at it taints the breath
"with the rank odour of a tobacco cask." "We read in the Ephemerides des
Curieux de la Nature, that a person fell into a state of somnolency, and
died apoplectic, in consequence of having taken by the nose too great a
quantity of snuff."[69] In fine, snuffing is said to bring on
convulsions, promote pulmonary consumption, and to cause madness and
death! Napoleon is thought to have owed his death to a morbid state of
stomach, superinduced by snuffing to excess. Dr. Rush relates that Sir
John Pringle was afflicted with tremors in his hands, and had his memory
impaired by the use of snuff; when, on abandoning the habit, at the
instance of Dr. Franklin, he found his power of recollection restored,
and he recovered the use of his hands.[70]

When the habit of snuffing is once contracted, it becomes almost
impossible to divest ourselves of it. It becomes as necessary as food,
or any of those first wants of life "quibus negatis natura doleat." The
following story we translate from a French medical writer:--

"I recollect, about twenty years since, while gathering simples
one day in the Forest of Fontainebleau, I encountered a man
stretched out upon the ground; I supposed him to be dead, when,
upon approaching, he asked in a feeble voice if I had some
snuff; on my replying in the negative, he sunk back
immediately, almost in a state of insensibility. In this
condition he remained till I brought a person who gave him
several pinches, and he then informed us that he had commenced
his journey that morning, supposing he had his snuff-box with
him, but found very soon he had started without it; that he had
travelled as long as he was able, till at last, overcome by
distress, he found it impossible to proceed any farther, and
without my timely succour he would have certainly
perished."[71]

The consumption of time and great expense of this artificial habit,
almost surpass belief. "A man who takes a pinch of snuff every twenty
minutes," says Dr. Rush, "(which most habitual snuffers do), and snuffs
fifteen hours in four-and-twenty, (allowing him to consume not quite
half a minute every time he uses the box,) will waste about five whole
days of every year of his life in this useless and unwholesome practice.
But when we add to the profitable use to which this time might have been
applied, the expenses of tobacco, pipes, snuff, and spitting b