Revelations about tobacco : a prize essay on the history of tobacco, and its physical action on the human body, through its various modes of employment / by Hampton Brewer ; with notes by Thomas Reynolds.

  • Brewer, Hampton.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Revelations about tobacco : a prize essay on the history of tobacco, and its physical action on the human body, through its various modes of employment / by Hampton Brewer ; with notes by Thomas Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    may, by the careful and constant examination of cases, eventually be able to speak positively on the point; nevertheless, I should strongly advise all smokers to desist from the habit believing that it may be the origin of this dreaful disease. [Note N.] Of one thing I feel certain, and that is that smoking often gives rise to inflammation of the lips and gums, and sometimes to ulceration. These are similar in character to the effects produced on the same parts by chewing, which I have mentioned before. I was asked to give something to cure a smoker’s lips, which were ulcerated in several places and swollen excessively “ I think doctor,” he said il that it is brought on by smoking, but I can hardly believe that anything so simple can cause so bad a disease. Still, I smoke a great deal too much, I am sure (2 qrs, per week) but if I did not do this I should get too stout. [Note 0.] Here is a man continuing a habit which is undoubtedly the cause of this unsightly and painful condition of his lips, but he does not like to believe that it is so, although I told him I could do nothing for him until he left off his tobacco. Again, excessive smoking is by some thought to excite a tendency to amaurosis i.e., imperfection of vision, depending on some change in the retina, optic nerve, or brain ; and although I have never been able distinctly to trace it to smoking, I decidedly believe that it may generate this disease, as one of its chief causes of origin, is impaired or diseased nervous action. Of this ophthalmists have been pained witnesses. [Note P.] It is an almost every-day occurrence to hear a smoker complaining of pain in his head, with what he describes as particles of black (muscoe volitantes) floating before his eyes. Let me remind all smokers that this latter symptom, although not necessarily the commencement of amaurosis, is one of the first symptoms of that disease, and that, when it occurs, it should be looked upon as a warning of its possible advent. It may not be improper to mention the following case as an objec¬ tion to smoking, although the result was not due to the tobacco, but to the pipe. Martin Rhys was proceeding towards home, on a Sunday night, slightly inebriated, with a long clay pipe in his mouth. The night was dark, he knocked his foot against a stone on the road, and fell forward on his face, breaking off the stem of the pipe, which passed