The Tobacco Habit

Through long years of custom, the Tobacco Habit has become to be looked upon as one possessing no serious importance. This is a gross mistake, and the sootier the public become awakened to the fact that tobacco is a virulent poison, taking high rank, and deserving to be classed with such poisons as Strychnine, Arsenic and Morphine, the better it will be for humanity.

Tobacco is a powerful sedative poison, whether smoked, chewed or snuffed, and until the system gets saturated with the poisonous principle - Nicotine - it is both a local and constitutional irritant. The effects of tobacco are well known, and, as observed in the beginner, give rise to nausea, vomiting, severe retching, and general depression of the nervous system, often ending in alarming and even fatal prostration. No further demonstration of the poisonous effects of tobacco need be given than the foregoing, yet the lesson seems to be lost. The chronic effects of tobacco are that it enfeebles digestion, produces emaciation and general debility, and lays the foundation of serious nervous disorders. The indigestion and dyspepsia of all tobacco-users can properly be attributed to the excessive use of tobacco. Let one stop the tobacco, and all dyspeptic symptoms rapidly disappear.

The nervous phenomena referable to tobacco are many and varied; chief among them is the innervation or lack of nerve power of the heart, with consequent palpitations and other symptoms of heart disorder.

Tobacco Heart is only one of the many manifestations of the pernicious effects of tobacco. Tobacco "blindness" and other diseases of the eye are very frequently a direct result of the excessive use of it. In many cases, a nervous "break-down," attributed to overwork, the excessive use of tobacco has certainly been an important causative agent.

Epilepsy, bronchitis, neuralgia, throat troubles and nervous ailments of many kinds, are justly ascribed to the excessive use of tobacco.

The active principle of tobacco is nicotine, which is a more deadly poison than arsenic, strychnine, or morphine; one drop is sufficient to kill a dog, while small birds are killed by its odor alone. All tobaccos contain nicotine; but the quantity of nicotine in all forms of tobacco is small, or it would instantly kill. The poison, however, does not kill outright. It is only after years of continued use, when the system has become saturated with the poison, that there may be any cause for alarm. A man may smoke for years and have no premonition of danger or sensation that he is being poisoned, until he is suddenly made aware of the fact by a paralytic stroke, heart failure or Bright's disease.

It is a recognized fact that the use of one narcotic poison, like tobacco, creates a taste for another. This accounts for tobacco exciting a love for alcohol, alcohol for morphine, morphine for cocaine - a ladder of drug habits.

Undoubtedly tobacco should not be used by any individual who regards his health and habits of living of any importance. The cure of the tobacco habit is a matter of diet, the increase of the vital powers, and a certain amount of self-control. Drug specification has also a place.

Tea And Coffee Habit

The question of tea and coffee drinking is one that frequently presents itself for discussion and consideration. Tea and coffee are to be considered as stimulants, making the cup which cheers but does not inebriate. The use of stimulants of any kind is likely to end up in their abuse or immoderate use. For this reason alone, stimulants of any kind are to be looked upon with more or less distrust. The stimulating principle in tea and coffee is caffeine, the bitter principle is tannin or tannic acid, while uric acid exists to a small extent.

The object of the addition of the white of an egg in making coffee, is to throw out of solution or make the tannin insoluble. Milk produces the same effect when added to tea or coffee, in doing this the bitter principle is removed, in a way. Individuals are variously affected by the use of these beverages. Unquestionably, in a great many instances, tea and coffee are positively harmful. There are several reasons for this: -

First, it is a general custom to drink tea and coffee at meal time, and usually to excess.

Secondly, sugar is nearly always used with them also to excess. It is interesting to notice, in passing, that a weak solution of cane sugar, say the strength or five per cent., is of itself sufficient to produce an irritation, or mild catarrh, of the stomach.

Thirdly, there are the drug effects produced by the caffeine and uric acid, whatever they may amount to.

Anyone, or all, of these effects are not calculated to produce any beneficial effects upon the human economy, but rather the direct opposite. The cereal substitutes for coffee, in themselves, are commendable, but there are objections to these the same as to tea, coffee, cocoa and chocolate. These objections, when stated, are more particularly that they lead to, and are responsible for the drinking at meal time, which prevents the digestion of food. Then again the use of sugar with them is another decidedly objectionable feature. Tea and coffee without sugar would possess no charms for a great many individuals; this is just another phase of the "sugar appetite," to which attention has been directed in the chapter on Sugar Dietetics. It is a question whether the two factors of drinking tea and coffee at meals, and the use of sugar with them, are not almost as harmful in their effects as the purely stimulating drug effects. Undoubtedly the supposedly harmful effects of the infinitesimal amounts of uric acid, as naturally introduced into the body in certain articles of food and drink, have been very much over-estimated. The harmful drug in tea and coffee is the caffeine. Its intensely powerful stimulating effects will be understood when it is stated that on this account coffee or its alkaloid, caffeine, is used, as an antidote for opium and morphine poisoning.

Caffeine is a powerful cerebral or brain stimulant, producing a marked degree of wakefulness. This must be so, otherwise coffee would not counteract the effects of powerful poisons, like opium and morphine. The action of coffee and tea as a nerve irritant is manifested in the marked increase of nervousness, nervous, sick headaches and other allied conditions from which thousands of individuals suffer. Physicians recognize the caffeine headache in those who are excessive users of tea and coffee. Cessation of the use of coffee and tea results in the disappearance of many of the ailments from which tea and coffee drinkers suffer. Weak tea or coffee, in moderation, may not appear to affect the individuals who use them, but the majority of tea and coffee users are those who use these beverages to the extent of several cups a day, usually at meal time, and always strong. There is a tea and coffee drunkenness, just as there is a drunkenness in the use of alcoholic liquors, morphine, cocaine or opium. Under such circumstances serious disturbances of the nervous system are found to follow. The treatment of the tea and coffee drinking habit consists in replacing them by something less harmful. Plain hot water or hot nut-milks fully answer the purpose. The diet should be most digestible, consisting largely of fruits. The nervous system should be toned up by hot and cold baths, friction, etc. Flesh meats are best replaced by nuts, fruits and cereals.

Morphine, Opium, and Cocaine Habits are curable. The treatment consists in a withdrawal or substitution of the drug, careful attention to the diet, the employment of every and all physiological measures which tend to upbuild the body. These are hot and cold baths, massage, electricity, and certain well selected drug specifications. All the drug habits are curable. Unfortunately many of those who advertize to cure the drug habits are wholly incompetent to bring about such results, and the victims are left stranded on the shores of despair.