oved by experiments, that food moistened
with water digests more slowly than when mixed with the saliva.

More than this, the conversion of starch into sugar has been shown to
be positively retarded in the stomach by the acidity of the gastric
secretions. Only after the azotized food has been somewhat disintegrated
by the action of the gastric juice, and the fluids again rendered
alkaline by the presence of saliva, swallowed in small quantities for
a considerable time after eating, does the saccharifying process go on
with normal rapidity and vigor.

Now starch is the great element, in all farinaceous articles, which
is adapted to supply us with calorifacient food. "In its original
condition, either raw or when broken up by boiling, it does not appear
that starch is capable of being absorbed by the alimentary canal. By its
conversion into sugar it can alone become a useful aliment." This is
effected almost instantaneously by the saliva in the mouth, and at a
slower rate in the stomach.

Obviously, then, if the use of tobacco interferes with the normal action
of the saliva, and if the digestion of starch ends in the stomach, here
is the strong point in the argument of the opponents of tobacco. We
should wonder at the discrepancy between physiology and facts, theory
and the evidence of our senses and daily experience among the world
of smokers, and be ready to renounce either science or "the weed."
Fortunately for our peace of mind and for our respect for physiology,
the first point of the proposition is not satisfactorily proved, and the
second is untrue. We are not certain that nicotin ruins ptyalin; we are
certain that the functions of other organs are vicarious of those of the
salivary glands.

We say that it is not satisfactorily proved that tobacco impairs the
sugar-making function of the saliva. At least, we have never seen the
proof from recorded experiments. Such may exist, but we have met only
with loose assertions to this effect, of a similar nature to
those hygienic _dicta_ which we find bandied about in the
would-be-physiological popular journals, which are so plentiful in
this country, and which may be styled the "yellow-cover" literature of
science.

We acknowledge this to be the weak point in our armor, and are open to
further light. Yet more, for the sake of hypothesis, we will assume it
proved. What follows? Are we to get no more sugar while we smoke? By no
means. Hard by the stomach lies the _panc