ing, "Het rooken is een van de voornaamste middelen, om gesondheyd, ende leeven lang te behouden." That smoking is one of the principal means to preserve health and to prolong life.

The prophylactic properties of Tobacco were once, however, believed to be more specifically determined.* Diemer

Indien de gryse Eeuw uyt haar gefronste kuilen
Ons leev tijds wijsheid, en dien drom van letter-zuilen,
Aansag; gewisselyk sy zeid geheel versuft :
Nu is't de vyvde Eeuw van 't Goddelyk vernuft.
Neerland alleene geeft meer ligkt, als in myn dagen
En Greik-en Romerland met al haar Wijsen saagen.
Swijg vry Aaloude tijd! en trek 't gerimpold hoofd
In't swarte grav, dees Eeuw heeft u van konst beroofd.
Ganz bar sou dit geluyt ter schorre keel uytstygen,
(Niet met maarteegen wil) indiense niet moest swygen.
Alleen Genees-kunst die in onse daagen praald

Toond, dat de wetensghap nu word voor't ligt gehaald.
In alles vind men kraght om swakke wear te styven,
Uit hout, uit been, selvssteen daarkan men kragt uit dryven.
Sghoon dat de oudheid hier in minst geen deugd in keurt,
Word nogtans in ons tijd hier groote kragt bespeurt.
Ons kruyd, wiens naam dat selvs de oudheid nimmer kende,
Roemt sig een troost te zyn, een hulp voor veel elende.
Prijswaardig is by dan, die ons dat kruyd verklaart,
Besghermt, en al sijn kraght, en dengden openbaart,
En toont met hoeveel heyl dit heerlyk kruid kan werken
In 'smensghen lighaam, hoe't de geest selv kanversterken,
Naadien het sinnelyk door rook met rook omswiert,
Terwijl de geest haar selv tot hooger dingen stiert,
En soekt naa 't vaste goed, 't welk niemand kan bevatten
Met sinnelyk gewoel dat nooyt so hoogh kan spatten.
Aaloude Eeuwen swijgt dan vry maar van u lof,

Van welk de wereld waagt, gy sghreeft nooit van een stof
Als deese is de kunst godin woont nu op Aarde,
Nu segt se 't geen se u nog nimmer openbaarde.
Prat dan o Haaven-stad vry op u BEINTEMA,
Eer hem, die evenschreets Heer Bontekoe gaat na;
Juight vry om dat hy sig, en ook U met zyn schriften
Met onverwelkbaar lof dees eerezuil gaat stifien.
Apollos voesterkind; was Dokkums Voesterling.

* Though Diemerbrook, who was extremely conversant with the subject, had an high confidence in the prophylactic virtues of Tobacco in Pestis, and others also recommended it with some earnestness; yet there is much reason to conclude it has no property that renders it valuable in that view. Dr. Russel, who had the best means of making observations on this subject, says, that those who employed Tobacco as a

preservative

brook asserted that it preserved from the contagion of the Plague; and that all the inhabitants of houses both in London and Nimeguen, where tobacco was sold, escaped infection, while those in the adjoining ones received the disease. But this property was denied by Rivinus and others, who affirm, that many great smokers died in the Plague of Leipsic. Dr. Thomas Short asserts its prophylactic property, with regard to contagious and epidemic distempers: and. though his reasoning on its modus operandi cannot be admitted, yet the facts he mentions are, if fully ascertained, of great value. A more exact acquaintance with the laws of

preservative (at Aleppo) were not less liable than others to be infected. The custom of smoking is universal among both men and women of all ranks at Aleppo, and Dr. Russel supposed that the habit might deduct from its prophylactic property, but corrects himself by remarking, that those who use it as a preservative must in some degree be accustomed to it, otherwise the violence of its operation might prove hurtful. But as the Tobacco commonly used in Syria is much milder than the American, this remark may lose some of its force. Dr. Mead hesitatingly recommends smoking as a prophylactic in Pestis. Further observations on this property in Tobacco may be seen in Orrai descriptio Pestis. Primrose, (De vulgi erroribus in Medicina, 16mo. Amstelod, 1639.) has some curious reasoning on the prophylactic property of Tobacco in the Plague. His opinions cannot be considered as vulgar errors; but the mistakes of the learned are of more importance than those of the unlearned. Adamus Hahn (Tabacologia sive de Tabaco dissertatio. 4to. Jenæ,) thought its prophylactic property of sufficient importance to make one of the queries in his 7th chapter; which especially inquires if smoking Tobacco is serviceable against the Plague? See De Merten's Obs. Med. de Febr. putr.-Chenot Tract. de Peste. Sir William Temple thought it not only cured diseases of the eyes, but preserved the sight. His words are," For rheums in the eyes and the head, I take a leaf of Tobacco put into the nostrils for an hour each morning, to be a specific medicine. old prince Maurice of Nassau told me, he had by this preserved his eyes to so great an age, after the danger of losing them at thirty years old and I have ever since used it with the same success, after great reasons, near that age, to apprehend the loss or decay of mine." Essays, 8vo. vol. iii. 297. This is cited rather as a specimen of opinions which once prevailed, than as a practical precept.

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An

*In time of pestilence, or any other contagious or epidemic distemper, smoking is profitable, both as the pungency of the smoke acceberates the blood's motion, and prevents the alteration of our mass of blood, by the attraction of the contagious effluvia drawn in with our breath, and swallowed with our spittle, but especially as its much sulphur embarrasses and sheaths those effluvia; hence all the Tobacconists' houses and shops in London barred the entrance of the spreading contagion in 1665 and 66; even the fumes of the Tobacco, by stirring it up and

handling

nature, profound chemical investigations, and an experimental knowledge of the operations of animal life, have taught modern physiologists to reject all preservatives from contagion, which do not chemically neutralize or destroy the contaminating material. Fumigations, and odoriferous substances, camphor, ruta, &c. are not only useless, but possibly increase the danger. The organ of smell has been given to animals, not only for the purpose of discriminating food, but as a sentinel to give warning of the approach of danger.* When enjoying the full exercise of its natural

handling it, had destroyed the venom of the malignant effluvia, before they were sucked in with the people's breath." Discourses on Tea,

Tobacco, &c.

* The abuse of the organs of sense, in a highly artificial state of society, have frequently so injured their properties, that civilized man has hardly an idea of their acuteness in a state of nature. Savage tribes in the American forests know if a man has passed the preceding day, by smelling to the leaves or herbage on which he has trampled. A dog scents game at considerable distances; and, if the fact were not confirmed by daily experience, it would hardly gain credit, that he can trace the odour of his master's foot through all the winding streets of a populous city. A very ingenious collector of the facts in natural history, speaking of the sense of smell, says, "all bodies in nature, whether solid or fluid, whether animated or inanimated, continually send forth to the air certain effluvia or emanations. These effluvia float in the atmosphere,

In the

and act upon the olfactory nerves of different animals, and sometimes of different individuals of the same species, in such a manner as to produce very different sensations. Brute animals select their food chiefly by employing the sense of smelling, and it seldom deceives them. selection of food, men are greatly assisted, even in the most luxurious state of society, by the sense of smelling. Substances of a putrid smell, as equally offensive to the olfactory nerves and to the constitution, are avoided with abhorrence and rejected as noxious. The more acute discernment of brutes in the exercise of this sense, is entirely owing to their freedom, and to their using natural productions alone. But men in society, by the arts of cookery, by the unnatural assemblage of numerous ingredients in one dish, blunt, corrupt, and deceive their sense of smell. Were they in the same natural condition as the brute, they would be enabled by the olfactory organs to distinguish, with equal certainty, noxious from salutary food. Domestic animals are nearly in the same condition with luxurious men. A pampered dog snuffs and rejects many kinds of food, which, in a natural state, he would devour with eagerness. But assistance in the choice of food is not the only advantage that men and other animals derive from the sense of smelling. The subtilty of the emanations that are sent forth from animal, vegetable, and mineral substances, when exposed to the air, is so extreme, that no eye can perceive them. These effluvia, or volatile particles, are diffused through the air, and are recognized by the organ of smell. To (No. 144.)

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give

powers, the olfactory apparatus will sometimes, perhaps frequently, give intelligence of being within the sphere of the infecting atmosphere. How absurd, then, is it to confuse this sentinel by a variety of powerful odours, which certainly do not correct or destroy the infecting gas, or whatever it is, but merely render the nerves of the organ of smell insensible to it!

The confidence with which Tobacco was used as a prophy lactic, was certainly equalled by the opinion that it produced singular changes in some of the organs. Many writers, and some of great credit, believed, that the brain of immoderate şınokers became incrusted with a fuliginous matter similar to soot in a chimney. It is more certain, or at least more con

give some idea of the minuteness of these particles, and of the amazing sensibility of the nostrils of animals, it is only necessary to state, that the odour of musk has been known to fill a large space for years without losing any perceptible part of its weight. Thus the air we breathe is perpetually impregnated with an infinity of different particles which stimulate the olfactory nerves, and give rise to the serisation of smell. When our senses are not vitiated by unnatural habits, they not only convey to us exquisite pleasure, but are the faithful monitors of danger?" It is probable that all the pestiferous gases, or the materials of contagion, whatever they are, have connected with them a mauvais odeur that will induce to a removal from their sphere of action. I know but of one exception. Some of the most noxious vapours in mines are also attended with a delightful smell, resembling the pea-blossom. These vapours generally come in the summer, and oblige the miners to quit their work, to whom they would otherwise soon prove fatal." (Phil Trans.) In that exquisite poem, the Mine, the author has touched this subject with great taste. He adopts the Rosycrusian fancy of Gnomes, spirits which inhabit the earth, and who by their power form the ores of metals, and all the wonders met with in the inmost recesses of the globe.

*ADAMUS HAHN, before cited, in a series of questions on the properties and uses of Tobacco, has one " An fumus Tabaci crustus nigrans in cerebro gignat ?" The response to this question gives an epitome of opinions which once prevailed.

Quilibet pro sua sententia confirmanda experientiam adducit. Ita ex affirmantium ordine se sistit. P. Pavius Lugdun. Anatomicus, qui in juvene cultro anatomico subjecto tales se invenisse crustas gloria

tur

sonant to observation, that the brain, though not encrusted with Tobacco soot, has often suffered by the constant use of

cum

tur; fuit verò fumifugus celeberrimus. Falckenburgius, qui in Epist. ad Neandam profitetur se easdem observasse. Rationes sunt, I. quod tabain se habeat unctuosam, oleosam, viscosam materiam, quæ successu temporis viscidae & tenaci cerebri substantiæ poterit adhærere, atque talem concretionem facere. 2. spontanea ad superiora fumi ascensio & pororum cerebri ad recipiendum aptitudo adsit. A negantium parte stant J. Dan. Horst. in manud ad med. C. Magn. l. c. p. III. qui opponunt illis observationem Gvil. van der Meer, fatentis, se in pluribus fumifugis dissectis tale quid invenire non potuisse, imò se in fure navig celeberrimo, ita ut in ipsa quoque hora mortis fumum hunc avidius sumserit, tale quid cerebro dissecto, observare nequivisse. Ita in virili cadavere, (quod dum erat in vivis, avid'us fumum hunc hauriebat) perite ante biennium Nobiliss. atque Excell. Dn. D. Presidis sectioni subjecto non licuit quidquam talium crustarum deprehendere. Hoc tamen in ipso notabatur, quod sinistra cerebri substantia sese totam putredine corruptam, cum colore ad cæruleum vergente, exhiberet. Nam verò hæc corruptio a nimio fumi hujus usu ortum traxerit, (cum dextrum latus adhuc salvum, hic verò ad utrumque ; æque possit ferri) aliis judicandum offerimus. Hoferus alio exemplo adducto, hoc itidem negat, similiter Primir. 1.4. c. 34, rationes habent 1. quod si fuligo talis fieret sensibilis, non possit aliter fieri, quin inducat gravissima symptomata. 2. quod aer non feratur ad cerebrumi, de quo vid. CL Schneider. 1. c. Higmor. disquisit. anatom. p. 222.

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Pro affirmantium parte faciunt illa, quæ habet Hoffman. I. c. Audivi, inquit, a militibus in Belgio versatis, vidisse se dissecta capita eorum, quibus patera ab anatomicis dicta, tota interius esset nigra, licet a car nifice interiissent. Audivi, pergit, a patritio Norico, qui in superiori bello Bohemico vidit omnes, qui in conflictu cum hostibus interierint, Anglos, habere talia capita. Pro his etiam facere posset acris in cerebrum ingressus, quem concedit Excell. D. D. Rolfinc. in dissert. anat. p. 711, 569, attractio aeris, inquit, fit per ossis cribrosi foramina, & non solùm aër cerebri meningem ambit, sed & ventriculos ipsos ingreditur. Quo cum facit etiam Nobiliss. Dn. D. Schenckius in Schola Part. p. 42. Cum aere ergò, dixerit aliquis, junctus fumus hic, utpote summe penetrans, atque ad cerebrum delatus, unctuositate, lentore ac pinguedine sua tales generare posset crustas, si non ita palpabiles, tamen visibiles.

Nos interim hæc decidenda doctioribus relinquimus, contenti jam opinionum quarundam recensionibus, circa quas ut quilibet suo sensu abundet, æquo fermius animo, addendo saltim ex C. Lang. in Misc. C. exempla & observationes in arte medica quidem plurimi esse momenti, sed illa tamen cum ratione conjungenda."

The excellent and laborious Mongagni did not think this subject quite undeserving his notice, and shews, in his great work," de Causis et Sedibus Morborum," that when this fuliginous matter was detected by dissection, it either arose from some other cause, or the anatomist was imposed on by some legerdemain trick.

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this