Tobacco-using | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 17, 1864

Tobacco-using.

ITS PHYSICAL DEFORMITIES.

UNDER this general head, using the terms with a little license, it is proposed to speak of the use of tobacco for unnatural purposes; its perverted uses; uses contrary to Nature's arrangements; uses for which the God of nature never intended it; uses which defrange Nature's processes, and deform the beautiful work of the Creator in the functions of organic life.

TOBACCO AS A LUXURY.

The question is often proposed, "For what was tobacco made?" and it is asked evidently for the purpose of proving that, because it is a natural production, it is proper to use it for chewing, smoking and snuffing. But is everything that is made, or, in other words, everything that is a natural product, everything that grows on the soil, to be used as a luxury? If so, Opium grows, and therefore should be chewed, or otherwise habitually used. Deadly-Nightshade and Henbane are productions of nature; and should these, therefore, become habitual luxuries?

Tobacco, doubtless, with other kindred poisons, was intended for medicinal purposes. It is one of the most powerful agents which grows on the earth. It is one of the very strongest of poisons. It possesses about three times the power of opium in the same form. A single drop of the concentrated oil, put upon the tongue of the stoutest dog, will destroy life. It is said, by one writer, that if a man were to dip both of his hands into that oil, with a skillful surgeon by his side, his hands could not be amputated in season to save his life.

Dr. Mussey, of Cincinnati, Ohio, in an essay on tobacco, has given several experiments made by himself with the distilled oil. The experiments were chiefly on cats. Two of those experiments must suffice. "A small drop of the oil was rubbed upon the tongue of a large cat. Immediately the animal uttered piteous cries, and began to froth at the mouth." After narrating various symptoms which occurred within the space of seven minutes, he adds: "At this time a large drop was rubbed upon the tongue. In an instant the eyes were closed, the cries were stopped, and the breathing was suffocative and convulsed. In one minute, the ears were in rapid convulsive motion; and, presently after, tremours and violent convulsions extended over the body and limbs. In three and a half minutes, the animal fell upon its side, senseless and breathless, and the heart had ceased to beat." Half an hour after death the body was opened, and startling changes were found to have taken place.

Narrating another experiment, the doctor says: "Three drops of the oil of tobacco were rubbed upon the tongue of a full-sized, but young cat. In an instant the pupils were dilated and the breathing convulsed; the animal leaped about as if distracted, and presently took two or three rapid turns in a small circle, then dropped upon the floor in frightful convulsions, and was dead in two minutes and forty-five seconds from the moment that the oil was put upon the tongue."

Dr. Brodie applied a single drop of the empyreumatic oil to the tongue of a cat; upon which, bodily prostration and convulsions ensued. Another drop was applied, and the animal died in two minutes. Dr. Franklin applied the oily material which floats on the surface of water, when a current of tobacco-smoke is passed into it, to the tongue of a cat and found it to destroy life in a few minutes.

These experiments upon cats are strong testimony of its power; for there are few animals that possess so great tenacity for life. It is a very difficult matter to kill them, even by the severest concussions of the brain. They have great power and resistance of nerve. Such is the tenacity of the vital principle to the brain and nerves, that they have often been supposed to be dead by blows applied to the head and afterward found alive and apparently well. Probably blows upon the head sufficient to kill a full-grown cat, would be found sufficient, when applied in the same way, to kill two ordinary men.

Tobacco destroys life by its direct attack on the vital forces: in other words, the nervous circulation, or electrical currents of the body. It strikes a deadly blow upon the very foundation of animal vitality.

Its first attack is on the nervous system, the citadel of life; and then, through the medium of the nerves, it sends, by degrees, its destroying power into all the fluids and solids of the whole body. Look at its exhibitions in those who for the first time use it. See what awful prostration of the nerves follows. See how the powers of Nature rouse themselves to repel the attack. Not only extreme prostration of the nerves of the stomach ensues, but we find that organ rousing all its crippled energies to oppose the attack, by vomiting up the deadly foe. There are very few tobacco-users who did not find it a difficult matter to break themselves into the habit of taking it.

Its use as a luxury is a direct violation of all the instincts of animal life. It is revolting to all the natural and undepraved senses. The taste of the clean mouth is disgusted with its touch; the sight of the unaccustomed eye turns away with abhorrence from its loathsome spectacle; the uncorrupted nasal susceptibilities are offended with its insulting approaches. It is only when these senses are corrupted and depraved by its gradual seductions, that they are able to tolerate its presence. It is only when, by a violation of their instincts, they have become diseased in their functions, have lost their healthy susceptibilities, and taken on a morbid functional character.

It is offensive also to the unsnared mind. No man who is free from its enslaving potency can witness its physical aspects, or contemplate its personal or popular bearings, without pain. Take those who now use it, cleanse them from all its corrupting influences and associations, and send them to some place where the inhabitants, like the great mass of the American people, especially in the South and West, are presenting all the disgraceful features of this most offensive of all vices, and every single man would turn away with disgust from such society. He would not be able to bear, without pain, the various disgusting and loathsome aspects in which the habit presents itself. He would regard it as outraging all decency, and insulting every attribute of human nature.

It is one of the most unnatural and poisonous things that can be taken into the mouth. Its principal chemical ingredient is Nicotine. It belongs to the same order of poisonous plants with Henbane, Thorn-apple and Deadly-Nightshade. The learned and celebrated naturalist Linnæus classifies it with Foxglove, Lobelia, Henbane, and other powerful poisons, under the name ATROPA, one of the FATES. An appetite for it is entirely unnatural—artificial—created by habit. God never made in man the appetite for tobacco. A very few instances have occurred where a love for it is found to exist from birth. Those cases are doubtless to be accounted for by tracing their origin back to some mental freak of the mother prior to their birth, or by its inveterate use by the father; and not to be reckoned as coming from any direct law of Deity in the formation of man. God never purposed for man an appetite for this poisonous weed, nor made it to be used as a luxury. He made man for more elevated enjoyments; for more dignified practices; for more reasonable devotions.

(To be continued.)