degrees; and the repair, whether great or small, must be nicely proportioned to the waste in each tissue. If a pound is added to the weight of the body, it makes all the difference in the world whether one ounce is muscle, another ounce nerve, a third ounce fat, and so on, or whether the whole pound is fat. When one tissue gets more than its fair share, the chances are that all the others must go a-begging. The co-ordinating, controlling power of the organism over its several parts is diminished,—which is the same as saying that nutrition is impaired. Evidence of this soon appears in the circumstance that the deposit of adipose tissue is no longer confined to the proper places. Fat begins to accumulate all over the body, in localities where little or no fat is wanted, and notably about the stomach and diaphragm, causing laborious movement of the thorax and wheezing respiration. When a man gets into this state, it is a sign that the ratio between the waste and the repair of his tissues has become seriously dislocated. You can relieve him of his fat only by improving his nutrition. The German who drinks his forty glasses of lager bier per diem is said to be bloated; and we have heard it gravely surmised that the ale, getting into his system, swells him up—as if the human body were a sort of bladder or balloon! The explanation is not quite so simple. But it is easy to see how this immense quantity of liquid, continually loading the stomach and intestines, and entailing extra labour upon all the excreting organs, should so damage the assimilative powers as to occasion an excessive deposit of coarse fat and of flabby, imperfectly-elaborated connective tissue, over the entire surface of the body. And the state of chronic, though mild, narcosis in which the guzzler keeps himself, by still further injuring his reparative powers, contributes to the general result.

There are consequently four ways in which tobacco may exhibit its effects upon the nutrition of the body.

We may see, by this example, how much room is always left for fallacy in the empirical tracing of physiological effects to their causes. The phænomena are so complex that induction is of but little avail, unless supported and confirmed by deduction.[25] In the case of tobacco, our conclusions are so confirmed. Deduction, supported by cautious induction, shows the stimulant action of tobacco to be of permanent benefit to the system; and hence the statements of those smokers who believe themselves injured by the habit must be received with due qualifications. Yielding unsuspiciously to the influence of a prejudice which originated in an absurd puritanical notion of "morality,"[26] many smokers are in the habit of reviling the practice which they nevertheless will not abandon. Having once begun to smoke, they persist in laying to the account of tobacco sundry aches and ails which in the hurry and turmoil of modern life no one can expect wholly to escape, and many of which are such as tobacco could not possibly give rise to. If their teeth, for instance, begin to decay, tobacco gets the blame, although it is notorious to dentists that tobacco preserves the enamel of the teeth as hardly anything else will. We have seen teeth which had been kept for months in a preparation of nicotine and were in excellent condition. Then the headache, due perhaps to an overdose of hot risen biscuit or viands cooked in pork-fat, is quite likely to be laid to the charge of the general scape-goat; although to produce a headache directly by means of tobacco requires a powerful narcotic dose.[27] One of the chief causes of ordinary headache is doubtless the use of the execrable anthracite which Pennsylvania protectionists force upon us by means of their unrighteous prohibitory tariff upon English coal.[28] We have even heard it alleged that smoking impairs the eyesight. Students smoke much, and are nearsighted, is the complacent argument—it being apparently forgotten that sailors smoke much and are far-sighted, and that in each case the result is due to the way in which the eyes are used.

Before leaving this subject, it may be well to allude to Mr. Parton's remarks (p. 35) about "pallid," "yellow," "sickly," and "cadaverous," tobacco-manufacturers. He evidently means to convey the impression that workers in tobacco are more unhealthy than other workmen. Upon this point we shall content ourselves with transcribing the following passage from Christison, On Poisons, p. 731:—"Writers on the diseases of artisans have made many vague statements on the supposed baneful effects of the manufacture of snuff on the workmen. It is said they are liable to bronchitis, dysentery, ophthalmia, carbuncles, and furuncles. At a meeting of the Royal Medical Society of Paris, however, before which a memoir to this purport was lately read, the facts were contradicted by reference to the state of the workmen at the Royal Snuff Manufactory of Gros-Caillou, where 1000 people are constantly employed without detriment to their health. (Revue Médicale, 1827, tom. III. p. 168.) This subject has been since investigated with great care by Messrs. Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet, who inquired minutely into the state of the workmen employed at all the great tobacco-manufactories of France, comprising a population of above 4000 persons; and the results at which they have arrived are,—that the workmen very easily become habituated to the atmosphere of the manufactory,—that they are not particularly subject either to special diseases, or to disease generally,—and that they live on an average quite as long as other tradesmen. These facts are derived from very accurate statistical returns. (Annales d'Hygiène, 1829, tom. I. p. 169.)" The reader may also consult an instructive notice in Hammond's Journal of Psychological Medicine, Oct. 1868, vol. II. p. 828.

These examples show with what well-meaning recklessness people find fault with anything which they are at all events bound to condemn. It is not to be denied, however, that many persons are continually hurting themselves by the flagrant abuse of tobacco. Many men are doubtless in a state of chronic tobacco-narcosis; just as many men and women keep themselves in a state of chronic narcosis from the abuse of tea and coffee. Probably three-fourths of the ill-health which afflicts the community is due to barbarous neglect of the plainest principles of dietetics. When a thing tickles the palate, or refreshes the nervous system, people do not seem to be as yet sufficiently civilized to let it go until they have made themselves