ural excretions. We must turn, then, to its
direct influence upon the nervous system to convince ourselves of its
ill effects, if such exist.

Nor has it been proved that the nervous influence is affected in such
a way as directly to impair the innervation of the organic functions,
which derive their chief impulse to action from the scattered ganglia of
the sympathetic system. Opium, the most powerful narcotic, benumbs the
brain into sleep; produces a corresponding reaction, on awakening;
shuts up the secretions, except that of the skin, and thus deranges the
alimentary functions. The decriers of tobacco will, we conceive, be
unable to show that it produces such effects.

The reformers are reduced, then, to the vague generality, that smoking
and chewing "affect the nerves."

Students, men of sedentary, professional habits, persons of a very
nervous temperament, or those subject to much excitement in business
and politics, sometimes show debility and languor, or agitation and
nervousness, while they smoke and chew. Are there no other causes at
work, sufficient in themselves to produce these effects? Are want of
exercise, want of air, want of rest, and want of inherited vigor to be
eliminated from the estimate, while tobacco is made the scape-goat of
all their troubles?

Climate, and the various influences affecting any race which has
migrated after a stationary residence of generations to a new country
extending under different parallels of latitude, have been reasonably
accused of rendering us a nervous people. It is not so reasonable to
charge one habit with being the sole cause of this, although we should
be more prudent in not following it to excess. The larger consumption
of tobacco here is due both to the cheapness of the product and to
the wealth of the consumer. But it does not follow that we are more
subjected to its narcotic influences because we use the best varieties
of the weed. On the contrary, the poor and rank tobaccoes, grown under a
northern sky, are the richest in nicotin.

But it will be better to continue the argument about its effects upon
the nervous system in connection with the assertions of the reformers.
The following is a list, by no means complete, of these asserted ill
effects from its use.

Tobacco is said to cause softening of the brain,--dimness of
vision,--("the Germans smoke; the Germans are a _spectacled_ nation!"
_post hoc, ergo propter hoc?_ the laborious intellectual habits o