An essay on the influence of tobacco upon life and healthMussey, R. D. (Reuben Dimond)
Science
An essay on the influence of tobacco upon life and health
Mussey, R. D. (Reuben Dimond)
Tobacco use
The opinion, that the use of tobacco preserves the teeth, is supported
neither by physiology nor observation. Constantly applied to the
interior of the mouth, whether in the form of cud or of smoke, this
narcotic must tend to enfeeble the gums, and the membrane covering the
necks and roots of the teeth, and, in this way, must rather accelerate
than retard their decay. We accordingly find, that tobacco consumers are
not favored with better teeth than others; and, on the average, they
exhibit these organs in a less perfect state of preservation. Sailors
make a free use of tobacco and they have bad teeth.
The grinding surfaces of the teeth are, on the average, more rapidly
worn down or absorbed, from the chewing or smoking of tobacco for a
series of years; being observed in some instances to project but a
little way beyond the gums. This fact I have observed, in the mouths
of some scores of individuals in our own communities, and I have also
observed the same thing in the teeth of several men, belonging to the
Seneca and St. Francois tribes of Indians, who, like most of the other
North American tribes, are much addicted to the use of this narcotic.
In several instances, when the front teeth of the two jaws have been
shut close, the surfaces of the grinders, in the upper and lower jaw,
especially where the cud had been kept, did not touch each other, but
exhibited a space between them of one-tenth to one-sixth of an inch,
showing distinctly the effects of the tobacco, more particularly
striking upon those parts, to which it had been applied in its most
concentrated state.
The expensiveness of the habit of using tobacco is no small objection
to it. Let the smoker estimate the expense of thirty years' use of
cigars, on the principle of annual interest, which is the proper method,
and he might be startled at the amount. Six cents a day, according to
the Rev. Mr. Fowler's calculation, would amount to $3,529 30 cents; a
sum which would be very useful to the family of many a tobacco consumer
when his faculties of providing for them have failed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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