TOBACCO AND INSANITY. (By a French physician.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2074, 22 October 1885, Page 2

TOBACCO AND INSANITY. (By a French physician.)

Tiros*, who feel afflicted at the idea of bo much human misery hidden behind the walls of those establishments barred with non. as if they contained animals or wild beasts, frequently ask : Whence comes so rapid and regular an increase of insanity, which makes the number of insane in Fiance in 1870 four times greater than it was in 1830? They find the ciuae in the consumption of tobacco, winch increases with the same regularity au.l in the same proportions as the number of insane. Here are the official •statistics of the revenue on tobacco and the number of lunatics, in round numbers :—: —

Considering the striking proportion between the presumed cause and effect, we are forced to admit that tobacco must bo the origin of most of the cases of insanity. These truths doctors repeat to all who wish to hear them. But, unfortunately, academic discussions which would condim the adueo which doctors give to the world against the use of tobacco have too little echo among them. They are dead letteis, which are buried in scientific bulletins that are never read. Since 1865, Dr Jolly, in a memoir in the Academy in i'diis, said : " We can no longer doubt the part which tobacco takes in the progressive development of mental diseases ; more especially of that form of insanity so vaguely known under the title of general and progressive paralysis — a disease which, for many years, has multiplied in Buch a manner as to encumber hospitals and insane asylums everywhere. " I cite this authoritative opinion of an academician, as I could many others, to show that 1 am not the only one to fight this formidable enemy of humanity. And if we penetrate still deeper into the mysterious effects of tie poison on tlune ruined by tobacco, rte .irnve at the explanation of another gi eat calamity which becomes more and more frequent amongst us. Never weie we more afflicted than no\r by long lists of sudden deaths found in the columns of the daily papers. When the reason of so many unnatural deaths is looked for, we usually learn that those who thus succumb were great consumers of tobacco. If the true cause of these unexpected deaths, counted to-day by thousands, were better known the fear of meeting the same fate would consider* ably the passions of the adorers of tobacco. But so ignorant are we of the destructive power of nicotine that we generally attribute these deaths against nature to natural causes, as apoplexy or the rupture of an aneurism ; but the autopsy reveals none of the material disoiden which these two accidents leave in ouroigans. As to the unfortunates who succumb in this way, we may suppose that the force of elimination, which daily struggles against the poison to destroy it, weakening for a moment the nicotine, with which they are saturated, asserts its full force, overflows all nervous centres, and kills as it would if it suddenly invaded the organism, for example, by means of a puncture undei the skin. 1 say tint smokers aie saturated with nicotine ; this fact is proved by the odour or this poison which thdir breath and perspiiation continually exhale. On account ot this saturation the blood of tobacco smokers an Hers a notible alteration, which Dr. Melier observed Among workers in tobacco factories,' in an official uncHtigat o i which the Government demanded of the Academy of Medicine, in 1 *>4S. On account of the same saturation, tli" saliva of smokers, as has been shown by experiment by Claude Bernard nt the T'lilege of France, kills animals into whose blood it is injected. It has also been seen Liiat bites ot smokers occasion death as suddenly at would the arrow of the Indian ■ r tho enteno'ned tooth of a serpent. In all these sudden deaths, which could be called nicotinous apoplexies, the victims fall as if thunder-stricken, presenting the same symptoms as those or animals on which the terrible alkaloid of tobacco is tried. Some of the victims of these strange deaths, in whose cases the stroke was not strong enough to induce instant 'leath, and where the sufferers could -(icak, have told; me they fell down as if a hammer had struck them on the head. They felt themselves dragged in a vertiginous \ortex, where they rolled around with all the objects which they seemed to think they were grasping. After this first sensation, which lasted for some time, feeling returned, but the vertigo continued, with a delirium encountered oftener in lunatics than in the organic diseases of the brain. These patients die after an agony of several days, with all the symptoms of the last stages of the progressive paralysis of maniacs from the effects of nicotism, which always coincides with a softening of the biain. I know some of the unfortunates who survive all these violences of nicotic apoplexy. They are in the most deploy able state that can affect any hum**""* being. Paralysed in their movements, M in their intelligence, without speech, they cause the misery of their families, and the despair of science, which can do nothing against such profound destruction ; for nicotine, in impregnating their blood, has softened their brain and the marrow in the spinal column.

Ak eminent physician on hia oath the other day said that he knew men who took their sixty tumblers of punch per day, nud seemed no whit the worse for the indulgence.

Electricity as a Reviving Aoknt. — A case illustrating the power of electricity to stimulate the action of the heart is reported from St. Albans, Vermont. A tli ree-y ear-old child was by mistake given a dose of morphine, and was to affected by it as to be apparently beyond help. A doctor was called, but to all appearances the child was dead, except that there was an almost imperceptible beat of the heart. An application of electricity was made and continued for four hours, at the end of which time resuscitation was completed, and the child lives. During the process of restoration, if the poles of the battery were withdrawn the activity of the heart would subside, and it is very evident that but for the use of electricity death would have ensued. 1 lie Kinkiriraa Road Board requires tenders for building a culvert at Croibie'* gully. The Railway Department nvitc: tenders ftr the coal supply for lb?n.

¥>ar. 1820 1830 1840 1850 181.0 IS7O 1877 1880 Kevcnnc. (;4,000,000 (57,000,000 '.r.,000,000 122.000,000 iy>,ooo,ooo 244,000,000 330,000,000 344,000,000 I Lunatics. 3,000 7,000 13,283 20,061 28.7 fit 38,990 40,02(5 52,440