TOBACCO AS A MEDICINE

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 31, 1864

TOBACCO AS A MEDICINE

Tobacco-Using. No. 3.

TOBACCO AS A MEDICINE.

It has already been stated that the proper place for tobacco is upon the list of medicinal agents. But it has too often been proposed for such a purpose where it was exceedingly ill-advised. Medical men have often shown themselves in this respect great novices in science, and in matters of common sense. This article has often been prescribed where the remedy was infinitely worse than the disease. Many have said, ‘Tobacco was recommended to me by a physician, to cure a watery stomach.’ The first objection to its use in any such case, or, indeed, in any other case by mouth is, it never cures the disease. The second objection is, it is never taken like other medicines, and then laid aside. If a man begins taking it he finds no leaving-off place. A man takes it for a watery stomach;—how came that watery stomach? Did the Creator make a mistake in the structure of the man? or did the man himself, or through his parents, by some violation of law, reach that condition in the form of a penalty? That watery stomach was the result of some wrong habits established by himself or those who had the charge of his childhood, or by hereditary influence.

All that can be done, or that is generally needed in such a case, is, abstaining from the cause which produced and prolonged the difficulty, and giving nature a chance to relieve herself of her disease. Instead of advising this, some medical ignoramuses have not only allowed their patients to continue the unlawful burden upon Nature’s back, but have piled on an additional and heavier one, in the form of habitual drugging with tobacco. And yet they never in this way get a cure. A man takes this so called medicine for forty years perhaps, but gets no cure. Let him cease tobacco, and he will find his watery stomach still in existence. Tobacco only covers up the fire, but never puts it out. He has taken the doctor’s medicine faithfully, many times a day, for forty years, but has yet gained no cure.

How long would a man of common sense take the doctor’s prescription of any other medicine, and, finding no cure, be willing to continue it? Would he be willing to take ipecac, calomel or jalap, thirty or forty

years, eight or ten doses per day, without any signs of cure? Tobacco allays the morbid state of the stomach not by creating a healthy action, but by creating a greater morbid action. The tobacco disease is so much greater than the one for which it was taken, that it puts the former complaint into the shade but does not remove it; it merely covers it up where it is not noticed till the tobacco is discontinued.

The quack who prescribes tobacco by mouth—no matter what his claims to respect in other things—the quack who does this, acts on the fundamental principle of another quack, who, being called to a case of simple fever, prescribed something so unusual that an observer inquired what he was going to do. He answered that he considered himself ‘death on fits;’ and if he could change the case into fits, he was sure to cure. Would to Heaven that those who have commenced on this principle would carry it out—having succeeded in creating a new morbid action with tobacco, that they would now set at work, and prove themselves, like the fit doctor, death on tobacco!

When prescribed in justifiable cases, tobacco needs to be used with great caution, knowledge, and skill, or it becomes a very unsafe, and even fatal, medicine. Its use by the mouth is, in about all cases, uncalled for, inexpedient, and even morally wrong. But it may be sometimes given by injection, in cases of severe spasmodic diseases, with great and beneficial effects. A wet leaf may be introduced into the extremity of the bowel, in case of obstinate colic. It is fit for such purposes, but not for the mouth. Men apply the pipe, the cigar, the plug, not as a medicine, but as a luxury. The mouth is no place for such a poison, even as a medicine.

But, when used as an injection, great caution is essential to the safety of the patient. Sometimes death has been occasioned by this kind of use by unskillful hands. Cases of lockjaw, hysteric spasms, and kindred ailments, have been speedily overcome by its judicious administration. It will relax the severest spasmodic contractions, and speedily present the patient in the aspect of dissolution. Every muscle will become as flaccid and pliable as cotton cloth dipped in water, and the whole body covered with a cold, clammy sweat.

A single leaf, dipped in hot water and laid upon the pit of the stomach, will produce a powerful effect, by mere absorption from the surface. By being injudiciously applied to a spot where the scarf skin is destroyed, fearful results have followed. Professor Munsey, in his excellent ‘Essay on Tobacco,’ gives a case. Dr. Long, of New Hampshire, was consulted by a mother to know whether she might apply tobacco to a ringworm, scarcely three-fourths of an inch in diameter, on the nose of her daughter, then about five years old. He objected to it, as an exceedingly hazardous measure; and confirmed his judgment by relating a case which he had seen recorded, in which a father destroyed the life of his son by putting tobacco-spittle upon an eruption on the head.

Immediately after the doctor left, the mother, thinking she knew more than her medical adviser, proceeded to moisten the ringworm from the essence of the grandmother’s pipe, remarking that ‘if it should strike to the stomach, it must go through the nose.’ The instant the mother’s finger touched the part, the eyes of the patient rolled up in their sockets, she sallied back, and falling, was caught in the arms of the alarmed mother. The part was immediately washed, but to no purpose; the jaws were locked, the patient was senseless, and apparently in a dying state. The doctor was called immediately back, who found the following symptoms: ‘Coldness of extremities, no pulsation at the wrist, jaws set, deep insensibility, countenance death-like.’ He succeeded in opening the jaws so as to admit spirits of lavender and ammonia; applied friction and other means to resuscitate the apparently dying child. These efforts were continued about an hour and a half, before the patient became able to speak.

Until this time, the child had been robust and healthy; but since the tobacco experiment, she has been continually sickly and feeble. For the first four or five years after this, she was subject to fainting-fits every three or four weeks; sometimes lasting from twelve to twenty-four hours. Many times, in these attacks, her life appeared to be in imminent danger. Within the last three or four years, these turns had become less severe.

A medical writer has recently undertaken to show that the use of tobacco is a preventive of bronchitis. He alleges that no tobacco-user has ever been known to have that disease. It is to be feared his observations have been limited. Cases of that kind have come under my eye, even within the last few months. Indeed, a gentleman who is an intimate acquaintance of mine, in this city, once suffered severely from this disease, who was at that time a chewer and smoker. During my tours South and West, where this article is used to a far greater extent than in New England, more cases than one of this kind have presented themselves. But suppose his statement was correct, what would be the rationale of the matter? Suppose that it was well established that men, who kept themselves literally soaked in alcohol never had been known to have dyspepsia; would it prove that this course of living was judicious? How could it prevent the difficulty? by preserving such a uniform healthy action that dyspepsia could not occur? Certainly not; but by creating a so much more powerful morbid condition, that no other disease could well establish itself.

There is no medical man that will deny that tobacco must, in all cases, whether used as a luxury, or preventive, or cure, create of itself a morbid action of the system. And it would be strange policy for the world to adopt, that for fear of some disease which might come, we must create a disease to forestall it. Following this reasoning, men have used tobacco and alcohol for the professed purpose of warding off contagions and epidemics. But such a course is an outrage on nature, reason, and science. If we want Nature to stand her ground through thick and thin, let her have her own way, unmolested. Do not abuse her in any way. Do not disturb her healthy functions. Create no morbid action in her departments. She is bound to make the best efforts to ward off disease, and maintain her healthy condition. Let her do it in her own way. If she falters or is overcome, then, and not till then, give her help. While she can stand on her own feet, all help is hindrance. If we are afraid of disease, eat right, drink right, sleep right, have the skin right—obey all the laws of Nature—and we are in the best possible condition to remain right.

If ministers would cease their unapostolic way of preaching—cease doubling over their vocal organs to keep their eyes fixed on their prosy, dull reading of sermons, and stand with heads erect, and preach as though they meant something—honestly desiring to impress truth in its most clear and pungent force—they would save themselves, not only a solemn account, but many a lame throat. Bronchitis may possibly be one form of penalty divinely affixed to this dull, unphilosophical, unprimitive way of preaching. At any rate, it is one of Nature’s penalties for violated law of the vocal organs. The bundling up of the face with extra cravats and shawls, is another pretty sure forerunner of trouble in the throat. Methodist ministers, though they sometimes have no mercy on the ears of their hearers, seldom have the throat-ail; they preach erect and off-hand to the people, and rarely muffle their mouths as they go abroad.

(To be Continued.)