The Nervous System : Tobacco, Opium

Hygienic Physiology: with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
by Joel Dorman Steele, Ph.D.

(Page 10 of 16)

The Constituents of Tobacco Smoke are numerous, but the prominent ones are carbonic-acid, carbonic-oxide, and ammonia gases; carbon, or soot; and nicotine. The proportion of these substances varies with different kinds of tobacco, the pipe used, and the rapidity of the combustion. Carbonic acid tends to produce sleepiness and headache. Carbonic oxide, in addition, causes a tremulous movement of the muscles, and so of the heart. Ammonia bites the tongue of the smoker, excites the salivary glands, and causes dryness of the mouth and throat. Nicotine is a powerful poison. The amount contained in one or two strong cigars, if thrown directly into the blood, would cause death. Nicotine itself is complex, yielding a volatile substance that gives the odor to the breath and clothing; and also a bitter extract which produces the sickening taste of an old pipe. In smoking, some of the nicotine is decomposed, forming pyridine, picoline, and other poisonous alkaloids.

Physiological Effects. - The poison of tobacco, set free by the process either of chewing or smoking, when for the first time it is swept through the system by the blood, powerfully affects the body. Nausea is felt, and the stomach seeks to throw off the offending substance. The brain is inflamed, and headache follows. The motor nerves becoming irritated, giddiness ensues. Therefore Nature earnestly protests against the formation of this habit. But, after repeated trials, the system adjusts itself to the new conditions. A "tolerance" of the poison is finally established, and smoking causes none of the former symptoms. Such powerful substances can not, however, be constantly inhaled without producing marked changes. The three great eliminating organs - the lungs, the skin, and the kidneys - throw off a large part of the products, but much remains in the system. When the presence of the poison is constant, and especially when the smoking or chewing is excessive, the disturbance that at first is merely functional, must necessarily, in many cases at least, lead to a chronic derangement.

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.

The Influence Upon Youth. - Here, too, science utters no doubtful voice. Experience asserts only one conviction. Tobacco retards the development of mind and body. The law of nature is that of steady growth. It can not admit of a daily, even though it be merely a functional, disturbance that weakens the digestion, that causes the heart to labor excessively, that prevents the perfect oxidation of the blood, that interferes with the assimilation, and that deranges the nervous system. No one has a right therefore to check and disturb continually the regular processes of his physical and mental progress. Hence, the young man (especially if he be of a nervous, sensitive organization) who uses tobacco deliberately diminishes the possible energy with which he might commence the work of life; while he comes under the bondage of a habit that may become stronger than his will, and under the influence of a narcotic that may beguile his faculties and palsy his strength at the very moment when every power should be awake.

Another peril still lies in the wake of this masterful poison habit. Tobacco causes thirst and depression that only too often and naturally lead to the use of liquor.

3. Opium

Opium is the dried juice of the poppy. In Eastern countries, this flower is cultivated in immense fields for the sake of this product. When a cut is made in the poppy head, a tiny tear of milky juice exudes, and hardens. These little drops are gathered and prepared for the market, an acre yielding, it is said, about twenty-five pounds. Throughout the East, opium is generally smoked; but in Western countries laudanum and paregoric (tinctures of opium), and morphine - a powerful alkaloid contained in opium, are generally used. The drug itself is also eaten.

Physiological Effect. - Opium, in its various forms, acts directly upon the nerves, a small dose quieting pain, and a larger one soothing to sleep. It arouses the brain, and fires the imagination to a wonderful pitch. The reaction from this unnatural excitant is correspondingly depressing; and the melancholy, the "overwhelming horror" that ensues, calls for a renewal of the stimulus. The dose must be gradually increased to produce the original exhilaration. The seductive nature of the drug leads the unfortunate victim on step by step until he finds himself fast bound in the fetters of one of the most tyrannical habits known to man.

To go on is to wreck all one's powers - physical and mental. To throw off the habit, requires a determination that but few possess. Yet even when the custom is broken, the system is long in recovering from the shock. There seems to be a failure of every organ. The digestion is weakened, food is no longer relished, the muscles waste, the skin shrivels, the nervous centers are paralyzed, and a premature old age comes on apace. De Quincy, four months after he had cast away the opium bonds, wrote, "Think of me as one still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered."

No person can be too careful in the use of laudanum, paregoric, and morphine. They may be taken on a physician's prescription as a sedative from racking pain, but if followed up for any length of time, the powerful habit may be formed ere one is aware. Then comes the opium eater's grave, or the opium eater's struggle for life!