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 of this people, and their trying “text,” are considered of no account,)—­cancer of the stomach,—­disease of the liver,—­dyspepsia,—­enfeebled nutrition, and consequent emaciation,—­dryness of the mouth,—­“the clergyman’s sore-throat” and loss of voice,—­irritability of the nervous system,—­tremulousness,—­palpitation and paralysis,—­and, among the moral ills, loss of energy, idleness, drunkenness.  A fearful catalogue, which would dedicate the tabatiere to Pandora, were it true.

Hygienic reformers are usually unequalled in imaginary horrors, except by the charlatans who vend panaceas.

We have no reasons for believing that tobacco causes softening of the brain equal in plausibility to those which ascribe it to prolonged and excessive mental effort.  The statistics of disease prove cancers of other organs to be twice as frequent, among females, as cancer of the stomach is among males; and an eminent etiologist places narcotics among the least proved causes of this disease.  A hot climate, abuse of alcohol, a sedentary life, and sluggish digestion happen, rather curiously, to be very frequent concomitants, if not causes, of disease of the liver.  Dyspepsia haunts both sexes, and, we venture to assert, though we cannot bring figures to prove it, is as frequent among those who do not use tobacco as among those who do.  We are ready to concede that excessive chewing and smoking, particularly if accompanied by large expectoration, may impair nutrition and cause emaciation:  that the mass of mankind eat and digest and live, as well as use “the weed,” is proof that its moderate employment is not ordinarily followed by this result.  Dryness of the mouth follows expectoration as a matter of course; but the salivation excited in an old smoker by tobacco is very moderate, and not succeeded by thirst, unless the smoke be inhaled too rapidly and at too high a temperature.