who told me that he taking it downward into his stomach, it made him cast up an imposthume, bag and all, which had bin a long time engendered out of a bruise he had received at football, and so preserved his life for many years. Now to descend from the substance of the smoak, to the ashes, 'twis well known that the medcinal qualities thereof are very many; but they are so common that I will spare the inserting of them here. But if one would try a pretty conclusion how much smoak ther is in a pound of tobacco, the ashes will tell him; for let a pound be exactly weighed, and the ashes kept charily and weighed afterwards, what wants of a pound weight in the ashes cannot be denied to have bin smoak, which evaporated into air; I have bin told that Sir Walter Rawleigh won a wager of Queen Elizabeth upon this nicety. In Barbary and other parts of Africa tis wonderful what a small pill of tobacco will do; for those who use to ride post through the sandy desarts, wher they meet not with anything thats potable or edible, sometimes three days together, they use to carry small balls or pills of tobacco, which being put under the toung, it affords them a perpetual moysture, and takes off the edge of appetit for som dayes. Do you desire to read with pleasure all the Virtues of this modern Herb, you must read Doctor Thorius Potologis, an accurate piece couched in a strenuous Heroic Verse full of matter, and continuing its strength from first to last; insomuch, that for the bigness, it may be compared to any piece of Antiquity, and in my opinion, is beyond βατρακομιομαχία οι γαλεωνομαχία. So I conclude these rambling notions, presuming you will accept this small argument of my great respect unto you: If you want paper to light your pipe, this letter may serve the turn; and if it be true what the poets frequently sing, that Affection is Fire, you shall need no other than the clear Flames of the Donor's Love to make ignition, which is comprehended in this Distich Ignis Amor si sit, Tobaccum accendere nostrum Nulla petetænda tibi fax nisi dantis Amor. If Love be Fire, to light this Indian Weed, The Donor's Love of Fire may stand instead. So I wish you as to myself a most happy New Year; may the beginning be good, the middle better, and the end best of all. Your most faithful and truly affectionate servant, J. H. Tobacco and Health.--Mr. W. H. Wills, of Bristol, one of the largest tobacco manufacturers of England, writes: For some years past I have noticed the freedom of our work-people from epidemic attacks. There are upwards of five hundred persons in Bristol engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, many of whom are living in some of the worst localities, in a sanitary point of view, that the city can exhibit; yet, during the severe visitations of the cholera in 1849 and 1852, only one person out of this number was fatally attacked. Among our own hands, numbering upwards of ninety, we had not a single case. I am satisfied too, that, apart from acute discase, the business is not injurious to the duration of life, as I can enumerate nearly twenty persons who have worked in our manufactory for terms varying from twenty-five to fifty years, and who have always enjoyed excellent health. N. Simeon, in a report presented by him to the Minister of Public Works, and communicated to the Annales d'Hygiène Publique, October, 1843, states that at that time the French government, which has the monopoly of tobacco, employed more than five thousand workmen in its manufacture; who were found, as a body, to enjoy a remarkable exemption from prevailing epidemics. This was especially the case at Lyons, where those so employed escaped to a man the typhoid fever of 1842, and at Toulouse, when the influenza attacked four per cent. of the inhabitants, while of those employed in the manufacture of tobacco, but two out of 286 were affected. With regard to phthisis, this exemption is still more remarkable. It is true that the workmen are subject to catarrhs, which are, however, slight, and easily removed. Phthisis is also of rare occurrence among the workmen at Bordeaux; at Hâvre, where this disease makes fearful ravages, the tobacco manufacturers are exempt; and at Strasburg, Morlaix, and Lille, it is less frequent among this class than those engaged in other occupations. These facts are attributed. by M. Simeon to the narcotic properties of the tobacco; but he invites the attention of the profession to the subject. In 1836, M. Maurice Ruef, of Strasbourg, published a paper on the health of the workmen in the Royal Manufactorie, in which he asserted that-" Pulmonary consumption is rare among the workmen who are engaged from their youth in the manipulation of tobacco; moreover, this disease makes much less rapid progress than it does usually in those who may happen to have the germ of it already developed when they enter the workshop." Six years afterwards, (May 31, 1842,) this gentleman wrote a letter to the editor of the Gazette Médicale, affirming that his experience during the interval had amply confirmed the accuracy of his statements. In 1849, which was a terrible year to New Orleans, and the towns on the Mississippi River, there were some spots comparatively safe from the epidemic, and these were the tobacco manufactories. But the term tobacco manufacturer is, perhaps, too exclusive as a principal one in so interesting an inquiry. For practical purposes, it would be well to know how far man's connexion with tobacco exempts him from various complaints. Besides cigar rollers, cut-and-dry choppers, and snuff makers, there are those engaged in planting, attending, curing, packing, warehousing, and loading--all being brought in different degrees of contact with the 'weed.' On plantations, the negro and overseer are alike subject to the cholera, and indeed to the same complaints as the neighboring cotton grower. In curing and drying houses, the men are partially safe from epidemics, and invariably free from lung complaints. But it is to the factory we must go to learn the full extent of this singular preservative. Not until the leaf has been cured for some time, or at all events passed through the hogshead, do these neutralizing qualities show themselves; and it must be brought into continual contact with the men, and in a room or workshop of some kind, for them to be the subjects of its preservation. In London, the great tobacco quartier is Goodman's Fields. The manufacturers there-mostly Jews-describe their men as being remarkably free from lung complaints, skin diseases, and affections of the liver; although there are a few instances where torpidity of the latter organ is complained of. Many of these men use oil as a part of their diet, agreeably to the custom of their race, and enjoy health superior still to those who do not take any. One thing, however, is observable in all cigar and tobacco factories, the men neither are nor look cheerful; they rarely enjoy those bright animal spirits which other occupations induce. A tobacco manufacturer is seldom high, he is seldom low; he appears to have entered that middle state of existence which some think the most enviable. His trot may be called the "jog trot." He rarely figures as a declaimer, rarely gets drunk and alarms the neighborhood of his residence. What he invariably does, is to live contentedly, and without grumbling; and consents to undergo a pickling in tobacco, to perhaps the slight deadening of his nerves, the undoubted weakening of his mind and strength of will, for the sake of preserving his skin, liver, and lungs from frequent epidemics. Another peculiarity still more remarkable is this-the ordinary nervous distrust which smoking induces is seldom experienced by those engaged in manipulating tobacco. It has been remarked, indeed, that where a man could not indulge in three pipes a day without feeling symptoms of indigestion, he could double the number after he became employed by a tobacconist, and feel none of the old symptoms. Smoking before drinking impure river water will prevent the diarrhea. In certain unmentionable skin disorders, the washing of the parts with water having tobacco steeped in it will drive it away. These, and similar recipes, are common in the Mississippi Valley. Raleigh's Snuff-box.-Sir Walter Raleigh's snuff-box, out of which he took a pinch on the scaffold, was in constant use by the late Duke of Sussex, and was knocked down at his sale for £6. Tobacco-takers.-Dr. Caldwell says that there are but three animals that can abide tobacco, namely: the African rock goat -the most loathsome creature on earth-the foul tobacco worm —and the rational creature, man ! Tobacco Literature.-As an illustration of the precedence which Englishmen took of foreigners in their propensity for smoking, Mons. Misson, in his Memoirs of his Travels over England, written in 1697, notices the very general use of tobacco; and in Devon, (Raleigh's native county,) and Cornwall, among the Misson attributes to their much smoking not only the thoughtfulness, taciturnity, and melancholy of the English, but also their excellence as theologians; for, he says: women. Tobacco not only breeds profound theologists, but also begets moral philosophers; witness the following sonnet to a pipe: Doux charme de ma solitude Et mon esprit d'inquietude. Tabac! dont mon ame est ravie, Je vois l'image de ma vie : Tu demets dans mon souvenir, Ce q'un jour je dois devenir, Je pape de même que toi. Mr. Ozell, who did Misson's Travels into English, has somewhat shorn the sonnet of its just proportions, thus: Sweet smoking pipe, bright glowing stove, Companion still of my retreat, Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove, And purge my brain with gentle heat. |