Probably in this, as in the case of other deleterious articles of diet, the strong and healthy will seem to escape entirely, while the weak and those predisposed to disease will be injured in direct proportion to the extent of the indulgence. Those whose employment leads to active, outdoor work, will show no sign of nicotine poisoning, while the man of sedentary habits will sooner or later be the victim of dyspepsia, sleeplessness, nervousness, paralysis, or other organic difficulties. Even where the user of tobacco himself escapes harm, the law of heredity asserts itself, and the innocent offspring only too often inherit an impaired constitution, and a tendency to nervous complaints. THE VARIOUS DISTURBANCES produced in different individuals and constitutions by smoking have been summed up by Dr. Richardson as follows: "(_a_) In the blood, it causes undue fluidity, and change in the red corpuscles; (_b_) in the stomach, it gives rise to debility, nausea, and vomiting; (_c_) in the mucous membrane of the mouth, it produces enlargement and soreness of the tonsils--smoker's sore throat--redness, dryness, and occasional peeling of the membrane, and either unnatural firmness and contraction, or sponginess of the gums; and, where the pipe rests on the lips, oftentimes 'epithelial cancer'; (_d_) in the heart, it causes debility of the organ, and irregular action; (_e_) in the bronchial surface of the lungs, when that is already irritable, it sustains irritation, and increases the cough; (_f_) in the organs of sense, it produces dilation of the pupils of the eye, confusion of vision, bright lines, luminous or cobweb specks, and long retention of images on the retina, with analogous symptoms affecting the ear, viz., inability to define sounds clearly, and the occurrence of a sharp, ringing noise like a whistle; (_g_) in the brain, it impairs the activity of the organ, oppressing it if it be nourished, but soothing it if it be exhausted; (_h_) it leads to paralysis in the motor and sympathetic nerves, and to over-secretion from the glands which the sympathetic nerves control." IS TOBACCO A FOOD?--Here, as in the case of alcohol, the reply is a negative one. Tobacco manifests no characteristic of a food. It can not impart to the blood an atom of nutritive matter for building up the body. It does not add to, but rather subtracts from, the total vital force. It confers no potential power upon muscle or brain. It stimulates by cutting off the nervous supply from the extremities and concentrating it upon the centers. But stimulation is not nourishment; it is only a rapid spending of the capital stock. There is no greater error than to mistake the exciting of an organ for its strengthening.