Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER IV. James Tenney Killed By The Fibst Quid; Ok Tobacco A Murderer. Dear Billy:? I told you the other day that Tobacco injured the health and shortened life. It would be strange if it did not, because it is a poison, a very active poison; and this you will find everywhere confirmed by men of science and sense. Two drops of the oil of Tobacco, says Dr. Mussey, was sufficient to distroy life in cats in three or four minutes. Two drops, on the tongue of a red squirrel, destroyed life in one minute. A Hottentot, placed the end of his pipe to the mouth of a snake, the effect was instantaneous; with a momentary, convulsive motion, the snake untwisted itself, and never stirred again. . I have known an empiric, says Dr. Eberle, destroy in less than twenty minutes the life of a charming little boy, by an immoderate injection of Tobacco. People at the Sandwich Islands, we are told, carry smoking so far, that they sometimes fall down senseless, and suddenly die. Cases are reported in Medical Journals, of babes being poisoned by sleeping in the same bed, or living in the same room, with fathers who used this poison in great'quantities. The Salem papers say, in so many words, that James Barry, twelve years old, was lulled by smoking cigars. Whilst I am now writing, a lady assures me, that a little child in the town of L , picked up a quid and put it into its mouth, thinking it a raisin, (a quid that the hired man had thrown upon the floor,) and died of the poison during the day. There is no end, my Billy, in stating authorities, or in stating fatal occurrences, in illustrating the point I have in view. Doctors at home and abroad, in great numbers, agree in saying that Tobacco is extremely hurtful, and sometimes fatal to life. Dr. Twitchell, a p…
