We come now to the second count in the indictment,—­that tobacco injuriously affects the nervous system, and through it the digestion.  The accusation is here more vague and indefinite, and the answer also is less susceptible of proof.  Both sides must avail themselves of circumstantial, rather than direct evidence.

That digestion is in direct dependence upon the nervous system, and that even transitory or emotional states of the latter affect the former, there can be no doubt.  It is so familiar a fact, that instances need hardly be cited to prove it.  Hence we are told, that tobacco, by deranging the one, disorders the other,—­that nervousness, or morbid irritability of the nerves, palpitations and tremulousness, are soon followed by emaciation and dyspepsia, or more or less inability to digest.

We conceive Prout, an eminent authority, to be near the truth, when he says of tobacco, “The strong and healthy suffer comparatively little, while the weak and predisposed to disease fall victims to its poisonous operation.”  The hod-carrier traversing the walls of lofty buildings, and the sailor swinging on the yard-arm, are not subject to nervousness, though they smoke and chew; nor are they prone to dyspepsia, unless from excesses of another kind.

It has not been shown that tobacco either hastens or delays the metamorphosis of tissue,—­that it drains the system by waste, or clogs it by retarding the natural 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?