quantity used, though the effects of moderate use may not be measurable by ordinary means.  It is easy to see the effects of large amounts of tobacco in the stunted growth of adolescents; in functional cardiac disorders; in intellectual sluggishness, loss of memory, and color blindness; in loss of appetite, and other neuroses of motion, and marked blunting of various functions of sensation, and in degeneracy of descendants; but that lesser evils are produced must be proved mostly by inference, circumstantial collateral evidence, and analogy.

The greater evils that are the outcome of a moderate use of tobacco are probably due to prolonged slight interference with nutrition, and consequent general decrease of vitality, which renders the individual more susceptible through indirect influence to the invasion of disease, and which lessens the capacity for productive effort.

It is of course difficult, and perhaps even impossible, to accurately estimate the value of tobacco to the race; but let us glance at the pros and cons, and then each one can roughly estimate for himself.  Tobacco may be used medicinally, but it is a dangerous and uncertain remedy, and it probably has not one medicinal use that cannot be more suitably met by other remedies.  One can readily imagine easier digestion as the result of the sedative influence of the after-dinner cigar upon a disquieted nervous system, especially if the coincident irritation of alcohol and coffee have need of correction; but it can also be imagined that in most of such cases the remedy has been the cause of and will further increase the disordered condition, and that nutrition of deficiently nourished nerve tissue is rationally indicated rather than partial narcotization.  There then remains, so far as I can see, the solace of moderate anaesthesia and, occasionally, of occupation for idlers, as the only items that can be placed to the credit of tobacco.  There certainly are individual cases where such usage may be more provocative of physical benefit than evil, but, before judging for the race as a whole, compute the other side of the question.

Tobacco injures the general health of the public through the economic loss caused by its consumption.  The people of our country spend annually over seven hundred millions of dollars for tobacco—­twenty per cent. more than is spent for bread.  This sum represents only a minor part of the cost of the tobacco habit to the country.  The crop is immensely exhaustive to the soil.  Its culture has blighted whole sections of fertile territory.  In the time consumed by the producer and the trader in its production, manufacture, and sale, and by the consumer in its use, and by the general interference with vital activity and consequent decreased productive capacity, there is represented an almost unimaginable sum of money.  Certainly the people at large are not so well fed both as to quantity and quality, or so thoroughly clothed, or so hygienically housed that they can afford this gigantic economic waste.