cause being assigned for it by physicians than chewing and smoking tobacco. The Lord help us as a people to rid ourselves of these slow poisons. Amen.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

Battle Creek, Mich., June 1, 1862.