Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and this struggle is often so violent as io destroy life in a few hours. But if the virus of the rattlesnake were taken into the mouth, stomach, nose, or lungs, in very small quantities at first, and its use steadily persisted in, its effects and
textit{modus operandi would not differ materially from those of tobacco. It is one of the great mistakes of the medical profession, and one of the terrible delusions of the people, that certain poisons have the power to impart strength, vigor, or some needed element, or something useful in the way of influence or substance. And until this wide-spread delusion is thoroughly dispelled from the public mind, I have little hope for the reformation of the human race, and still less for the reformation of tobacco- users. Alcohol, opium, rattlesnake’s virus, and tobacco, all and each can be so administered as to occasion the textit{nervine effect which constitutes the charm and fascination of tobacco-using. But is not the association of these agents in
medicinal properties a sufficient reason for execrating them forever from the habits of rational beings ? THE BREATH OF LIFE. There is one view of the physical evils of tobacco-using which has never been presented distinctly by writers on this subject. I mean the effect of the habit on respiration. textit{Tobacco-usingtextit{directly and fearfully lessens the breathing capacity. This is one reason -why tobacco-users require more sleep than others, other circumstances being equal. Now, the available life-force of every living being is precisely in the ratio of the development of the respiratory organs. Tobacco-using, so long as it is continued, constantly diminishes the breathing apparatus. This is easily explained. Any one, on going, on a hot summer’s day, from the stifling stenche…