of their changes and their follies has brought to me-I used to obey a
little while, but quickly reverted to my glass of water, and never
had reason to believe, from my own case, that there was any advantage
from the wine. In 1860-1, the Parisian experiments proved that all
alcohol arrests digestion. Since then I have called myself a
teetotaler. To me it seems clear that love of the drink, or fear of
losing patients by forbidding it, are the true cause of the fuss made
in its favour. I grieve that so noble a fruit as grapes should be
wasted on wine. The same remark will hold of barley, of honey, of
raisins, of dates: from which men make intoxicating drinks. As to
tobacco-while I was in Turkey more than fifty years ago, I learned to
smoke Turkish tobacco in a long Turkish pipe, partly to relieve evil
smells, partly because it is uncivil there to refuse the proffered
pipe. I never was aware of good or evil from it, and with perfect
ease laid it aside when I quitted the soil of Asia. After this, a
cigar was recommended to me in England, as a remedy for loss of
sleep, but the essential oil of tobacco so near to my nose disgusted
me, and the heat or smoke distressed my eyes. I have never felt any
pleasure, rather annoyance, from English smoking; and since the late
Sir Benjamin Brodie published his pamphlet against it (perhaps in
1855), I have learned that the practice is simply baneful. They say
"it soothes"--which I interpret to mean--"it makes me inattentive and
dreamy."

FRANCIS W. NEWMAN.
March 2, 1882.