Now, I regret to say that a long and attentive study of the subject compels me to pronounce an unfavourable sentence on this article. Whatever value it may possess as a medicine--and that, in the present state of our knowledge, is not much--I must say that, as an instrument of luxury in ordinary use, it is unwholesome and injurious. To the physician it may be satisfactory to ascertain in what way, precisely, the injurious effect is produced; but it may suffice others to learn from experience and observation what is the actual result. It is obvious that tobacco causes an excitement of the nervous system, and thus disturbs the course of nature; but nature never is, and never can be, disturbed with impunity. To apply a stimulus to the system for which there is no natural demand, is to cause a waste of nervous energy, of which nature has need for her own legitimate purposes, and therefore to inflict an injury upon her, greater or less according to the amount of that uncalled for expenditure. To keep such an unnatural stimulus in constant action, is tantamount to the creation of a constitutional derangement of the functions, or the introduction of an actual disease into the body; and nobody will pretend to say that this is not injurious. To my simple apprehension, it is anti-hygeian practice with a vengeance. I am no physician, but I believe this to be the true theory of our subject, regarded in a physiological point of view, and it is decisive against the nicotian habit, however small the quantity of the article used may be. People are rather indisposed to believe that an “agreeable” sensation can be an “unwholesome” one; but unfortunately for poor humanity, and the popularity of us sages, nothing in nature is more certain than the possibility of such a conjuncture. It is not only certain, but, alas, commonly known by experience, that an agreeable thing may be unwholesome, and a pleasant sensation anything at all but a symptom of healthful action.