NICOTINA.

Southland Times, Issue 998, 5 August 1868, Page 3

NICOTINA.

"We are , concerned to learn that active Englishmen and quick-witted Hibernians are smoking themselves . into the laziness of Dutchmen and the stolidity of G-ermans, and we prophesy only that which physiology and therapeutics teaches us when we forecast a great and lasting deterioration in the .national character under the chronic influence of stupefying sedatives. The quantity of tobacco imported into the T7nited Kingdom, we learn by recent returns, has increased to nearly double the amount in twenty years, and at this day, men, and the abnormities of developement designated "youths," imbibe enough of the herb to represent twenty-two ounces for every' man, woman, and child within the king-' domi The little public interest which; attaches to the condition of the livers and stomachs of excessive smokers merges:* in a very deep concern for the effect of this endless semi-narcotising . on' the mental pow.ers of those wjfe.6 hay^|uthert6. made England what she has been, amongst the nations. Irishmen -or may, perhaps, be. none the worse by having their imaginative temperaments toned do.wiPto the fit condition for sober plodding business by a daily constitutional sedative ; but Englishmen, whose nervousi

system is set to the real pitch for substantial work, cannot but lose l>v a further relaxation. Those engaged in tlm.studj of the different phrases of real life, so popular at the present day, have an interesting field for i&vestfgation opened 7 to them, in the consideration of how far the epedemie of Duudrearyism- aitd nil? ? - admirari which has recently invaded-. the./: i young men of England, and of which obb - ; of the early symptoms is the twaddle* -- talked against early marriages, may- have resulted from a permanent c bsciiration of „ energy by the abuse of tobacco.-— : _ *' Medical Press and Circular." -^