greatest The opponents of tobacco have tried to make capital out of the early death of Jules Noriac, who is reported to have died of smoker's cancer; but it transpired that he lived very irregularly. [Footnote: Considerable difference of opinion would appear to exist among the "chroniqueurs" of the Parisian press as to the real nature of the malady to which M. Jules Noriac, the witty, humorous, and observant writer of "The Hundred and First Regiment," the essay on "Human Stupidity," and numerous dramatic pieces of a more or less ephemeral kind, has just fallen a victim. It has been generally understood that M. Noriac died from a mysterious malady which has not long since been recognised by French physicians as the "smoker's cancer." It is alleged that the deceased man of letters suffered for two whole years from the ravages of this dreadful and occult disease, and that his countenance became so transformed through the wasting action of the ailment that he could scarcely be recognised even by his most intimate friends. This statement, could it be substantiated, would serve as a very powerful argument to those who inveigh against the use of tobacco. Hitherto the fundamental point on which the opponents of the weed have dwelt is that as the active principle of tobacco, nicotine, is acknowledged to be in its isolated form a poison, its introduction into the system in any shape or form must be injurious, and that it is difficult to point to any human organ which may not be detrimentally affected by smoking, snuffing, or chewing. From a cognate point of view, it is worthy of remark that a contemporary, in a curiously interesting study of the originals of the characters in the famous "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," draws attention to the circumstance that Henri Murger's consumption of coffee was so excessive as to bring on fever and delirium. Exhaustion and nervousness followed; and finally he was attacked by an obscure disorder of the sympathetic nerves which control the veins, at times turning his whole body to the colour of purple. The doctors who treated him seem to have known nothing of the ailment, for they dosed him with sulphur and aconite. He died a horrible--and very painful death, at the age of thirty-eight. This was in 1860; but only four years afterwards we find the English physician quoted above, Dr. Anstie, in his "Stimulants and Narcotics," recognising "a kind of chronic narcotism, the very existence of which is usually ignored, but which is, in truth, well marked and easy to identify as produced by habitual excess in tea and coffee." The common feature of the disease is muscular tumour; and out of fifty excessive consumers of tea and coffee whose cases were noted by Dr. Anstie, there were only five patients who did not exhibit the symptom named. They were suffering, in fact, from "theine" poisoning. The paralysing effects of narcotic doses of tea was further displayed by a particularly obstinate kind