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A DISSERTATION ON THE MEDICAL PROPERTIES AND INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF TOBACCO.

BY A. McALLISTER, M. D.

Improved and enlarged, with an Introductory Preface,

A DISSERTATION ON THE MEDICAL PROPERTIES AND INJURIOUS EFFECT OF THE HABITUAL USE OF TOBACCO:

READ, ACCORDING TO APPOINTMENT, BEFORE THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF ONEIDA, AT THEIR SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING,

JANUARY 5, 1830.

BY A. McALLISTER, M. D.

Second Edition. Improved and enlarged, with an Introductory Preface,

BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY PEIRCE & PARKER, No. 9. Cornhill.

NEW YORK:--H. C. SLEIGHT, Clinton Hall.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, by PEIRCE & PARKER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PRESS OF PEIRCE & PARKER. No. 9, Cornhill.

INTRODUCTION.

I command the serious perusal of the following Essay and Appendix to every man, who wishes to become well informed respecting the properties of tobacco. Whoever uses this substance as a luxury, is bound by a due regard to his own physical welfare to make himself acquainted with its properties and their influence. If any man can soberly peruse the following pages, without conviction that he is "playing with edge-tools," while he is indulging in the use of tobacco, I must confess his mind to be of a composition different from mine.

I do not place the use of tobacco in the same scale with that of ardent spirits. It does not make men maniacs and demons. But that it does undermine the health of thousands; that it creates a nervous irritability, and thus operates on the temper and moral character of men; that it often creates a thirst for spirituous liquors; that it allures to clubs, and grog-shops, and taverns, and thus helps to make idlers and spendthrifts; and finally, that it is a very serious and needless expense; are things which cannot be denied by any observing and considerate person. And if all this be true, how can the habitual use of tobacco, as a mere luxury, be defended by anyone who wishes well to his fellow-men, or has a proper regard to his own usefulness?

I have been in the use of it for thirty-five years; but I confess myself unable, on any ground, to defend or to excuse the practice. The wants which are altogether artificial, are such as duty calls us to avoid. The indulgence of them can in no way promote our good or our real comfort.

I commend, therefore, the following sheets to the public: hoping that all, and especially the young, will read and well consider the suggestions they offer.

M. STUART. Andover, Jan. 10, 1832.

TO THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF ONEIDA.

GENTLEMEN,

We have accidentally seen the manuscript copy of an address pronounced lately before your society, by Dr. McAllister. The research on which it is founded, and its perspicuity and arrangement, entitle it to a form more permanent than manuscript. But if the results are true, which it attempts to substantiate, they present imperious considerations for the publication of the address.

We are not disposed to contract the circle of enjoyment; but if mischief crouches under the covert of any pleasure, propriety requires a notification to the unwary. Even should experience warrant the conclusion that habit enables us to use tobacco with physical impunity, we must concede, that its use is disgusting to persons not infected with the habit.

Civilization is composed of innumerable acts of self-denial; while the gratification of appetites, regardless of others, is the strongest feature of barbarism. We see then, even as a dictate of refinement, that the use of tobacco should be abandoned; and it has been abandoned by all the polite circles of Europe.

But tobacco possesses that strong characteristic of a bad habit; it seldom leaves its votaries the liberty of abandonment. All which the address can effect, is an admonition to youth, over whom tobacco has not yet acquired its bad supremacy. As parents, then, anxious to see our children uncontaminated by disgustful practices; as citizens, emulous that our country shall not be surpassed in refinement by the nations of Europe, we are solicitous that the address of Dr. McAllister should be published, and in a pamphlet form, under the authority of your society.

We are aware that this request involves a departure from your general disposition of the periodical addresses of your members, but we beg to suggest that the general interest of the present production renders a departure from your usual course not invidious, but a duty which we humbly think you owe to philanthropy. In support of our opinion, we take the liberty of enclosing you a letter from a distinguished fellow-citizen in Albany, who also accidentally saw the address: and we are, Gentlemen,

With very great respect, your ob't serv'ts,

A. B. JOHNSON, D. C. LANSING, HIRAM DENIO, R. R. LANSING, EDM'D A. WETMORE, WILLIAM WILLIAMS, SAM'L D. DAKIN.

UTICA, Feb. 27, 1830.

Lydius Street, Albany, } Friday Evening, January 22d, 1830. }

DEAR SIR,

Very respectfully and truly yours, &c. &c.

A. CONKLING.

R. R. Lansing, Esq.

At a meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Oneida, on the 5th of March, 1830, a communication was received, signed by a number of highly respectable gentlemen from this and other counties of this state, on the subject of a dissertation delivered before this society, at their late semi-annual meeting, by Dr. McAllister, "on the properties and effects of tobacco." The communication was referred to a committee.

The committee reported, "That although dissertations so delivered became the properly of the society, yet believing as we do, that the subject is one of great importance, and the dissertation highly meritorious, and as we have not funds to defray the expense of publication, we will cheerfully relinquish our claim thereto in favor of our correspondents, and cordially unite with them in the desire which they have expressed to us, 'that the dissertation be published in a pamphlet form,' for their gratification and the benefit of the public."

Resolved, That the above report be accepted, and that a copy of the proceedings be delivered to the gentlemen who presented the communication.

C. B. COVENTRY, Sec'y pro. tem.

PREFACE

In consenting to the publication of the following pages, the author yielded to the request of gentlemen whose opinions he did not feel at liberty to disregard; he therefore hopes to avoid the imputation of vanity, with which he might have been charged, had he obtruded himself on the attention of the public, unsolicited. That the habitual use of tobacco is a wide spread, and spreading evil, will be acknowledged by all. This has been felt for years by the most enlightened members of the Faculty. That it causes many diseases, particularly visceral obstructions, and renders many others exceedingly difficult to cure, is demonstrated in the daily experience of every practitioner. The conviction that this habit was constantly extending by the advice and example of physicians, first induced the author to undertake the discussion of this subject before the respectable Society to which he has the honor to belong. Whether the attempt has been successful, the public will judge. That it is imperfect, will not be denied; but it is believed to have claims as a candid statement of facts.

To literary distinction the author makes no pretentions; he therefore craves the indulgence of the learned, as they can best appreciate the labor of writing well. He has chosen a free, popular style, believing that the best calculated to do good; and to render it still more familiar, at the suggestion of some friends, the technical terms have been mostly expunged. Aware that affectation consists no less in studiously avoiding, than in unnecessarily using technical language, the author submitted to this, in the hope of bein have little eloquence but that of a consistent Christian life,--he may find in these pages something to interest him, and possibly, if God bless my humble labors, to help him to "sheer off" from some of the dangerous points where hopes have too often been wrecked, and promising barks have gone down.

The Falling Almshouses.

"I'm afraid, Ned, that there were but poor collections in church to-day," observed Persis to her husband, as they sat together by the fire on the evening of the following Sunday.

"I'm not afraid, but I'm certain of it," replied Ned Franks. "Sands told me this afternoon that the whole collections after the two sermons only came up to four pound three, and when our poor vicar's bank-note was added, there were not ten pounds altogether. What are ten pounds to repair seven almshouses that have scarcely been touched for the last hundred years, and to build up another that has fallen down through sheer old age! The state of those cottages is a disgrace to the village. I wish that Queen Anne's old counsellor, when he built these eight almshouses for our poor, had left something for keeping the places in repair. Those still standing are hardly safe, and as for comfort--one would almost as lief live in an open boat as in one of them; they let in the wind from all the four quarters of the compass, and the rain too, for the matter of that."

"Poor old Mrs. Mills tells me that she is in fear every windy night of her chimney coming down through the roof, or of her casement being blown right in," observed Persis; "and Sarah Mason's wall leans over so to one side, that if it is not propped up soon, the whole cottage will be coming down with a crash, and burying the old dame under its ruins!"

"I must see to that propping myself to-morrow after lessons are over," said the school-master, rather to himself than to his wife; "Ben Stone will give us a beam or two, like a good-natured fellow as he is; the worthy old woman shall not be buried alive if we can hinder it."

Propping Mrs. Mason's tumble-down wall would not be the first piece of work done by the one-armed school-master of Colme for the old almshouses in Wild Rose Hollow. Many a time had Ned clambered up to the top of one or other of the wretched dwellings, as actively as he would have made his way up into the shrouds of a vessel, to replace thatch blown away, or in winter to clear off the heavy masses of snow that threatened to crush in the roofs by their weight. Scarcely a day passed without some aged inmate of one of the almshouses hobbling to the school to ask Ned Franks if nothing could be done to mend a chimney that would smoke, or a window that would rattle, or whether there were no way of keeping the rain from making little ponds in the floor. Ned, with his one hand, was more clever at "stopping a leak" or "splicing a brace" than most men with two hands, for he worked with a will; but when he had done all that he could for the counsellor's tumble-down almshouses, he was wont to say that no caulking of his could make such crazy old hulks seaworthy. "They need to be hauled into a dry dock, and rigged out new:" such was the one-armed sailor's oft expressed opinion, and it was one which no one could contradict.

"Everything seemed against our having a good collection to-day," remarked Persis; "our old baronet dead, and his lady away, dear Mrs. Lane absent in France, and, worst of all, our vicar still so ill, and unable to preach the sermon himself. His nephew the curate is very nice, but--but of course it is not the same thing."

"I'm afraid that half the people did not hear Mr. Leyton, and half of those who did would not understand him," observed Ned Franks; "yet he gave us true gospel sermons; there was nothing to find fault within the matter, and one shouldn't be too nice about the manner."

"Mr. Leyton is so young and shy," said Persis, "he cannot speak with authority like his uncle, and then he scarcely knows any of us yet; but I dare say that when he gets courage--"

"I'll be bound you're talking of our young parson," exclaimed a jovial voice, as the door of the school-master's little room was thrown open, and Ben Stone, the stout carpenter, entered. Ben Stone always considered himself a privileged person, and usually omitted tapping for admittance. "I never care to knock," quoth the jovial carpenter, "unless I've a hammer in my hand, and a nail to drive in, and then there's a knocking and no mistake." Stone came in, nodded a good-evening to Persis, and taking possession of a chair by the fire, as if he felt perfectly at home, he stretched out his broad hands to the cheerful blaze, for the weather was rather cold.

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