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.
- Brewer, Hampton.
- Date:
- 1870
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. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![and with the orifices of the salivary ducts, causing the glands situated about the jaw. in young smokers, to secrete an abnormal quantity of saliva, which (to use their own expression) is “ spat ” away by them ; and it is this fact which is looked upon by many as the part of smoking which impedes digestion. One may often hear the non-advocate say to the habitual smoker, “ Do you spit when you smoke ? ” The latter answers truly in the negative ; then says the former, “ smoking injures you but little,” for he forgets that one of two things must then occur, he must either swallow his spittle, or his salivary glands have ceased to pour forth an excess of saliva. The non-smoker frames his argument in this way: What is the purpose of the saliva? When you spit, are you not throwing away what nature intended to perform a most im- portant part in digestion ? he overlooks the fact that when the smoker spits, it is not pure saliva that he throws away, but saliva plus certain poisonous narcotic principles contained therein, and it had better be cast away, than taken into the stomach and absorbed in its poisonous condition. Evil consequences must be produced either way; for if the saliva be swallowed, you not only get dyspepsia set up by the presence in the stomach of the poisons with which it is saturated, but also the dire poisonous effects of tobacco ; whereas if the saliva be thrown away, you only get the former of these results, brought about by the absence from the stomach of the saliva which is requisite for digestion. Therefore, I say, if you smoke, spit: “ for of two evils choose the lesser.” [Note E.] 1 believe the injury to digestion is caused by the constant applica- tion of the smoke of tobacco to the mucous membrane of the mouth, which becomes more or less thickened, and such an amount of irritation is kept up, that the presence of food in the mouth is not sufficient stimulus to cause the glands to secrete: hence the starchy principles of it—such as bread, potatoes, and other vegetable matter—instead of being converted into sugar by the saliva and rendered fit for absorption into the system, pass scarcely altered into the stomach, and there act as any other indigestible material would, causing flatus and con- stant dyspepsia; for it is in the mouth that the saccharine parts of our food are rendered fit for assimilation by the saliva, and if they pass thence without it, they remain undigested, as the other juices secreted by the alimentary canal act but slightly on them. Rarely do we see inveterate smokers spit to any extent, and this is because the salivary glands require a stronger stimulus even than tobacco, G](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28085784_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
