An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health - Reuben Dimond Mussey (ebook reader that looks like a book txt) 📗

be contracted and firm, as from a violent and permanent spasm of the muscular coat. The lungs were empty and collapsed. The left side of the heart, the aorta and its great branches were loaded with black blood. The right side of the heart and the two cavæ contained some blood, but were not distended. The pulmonary artery contained only a small quantity of blood. The blood was every where fluid. Experiment 2.

A cat was the subject of this experiment. The general effects were very much like those in the last, excepting, perhaps, that the oil operated with a little less energy. This cat was said to have lived for several years, in a room almost perpetually fumigated with tobacco smoke. The history of the animal employed in Experiment 1, was unknown.

Experiment 3.

Three drops of the oil of tobacco were rubbed upon the tongue of a full-sized, but young, cat. In an instant the pupils were dilated and the breathing convulsed; the animal leaped about as if distracted, and presently took two or three rapid turns in a small circle, then dropped upon the floor in frightful convulsions, and was dead in two minutes and forty-five seconds from the moment that the oil was put upon the tongue.

Experiment 4.

To the tongue of a young and rather less than half-grown cat, a drop of the oil of tobacco was applied. In fifteen seconds the ears were thrown into rapid and convulsive motions,—thirty seconds fruitless attempts to vomit. In one minute convulsive respiration; the animal fell upon the side. In four minutes and twenty seconds violent convulsions. In five minutes the breathing and the heart's motion had ceased. There was no evacuation by the mouth or otherwise. The vital powers had been too suddenly and too far reduced to admit of a reaction. The tremors, which followed death, subsided first in the superior extremities, and in five minutes ceased altogether. The muscles were perfectly flaccid.

Experiment 5.

In the tip of the nose of a mouse, a small puncture was made with a surgeon's needle, bedewed with the oil of tobacco. The little animal, from the insertion of this small quantity of the poison, fell into a violent agitation, and was dead in six minutes.

Experiment 6.

Two drops of the oil were rubbed upon the tongue of a red squirrel. This animal, so athletic as to render it difficult to secure him sufficiently long for the application, was in a moment seized with a violent agitation of the whole body and limbs, and was perfectly dead and motionless in one minute.

Experiment 7.

To the tongue of a dog rather under the middle size, five drops of the oil of tobacco were applied. In forty-five seconds he fell upon the side, got up, retched, and fell again. In one minute the respiration was laborious, and the pupils were dilated. In two minutes the breathing was slow and feeble, with puffing of the cheeks. In three minutes the pupils were smaller but continually varying. The left fore leg and the right hind leg were affected with a simultaneous convulsion or jerk, corresponding with the inspiratory motions of the chest. This continued for five minutes.

In nine minutes alimentary evacuations; symptoms abated; and the animal attempted to walk. At ten minutes two drops of the oil were applied to the tongue. Instantly the breathing became laborious, with puffing of the cheeks; pupils much dilated. The convulsive or jerking motions of the two limbs appeared as before, recurring regularly at the interval of about two seconds, and exactly corresponding with the inspirations. In twelve minutes the pupils were more natural; slight frothing at the mouth, the animal still lying upon the side. At this time a drop of the oil was passed into each nostril. The labor of the respiration was suddenly increased, the jaws locked.

In twenty-two minutes no material change; the jaws were separated and five drops of the oil were rubbed on the tongue. In one minute the pupils were entirely dilated, with strong convulsions. In one and an half minutes, in trying to walk, the animal fell. In three minutes the eyes rolled up, and convulsions continued. In six minutes, the plica semilunaris so drawn as to cover half the cornea. In seven minutes, slight frothing at the mouth. In forty minutes the inspirations were less deep, the convulsions had been unremitted, the strength failing. From this time he lay for more than half an hour nearly in the same state; the strength was gradually sinking, and as there was no prospect of recovery, he was killed. In this case, the true apoplectic puffing of the cheeks was present the greater part of the time.

From the foregoing, and from additional experiments, which it is not necessary to give in detail, it appeared, that when applied to a wound made in the most sensitive parts of the integuments, the oil of tobacco, though it caused a good deal of pain, had a far less general effect than when applied to the tongue. Rats were less affected than cats. Two and sometimes three drops rubbed upon the tongue of a rat, did not kill in half an hour.

Three large drops rubbed upon the tongue of a full-sized cat, usually caused death in from three to ten minutes, and in one instance, already stated, in two minutes and forty-five seconds. One drop passed into the jugular vein of a large dog, occasioned an immediate cry, followed in a few moments by staggering, convulsive twitchings of the voluntary muscles, and vomiting.

In those cases in which full vomiting occurred, evident relief followed. Young animals suffered much more than those, which had come to their full growth and vigor. In those animals, whose lives were suddenly destroyed by the tobacco, no coagulation of the blood took place. The bodies of several cats were examined the next day after death, and only in a single instance was a slight coagulum observed; and this was in a cat, whose constitution possessed strong powers of resistance, and whose death was comparatively lingering.

It is not improbable, that the charge of inhumanity may be made against experiments prosecuted upon defenceless animals, with a poison so painful and destructive in its operation as tobacco; the justice of this charge is freely admitted, if such experiments be made merely for the gratification of curiosity, and not with the object and reasonable hope of making them useful to mankind, and of influencing, at least, some few individuals, to abandon the practice (humane can it be called?) of administering this poison to themselves and their children, till it occasions disease and death. Indeed, there are but few, who would willingly witness more than a single experiment of this kind, with no prospect of benefit to result from it.

When applied to sensitive surfaces of considerable extent, even in a form somewhat dilute, tobacco often produces the most serious effects. The tea of tobacco has been known to destroy the life of a horse, when forced into his stomach to relieve indisposition. When used as a wash, to destroy vermin upon certain domestic animals, tobacco tea has been known to kill the animals themselves. A farmer not long since assured me, that he had destroyed a calf in this manner.

"A woman applied to the heads of three children, for a disease of the scalp, an ointment prepared with the powder of tobacco and butter; soon after, they experienced dizziness, violent vomitings and faintings, accompanied with profuse sweats." [Orfila.]

The celebrated French poet, Santeuil, came to his death through horrible pains and convulsions, from having taken a glass of wine, with which some snuff had been mixed.

The tea of twenty or thirty grains of tobacco introduced into the human body, for the purpose of relieving spasm, has been known repeatedly to destroy life.

The same tea, applied to parts affected with itch, has been followed by vomiting and convulsions. The same article, applied to the skin on the pit of the stomach, occasions faintness, vomiting, and cold sweats.

I knew a young man, who, only from inhaling the vapor arising from the leaves of tobacco immersed in boiling water, was made alarmingly sick.

A medical friend assured me that he was once thrown into a state of great prostration and nausea, from having a part of his hand moistened, for a few minutes, in a strong infusion of tobacco.

Col. G. says, that during the late war, under hard service on the Canadian frontier, the soldiers not unfrequently disabled themselves for duty, by applying a moistened leaf of tobacco to the armpit. It caused great prostration and vomiting. Many were suddenly and violently seized soon after eating. On investigation, a tobacco leaf was found in the armpit.

Dr. M. Long, of Warner, N. H., writes me, under date of April 26, 1834, that, on the 6th of May, 1825, he was consulted by Mrs. F. on account of her little daughter L. F., then five years old, who had a small ring-worm, scarcely three-fourths of an inch in diameter, situated upon the root of the nose. Her object was to ascertain the Doctor's opinion, as to the propriety of making a local application of tobacco in the case. He objected to it as an exceedingly hazardous measure; and, to impress his opinion more fully, related a case, a record of which he had seen, in which a father destroyed the life of his little son, by the use of tobacco spittle upon an eruption or humor of the head.

Immediately after the Doctor left the house, the mother besmeared the tip of her finger with a little of the "strong juice" from the grandmother's tobacco pipe, and proceeded to apply it to the ring-worm, remarking, that "if it should strike to the stomach it must go through the nose." The instant the mother's finger touched the part affected, the eyes of the little patient were rolled up in their sockets, she sallied back, and in the act of falling, was caught by the alarmed mother. The part was immediately washed with cold water, with a view to dislodge the poison. But this was to no purpose, for the jaws were already firmly locked together, and the patient was in a senseless and apparently dying state. The Doctor, who had stopped three-fourths of a mile distant, to see a patient, was presently called in. The symptoms were "coldness of the extremities, no perceptible pulse at the wrists, the jaws set together, deep insensibility, the countenance deathly." He succeeded in opening the jaws, so as to admit of the administration of the spirits of ammonia and lavender; frictions were employed, and every thing done, which, at the time, was thought likely to promote resuscitation, but "it was an hour, or an hour and an half, before the little patient was so far recovered as to be able to speak."

"Till this time," says Dr. S., "the child had been robust and healthy, never having had but one illness that required medical advice; but, since the tobacco experiment, she has been continually feeble and sickly. The first four or five years after this terrible operation, she was subject to fainting fits every three or four weeks, sometimes lasting from twelve to twenty-four hours; and many times, in those attacks, her life appeared to be in imminent danger. Within the last three or four years, those turns have been less severe."

The foregoing facts serve to show, that tobacco is one of the most active and deadly vegetable poisons known; it acts directly upon the nervous power, enfeebling, deranging, or extinguishing the actions of life. Is it possible, that the habitual use of an article of so actively poisonous properties can promote health, or indeed fail to exert an injurious influence upon health? It will