and spirits, by
smoking tobacco, &c."[57] Willis, as quoted by Mons. Merat, recommends
the use of tobacco in armies, as able to supply the necessaries of life
to a great extent, and also as an excellent preventive against various
diseases.[58] And Dr. Rush relates that he was informed by Colonel Burr,
that the greatest complaints of dissatisfaction and suffering which he
heard among the soldiers who accompanied General Arnold in his march
from Boston to Quebec through the wilderness, in the year 1775, were
from the want of tobacco. This was the more remarkable, as they were so
destitute of provisions as to be obliged to kill and eat their dogs.[59]

Tobacco possesses narcotic powers in common with many other substances,
of which neither time nor space will permit us to make mention.
Narcotics, when used to a due extent, become poisons, and hence tobacco
holds a very high rank in toxicology. A thousand experiments, as well as
accidents, show that it is a most deadly poison.[60] It has also been
called a counterpoison, but those who have asserted this have been
contradicted by numerous writers. Dr. Rush affirms that repeated
experience in Philadelphia has proved, that it is equally ineffectual in
preserving those who use it from the influenza and yellow fever. In the
plague, it was said to be useful, but what has been advanced on this
subject is now shown to be without much foundation. Still it may be said
of tobacco, that though it does not contain any specific antidote to
contagion, or possess antiseptic properties, it may nevertheless, as a
powerful narcotic, by diminishing the sensibility of the system, render
it less liable to contagion. It also moderates anxiety and fear, which
we are told quicken the activity of contagion. "Thus," says Cullen, "the
antiloimic powers of tobacco are upon the same footing with wine,
brandy, and opium."[61]

Dr. Fowler has written a treatise upon the effects of tobacco in the
cure of dropsies and dysuries. The Doctor seemed determined to discover
virtue in this plant, because he tells us in his preface, that he was
nowise discouraged in his inquiries into the medicinal effects of
tobacco, although the generality of writers on the materia medica have
spoken of it with great caution and reserve, and for the most part have
declared it either _obsolete_, or so _uncertain_, _violent_, and
_deleterious_ in its effects, as to render its exhibition _unadvisable_.
Dr. Cullen says that he emplo