lding the alkali in solution, we are forced to believe that
the only constituent worthy of much attention, as the very soul and
essence of the plant, is the organic base, nicotin, or nicotia.

It is probable that the tobacco-chewer, by putting fifty grains of the
"Solace," "Honey-Dew," or "Cavendish" into his mouth for the purpose
of mastication, introduces at the same time from one to four grains of
nicotin with it, according to the quality of the tobacco he uses. It
is _not_ probable that anything like this amount is absorbed into the
system. Nature protects itself by salivation. It is possible, that, in
smoking one hundred grains of tobacco, there _may_ be drawn into
the mouth two grains or more of the same poison; "for, as nicotin
volatilizes at a temperature below that of burning tobacco, it is
constantly present in the smoke." It is not probable that here, again,
so much is absorbed.

But we will return to this question of the relative effects of chewing,
cigar- and pipe-smoking, and snuff-taking, presently. For we suppose
that the anxious mother, if she has followed us so far, is by this time
in considerable alarm at this wholesale poisoning.

Poisons are to be judged by their effects; for this is the only means we
have of knowing them to be such. And if a poison is in common use, we
must embrace all the results of such use in a perfect generalization
before we can decide impartially. We do not hesitate to eat peaches,
though we know they owe much of their peculiar flavor to prussic acid.
It is but fair to apply an equally large generalization to tobacco.
Chemistry can concentrate the sapid and odorous elements of the peach
and the bitter almond into a transparent fluid, of which the smell
shall be vertiginous and the taste death. But chemistry is often
misunderstood, in two ways: in the one case, by the incredulity of total
ignorance; in the other, by the overcredulity of imperfect knowledge.
That poor woman who murdered her husband by arsenic not long since
was an instance of the first. She laughed to scorn the idea that the
chemists could discover anything in the ejected contents of the stomach
of her victim, which she voluntarily left in their way. She could not
conceive that the scattered crystals of the fatal powder might be
gathered into a metallic mirror, the first glance at which would reflect
her guilt.

They who gape, horror-struck, at the endless revelations of chemistry,
without giving reason tim