The tobacco question : physiologically, chemically, botanically, and statistically considered / [William E.A. Axon].

  • Axon, William E. A. (William Edward Armytage), 1846-1913.
Date:
1878
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The tobacco question : physiologically, chemically, botanically, and statistically considered / [William E.A. Axon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    plants to be found in our old herbals, and therefore present the reader with a picture of tobacco, drawn by the hand of that skilful limner, Master John Gerard :— Tabaco, or henbane, of Peru, hath very great stalkes of the bignesse of a childes arme, growing in fertile and well-dunged ground of seuen or eight foot high, diuiding itself in sundry branches of great length ; whereon are placed in most comly order very faire, long leaues, broad, smooth, and sharp-pointed ; soft, and of a light green colour; so fastened about the stalke that they seeme to embrace and compasse it about. The floures grow at the top of the stalkes in shape like a bell-floure, somewhat long and cornered ; hollow within, of a light carnation colour, tending to whitenesse towards the brims. The Seed is contained in long, sharpe-pointed 'cods, or seed vessels, like vnto the seed of yellow henbane, but somewhat smaller, and browner of colour. The root is great, thicke, and of a wooddy substance, with some threddy strings annexed thereunto. 1 The fact that the tobacco plant belongs to a natural order which is noted for producing the most active poisons, is not very reassuring to the lover of the weed. Tobacco may call henbane cousin, and claim kinship with belladonna. CHEMICAL. Nicotine, as the essential principle of tobacco is called, is a liquid alkaloid of such deadly properties that less than the tenth of a grain will kill a middle-sized dog in three minutes.2 In a single cigar there is sufficient nicotine, if administered pure, to kill two strong men.3 And thus, in smoking a quarter of an ounce of tobacco, the risk must be run of introducing into the system “ two grains or more of one of the most subtle of all known poisons.”4 So active is the volatile alkaloid that mere external contact with tobacco leaf suffices to bring on dangerous symptoms. M. Namias communicated to the Academie des Sciences the case of a smuggler, who covered his naked skin with tobacco-leaves in order to evade the payment of duty. The symptoms exhibited had much analogy with the tobacco-poisoning, named by Decaisne, narcotism of the heart.1 M. Gallardin subsequently presented a memoir on this curious subject, in which he named ten cases in which the application of tobacco leaves to the skin caused the common symptoms of poisoning. 1 The Herball, gathered by John Gerard, enlarged by Thomrs Johnson, 1636, folio* P. 359- 2 Watt’s Dictionary of Chemistry, iv. 45. 3 St. Paul’s Magazine, iii. 174 : Taylor on Poisons, p. 749. 4 Johnson’s Chemistry of Common Life, ii. 281. Watt’s (Dictionary of Chemistry, v. 45) qnotes, from the experiments of Schloesing, the following per centages of nicotine in several kinds of tobacco :— Nicotine in 100 carts Nicotine in too parts French Kinds. of the dried tobacco. Other Kinds. of the dried tobacco. Lot . 7.96 Virginia . 6.87 Lot-et-Garonne. 7-34 Kentucky . 6.09 N ord . 6.58 Maryland . 2.29 Ille et Vilaine . 6.29 Havannah . 2.00 Pas-de-Calais . 4.94 Alsace. 3.21 5 Comptes Rendus, t. lix. p. 90 1