Tobacco : an essay / by Henry Gibbons.

  • Henry Gibbons
Date:
[Between 1880 and 1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tobacco : an essay / by Henry Gibbons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    — :o: — I. Its Nature and Properties. Medical writers, without exception, describe tobacco as a poison. It owes its poisonous nature to a substance called nicotine, which is extracted from it, in the form of a liquid, by chemical processes. Nicotine is capable of producing death sooner than any other poison except prussic acid. The time required to accomplish this result is from two to five minutes. One drop of it killed a rabbit in three minutes and a half. The thirty-second part of a grain produced, in several individuals who tried the experiment, burning of the mouth, throat, and stomach. In two persons the sixteenth of a grain brought on spasms; and the effects were felt for three days. Dogs to whom tobacco is freely administered die in spasms, and their blood is found after death not to be coagulated. The same condition of blood exists after death from most other poisons, and from lightning. On the other hand, healthy blood always coagulates on cooling. When tobacco is taken into the mouth the nicotine is absorbed •by the lining membrane, and carried into the blood. There it circulates throughout the body, and comes in direct contact with the brain and every other organ. In this way it produces in persons not accustomed to it, nausea, vomiting, prostration, and faintness. When tobacco is smoked in the cigar or pipe, the poisonous ^principle enters the smoke, and is carried into the blood in the same manner by being absorbed in the mouth and lungs. Birds and frogs confined in tobacco smoke are killed by it. Every person who respires the smoke of a cigar or pipe, willingly or unwillingly, must have the blood in his veins more or less impregnated with the poison nicotine. Tobacco is absorbed in like manner by the skin. If a cigar be unrolled and moistened, and then applied over the stomach of a child, it will soon, bring on sickness and vomiting, and may endanger life. Children have been killed by its application to the head in diseases of the scalp, and also by injecting the infusion into the bowels. Soldiers have been known to apply it in their arm-pit •so as to cause sickness, that they might escape from duty. In short, tobacco in all forms is regarded by physicians as too dahger- ous for common use as a medicine; and it is employed only in dock-jaw, and a few other extreme disorders.