Works on phrenology, physiology, and kindred subjects / by O.S. Fowler.

  • Orson S. Fowler
Date:
[1877?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Works on phrenology, physiology, and kindred subjects / by O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    618/632 (page 30)
    Arrii.vmx. knocking the cause on the head, but, in her case, there was no chance her bad habits were so numerous, the only thing he thought she could do, was to adopt another to complete the list, which was chewing. Some individuals assert that it would be injurious to aged and habitual smokers to give up the custom suddenly, but what is the fact %—thousands of aged persons long accustomed to smoking, are annually sent to our prisons and houses of co* rection, where they are suddenly deprived of tobacco, and yet no bad conse- quences ensue; they return to society, after their period of confinement im- proved in appearance, and evidently better in health. It is a very temporary gratification, while its attendant evils are great and numerous ; polluting .the breath, blackening the teeth, wasting the saliva injuring the complexion, producing indigestion, emaciation, and a host of nervous disorders. Snuffing is a degree worse than smoking; in addition to the adulterations already mentioned in the manufacture of tobacco, it requires more for the formation of snuff. It is made to undergo various adulterations; salt is, sometimes mixed with it to increase its weight, aud to give it pungency; and for this purpose, urine is also added to it, in order to obtain the muriate of ammonia which it contains. Glass, finely powdered, is also employed, to give a greater degree of acrimony, and to stimulate the lining membrane of the nostrils, and is, by some manufacturers, very extensively used, particularly in the Welsh snuffs. Snuffing is a more sociable custom. It has been considered on the Conti- nent as an easy and gentlemanly mode of introducing yourself to a stranger. It is said to be of the deepest importance to the physician, as it gives him an opportunity, when asked a question which requires momentary thought, to deliberate during the operation of taking a pinch of snuff, and, on this account it is said to have been recommended by Dr. Ratcliffe to his brethren. It fills up some vacant time, and somebody has been at the trouble of calculating how many hours in the week, how many days in the year, are occupied by inveterate snuff-takers, which cannot be less than a certain number of second's employed at each pinch. It is useful in keeping those who are inclined to fall asleep awake. By some it is said to increase the mental powers, by others to diminish them. The great Frederick, of Prussia, had his pockets lined with tin to retain it, and they were generally filled Those whose intellects are disordered, covet it with the most remarkable anxiety, and are said to form a personal attachment to a doner.* The objections raised to it are, that it is an unseemly habit, that the linen becomes soiled by it, and the person almost impregnated with the odor; even the apartments are rendered unclean, and the atmosphere is loaded with particles which are deleterious to some persons. It vitiates the organs of smell, it taints the breath, affects the sight, the res- piration, and the digestion. It is generally allowed the disease which terminated the life of Napoleon Bonaparte was brought on by excessive snuffing. Snuff keeps many of the females (engaged in lace-making, in the neighbour- hood of Newport Pagnell) under the continued influence of hysteria, and gives them an early stamp of age ; at thirty a snuff-taker looks as if forty years old. It is the sole cause of a variety of dyspepsia, of which I have witnessed a vast number of instances, the symptoms being a painful sensation of weight at the stomach ; of a hard, undigested substance pressing, as it were, upon a tender part of the stomach, which sensation is for the time relieved by taking food remarkable depression of spirits, everything seen through a medium of gloom and distrust, and tremors of the nerves. Snuffing has a strong tendency to encourage a determination of blood to the head, giving rise to apoplexy, and, on this account, plethoric subjects should never indulge in such habits. If it were attended with no other inconvenience the black loathsome discharge from the nose, the inflamed appearance of the nose, the soiled clothes and linon, the expense, and generally disagreeable feature of a snuffer, ought to deter, every person from it. Let it never be for- gotten, too, that you are constantly in danger of exciting inflammation in the membranes of the nose, situated within the sixteenth part of an inch of the brain itself, where the slightest inflammatory action proves fatal. Chewin'].—This is the worst manner for the health in which tobacco can be used. The waste of saliva is greater than in smoking, and the derangements Snuff- takers form a large portion of the inmates of all lunatic asylums.