ish fashion, "is singularly grateful to the taste, and refreshing to the spirits; counteracting the effects of fatigue and cold, and appeasing the cravings of hunger, as I have often experienced. Hearne, I think, in his journey to the mouth of the Coppermine river, mentions his experience of similar effects of tobacco. He had been frequently wandering without food for five or six days, in the most inclement weather, and supported it all, he says, in good health and spirits, by smoking tobacco, &c."* Willis, as quoted by Mons. Merat, recommends the use of tobacco in armies, as able to supply the necessaries of life to a great extent, and also as an excellent preventive against various diseases.t And Dr. Rush relates that he was informed by Colonel Burr, that the greatest complaints of dissatisfaction and suffering which he heard among the soldiers who accompanied General Arnold in his march from Boston to Quebec through the wilderness, in the year 1775, were from the want of tobacco. This was the more remarkable, as they were so destitute of provisions as to be obliged to kill and eat their dogs.‡ Tobacco possesses narcotic powers in common with many other substances, of which neither time nor space will permit us to make mention. Narcotics, when used to a due extent, become poisons, and hence tobacco holds a very high rank in toxicology. A thousand experiments, as well as accidents, show that it is a most deadly poison.§ It has also been called a counterpoison, but those who have asserted this have been contradicted by numerous writers. Dr. Rush affirms that repeated experience in Philadelphia has proved, that it is equally ineffectual in preserving those who use it from the influenza and yellow fever. In the plague, it was said to be useful, but what has been advanced on this subject is now shown to be without much foundation. Still it may be said of tobacco, that though it does not contain any specific antidote to contagion, or possess antiseptic properties, it may nevertheless, as a powerful narcotic, by diminishing the sensibility of the system, render it less liable to contagion. It also moderates anxiety and fear, which we are told quicken the activity of contagion. "Thus," says Cullen, "the antiloimic powers of tobacco are upon the same footing with wine, brandy, and opium."|| Dr. Fowler has written a treatise upon the effects of tobacco in the cure of dropsies and dysuries. The Doctor seemed determined to discover virtue in this plant, because he tells us in his preface, that he was nowise discouraged in his inquiries into Journey from Constantinople to England, p. 4. † Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales. Art. Tabac. + Essays, p. 267. § Brodie, Macartney, &c. See also Nancrede's Orhla, p, 289. * the medicinal effects of tobacco, although the generality of writers on the materia medica have spoken of it with great caution and reserve, and for the most part have declared it either obsolete, or so uncertain, violent, and deleterious in its effects, as to render its exhibition unadvisable. Dr. Cullen says that he employed tobacco in various cases of dropsy, but with very little success. Even those who advocate the medicinal use of tobacco, admit that it is one of those violent remedies, which nothing but the most skilful management can render beneficial; such as arsenic, prussic acid, and many other deadly poisons, which, if cautiously and properly administered, become excellent medicines. Thus the liniment of tobacco, which has formerly been called one of the best in the dispensatory, is said, in a case mentioned by Mr. Murray, to have caused the deaths of three children, who expired within twenty-four hours in convulsions, in consequence of its application for scald head. Innumerable instances are given of its deleterious effects, even when used medicinally, and with the greatest caution. In some cases it has entirely failed to give the anticipated relief, and in others been followed by the most deplorable consequences. We believe, however, that eminent practitioners still continue to employ it, and find it serviceable in some diseases. We have indeed heard it remarked, by a distinguished physician, that much of the medicinal effect which might otherwise be derived from tobacco, is often lost by the habitual use of the article, which renders the system less sensible to its influence. As a vulnerary, tobacco was used by the Indians, and physicians say that it promotes the cicatrization and healing of inveterate ulcers. It has been used in most cutaneous disorders, and its smoke has been considered useful in rheumatisms, gout, chronic pains, &c.; but in all these cases its virtue has also been denied, or it has been asserted that many other medicines possess more certain efficacy. As an emetic it is considered dangerous, being extremely violent, and succeeded by too much distress and sickness. That it has been found useful in destroying insects, and in preserving old clothes laid by against the inroads of vermin, there can be no doubt; but on the mosquito and fly, two pests to whose cruel torments we are most exposed, it will be within the painful remembrance of many of our readers, that no quantity of tobacco smoke appears to have the least effect. Even though we admitted and could prove tobacco to be a useful medicine, still this fact would afford no argument in favour of its habitual use in a state of health. On the contrary, it would be the very reason for its non-use; for the habitual use Mat. Med. vol. ii. p. 198. will in time weaken and destroy its medicinal powers. Many, after finding or fancying relief from its occasional, have fallen into its habitual use, and the remedy has thus virtually proved worse than the disease. Besides, by this course, persons take away the hope of future benefit from the application, in case of a recurrence of their disorder. That this habit is entirely unevangelical, Dr. Clarke attempts to show with much zeal. Let those who profess to renounce the lusts of the flesh read his tract, and determine, conscientiously, how far his arguments are worthy of attention. That the devout "roll this sin as a sweet morsel under the tongue," is fully evinced by every day's experience; and the following anecdote from Dr. Clarke forms a good illustration of this text. "An eminent physician," says he, "gave me the following account :-'When I was at L, in the year 1789, a certain religious people at one of their annual meetings made a rule, or rather revived one which had been long before made and established among them by their venerable founder, but had been in a great measure lost sight of, viz.-That no minister in their connexion should use snuff or tobacco, unless prescribed by a physician. This rule at once showed their prudence and good sense. Towards the conclusion of the meeting, having offered my assistance to as many as stood in need of medical help, several of them consulted me on the subject of taking tobacco in one form or other; and with very little variation their mode of address was as follows:-'Doctor, I am troubled frequently with such a complaint, (naming it,) I take tobacco, and have found great benefit from the use of it; I am sure were I to give it up I should be very ill indeed; and I am certain that you are too wise and too skilful a man to desire me to discontinue a practice which has been so beneficial to me.' After such an address what could I say? It was spoken with serious concern, and was properly argumentum ad hominem: I knew they were sincere, but I knew also they were deceived: however, to the major part of them I ventured to speak thus: 'gentlemen, you certainly do me honour in the confidence you repose in my skill, but you have brought me into a dilemma from which I cannot easily extricate myself; as I find I must either say as you say on the subject, or else renounce all pretensions to wisdom and medical skill. However, I cannot in conscience and honour prescribe to you the continued use of a thing which I know does many of you immense hurt."" But the anti-christian nature of this habit is placed in a very strong light, in a curious passage, by Dr. Rush. "What reception," says he, "may we suppose, would the apostles have met with, had they carried into the cities and houses to which they were sent, snuff-boxes, pipes, segars, and bundles of cut, or rolls of hog, or pigtail tobacco ?" The effects of tobacco upon the morals have been often animadverted upon, and in no particular more frequently, and with greater emphasis, than in its obvious tendency to promote temulency. Charlevoix intimates the near connexion which exists between intemperance and smoking, when he assures us, that amongst many nations, to smoke out of the same pipe in token of alliance, is the same thing as to drink out of the same cup.† "Smoking and chewing tobacco," says Rush, "by rendering water and simple liquors insipid to the taste, dispose very much to the stronger stimulus of ardent spirits. The practice of smoking segars has, in every part of our country, been more followed by a general use of brandy and water as a common drink, more especially by that class of citizens who have not been in the habit of drinking wine or malt liquors."*"One of the greatest sots I ever knew," says the same author, "acquired a love for ardent spirits by swallowing cuds of tobacco, which he did to escape detection in the use of it; for he had contracted the habit of chewing, contrary to the advice and commands of his father. He died of a dropsy under my care, in the year 1780.”† On this subject, a very late writer is still more express. "We consider tobacco," says he, "closely allied to intoxicating liquors, and its confirmed votaries as a species of drunkards." Again. "I have observed that persons who are much addicted to liquor, have an inordinate liking to tobacco in all its different forms; and it is remarkable, that in the early stages of ebriety, almost every man is desirous of having a pinch of snuff. This last fact it is not easy to explain; but the former may be accounted for by that incessant craving after excitement, which clings to the system of the confirmed drunkard."‡ The limits of our article will not allow us to embrace all the considerations which belong to this subject, and which have been bestowed upon it by various writers. We will therefore proceed to the few remarks which we have to make upon the three chief modes of using tobacco, viz., snuffing, smoking, and chewing. Catherine de Medicis, the personage said to have prompted the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew's day at Paris, is commonly regarded as the inventress of snuff-taking. In Russia and Persia the penalty of death was annexed to the use of tobacco in every form except that of snuff. For this lighter offence, the punishment was softened down to simple mutilation, no greater severity being deemed necessary than that of cutting off the nose. We doubt exceedingly whether either penalty would deter the inveterate snuff-takers of the present day. Indeed, we are told somewhere that it was very common among the Persians to expatriate themselves, when they were no longer allowed to indulge in tobacco in their native country. One of the first effects of snuff is to injure the nerves of the nose, which are endowed with exquisite sensibility, and of which an incredible number are spread over the inner membrane of the nostrils. This membrane is lubricated by a secre tion, which has a tendency to preserve the sense. By the almost caustic acrimony of snuff, the mucus is dried up, and the organ of smelling becomes perfectly callous. The consequence is, that all the pleasure we are capable of deriving from the olfactory organs, the omnis copia narium, as Horace curiously terms it, is totally destroyed. Similar effects are also produced upon the saliva, and hence it is that habitual snuff-takers are often unable to speak with proper distinctness; and the sense of taste for the same reason is very much obtunded. A snuffer may always be distinguished by a certain nasal twang-an asthmatic wheezing-and a sort of disagreeable noise in respiration, which is nearly allied to incipient snoring. Snuff also frequently occasions fleshy excrescences in the nose, which, in some instances, end in polypi. Individuals have oftentimes a predisposition to cancer in little scirrhous intumescencies, which, if kept easy and free from every thing of an irritating character, will continue harmless, but which the use of snuff sometimes frets into incurable ulcers and cancers. By the use of snuff, tumours are also generated in the throat, which obstruct deglutition, and even destroy life. Dr. Hill saw a female die of hunger, who could swallow no nourishment because of a polypus which closed up the stomach, the formation of which was attributed to the excessive use of snuff. Some portion of the snuff will involuntarily find its way into the stomach, where its pernicious properties soon manifest themselves, being frequently followed by nausea, vomitings, loss of appetite, and impaired digestion. The drain of the juices has a tendency to injure the muscles of the face, to render them flaccid, to furrow and corrugate the skin, and to give a gaunt, withered, and jaundiced appearance to "the human face divine." We are also informed that it embrowns the complexion, by withdrawing those peculiar secretions which communicate the fine vermillion hue of beauty. In our country, however, women do not abandon themselves to this impure habit, till they are married, and have no farther desire to please, or till they are somewhat passées, and find their faculties of pleasing impaired. What a death-blow does snuffing give to all that romance with which it is the interest of refined society to invest the fair sex! How vulgar the thought "that a sneeze should interrupt a sigh !"-How unpoetical is snuff! The most suitable verses which a lover could address to a snuff-taking mistress, would be imitations of Horace's lines to the Sorceress Canidia. What sylph would superintend the conveyance of this dust to the nostrils of a belle? What Gnome would not take a fiendish delight in hovering over a pipe-loving beauty? "The only advantage," says Dr. Leake, "of taking snuff, is that of sneezing, which, in sluggish phlegmatic habits, will give |