Dr. R.D. Mussey pulled no punches in his 1836 attack on tobacco, An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco Upon Life and Health. His position is not in question, as he demonstrates here:
“To the organs of smell and taste in their natural condition, it is one of the most disgusting and loathsome of all the products of the vegetable kingdom.”
Mussey recounts a history of tobacco, and then spends the rest of the book talking about its evils. He describes tobacco experiments he did on animals – cats, mice, squirrels, and dogs. Each experiment ends with the death of the animal from use of “oil of tobacco”. He also relates stories of people who were made violently ill (or worse) because tobacco was used to try to cure them. An example:
“I knew a young man, who, only from inhaling the vapor arising from the leaves of tobacco immersed in boiling water, was made alarmingly sick.”
He continues by picking apart each of the arguments made in favor of tobacco’s medical and recreational uses. He describes smoke as “worse than alligator breath”.
All in all, Mussey’s work is attention-grabbing and interesting. It adds context to the evolving-at-the-time debate about whether tobacco had medical uses or not. It’s a quick read, and an entertaining and worthwhile way to spend some time learning about the history of tobacco.
An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco Upon Life and Health is in the public domain and can be read for free on Project Gutenberg.