s mi e*        W.- 4pr








THE
CHEMISTRY OF COMMON LIFE.
BY
JAMES F. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.1.S., F.G.S.,
ETO.1 ETO.9
&UTHOR OF " LECTURES ON AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY," " A CAT1E5
CHISM OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMiSTRY AND GEOLOGY," ETC.
ILLUSTIATTED WITH NUfiEROUS WOOD ENGRA VINGS.
VOL. II.
EIGHT EDITION.
NEW YOREK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
346 & 848 BROADWAY.
M.DCOOO.LI.








CONTENTS OF VOL. IL
~~c~~~~~~~r~~rap,~                  PAGE
XV. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-TOBACCO,.   5
XVI. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-THE HOP, AND
ITS SUBSTITUTES,....  37
XVII. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-THE POPPY AND
THE LETTUCE).....  58
XVIII. TEE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-INDIAN HEMP,.  88
XIX. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-THE BETEL-NUT
AND THE PEPPERWORTS.              103
XX. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-COCA,.    116
XXI. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-THE THORN-APPLES,
THE SIBERIAN FUNGUS, AND THE MINOR NARCOTICS,..... 136
XXII. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN-GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS,... 152
XXIII. THE POISONS. WE SELECT,...    166
XXIV. THE ODOURS WE ENJOY-VOLATILE OILS AND FRAGRANT RESINS,.                        179
XXV. THE ODOURS WE ENJOY —THE VOLATILE ETHERS AND
ANIMAL ODOURS,.... 197




CONTENTS.
CHAP.                                                PAGE
XXVI. THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE-NATURAL SMELLS,         217
XXVII. THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE-SMELLS PRODUCED BY
CHEMICAL ART,.... 239
XXVIII. THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE-THE PREVENTION AND REMOVAL OF SMELLS.... 249
XXIX. WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR,.    270
XXX.'WHA T, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST,.. 293
XXXI. THE BODY WE CHERISH                           315
XXXII. THE CIROULATION OF MATTER, A RECAPITULATION, 334
XXXIII. THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER, A RECAPITULATION) 352
INDEXt.. 367




CHAPTER XV.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
TOBACCO.
Man's wants progressive.-How he ministers to them.-Narcotics now in use In different parts of the world.-Tobacco brought to Europe from America.-Its rapid
spread over the globe.-Its extended use.-Opposition encourages it.-Is it indigenous in China as well as America?-Present consumption in the United Kingdom.-It is rapidly increasing.-Circumstances which affect the quality of tobacco —Where the best qualities grow.-Forms in which tobacco is used.Manufacture of snuff.-Effects produced by tobacco.-It soothes and excites.Influence of climate, constitution, and temperament, in modifying its effects.Interesting physiological facts.-Does it necessarily provoke to dissipation?-Is
the tobacco reverie a mere absence of thought?-Chemical ingredients of the
tobacco.-The volatile oil.-The volatile alkali.-The empyreumatic oil.-Proportion of these poisonous substances is variable.-Chemical differences between
smoking, chewing, and snuffing.-Cause of diversities in the quality of tobacco.Adulterations of tobacco.-The ash of the tobacco leaf.-The growing of tobacco
an exhausting culture.
AKIN  to  the  intoxicating liquors we consume are  the  narcotic substances we indulge in; and if the history of the
former, in their relations to the social state, be full of a
melancholy interest, that of the latter is still more striking
and extraordinary. I may say, indeed, that to the economical statist, not less than to the physiologist and psychologist, the connection of man with the narcotics in common use,




6           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
in different countries, forms one of the most wonderful
chapters in his entire history.
In ministering fully to his natural wants and cravings,
man passes through three successive stages.
First, the necessities of his material nature are provided
for. Beef and bread represent the means by which, in every
country, this end is attained. And among the numerous
forms of animal and vegetable food which different nations
make use of in the place of these two staples of English
life, a wonderful similarity in chemical composition prevails.
Exactly the same gluten and starch and fat are supplied to
the body in every country, and nearly in the same proportions-so that we are constrained to admire what may be
called the universal instinct by which, under so many varied
conditions of climate and of natural vegetation, the experience of man has led him everywhere to adjust in the nicest
manner the chemical constitution of the staple forms of his
diet to the chemical wants of his living body.*
Next, he seeks to assuage the cares of his mind and to
banish uneasy reflections. Fermented liquors are the agents
by which this is effected. And here also it is interesting to
remark, not only that this lightening of care is widely and
extensively -attained, but that the chemical substance, by
the use of which it is brought about, is everywhere one and
the same. Savage and civilized tribes, near and remotethe houseless barbarian wanderer, the settled peasant, and
the skilled citizen-all have found out, by some common
and instinctive process, the art of preparing fermented
drinks, and of procuring for themselves the enjoyments and
miseries of intoxication.  And thus, whatever material is
employed for the purpose, whether the toddy of the palm
tree, the sap of the aloe, the juice of the sugar cane, the
*See THE BREAD WE EAT AND TIIE BEEF WE COOx.




ALCOHOLIC DRINKS EVERYWHERE.             7
syrup of honey, the must of the grape, the expressed liquor
of the apple and pear, the wort of malted grain, or the milk
of the Tartar mare-in every instance the substance called
alcohol is produced by the fermentation, and forms the intoxicating ingredient of the liquor.
And lastly, he desires to multiply his enjoyments, intellectual and animal, and for the time to exalt them.  This
ne attains by the aid of narcotics.  And of these narcotics,
again, it is remarkable that almost every country or tribe
has its own, either aboriginal or imported; so that the
universal instinct of the race has led, somehow or other, to
the universal supply of this want or craving also.
The aborigines of Central America rolled up the tobacco
leaf, and dreamed away their lives in smoky reveries, ages
before Columbus was born, or the colonists of Sir Walter
Raleigh brought it within the precincts of the Elizabethan
court. The coca leaf, now the comfort and strength of the
Peruvian muletero, was chewed as he does it, in far remote
times, and among the same mountains, by the Indian natives
whose blood he inherits. The use of opium, of hemp, and
of the betel-nut among Eastern Asiatics, mounts up to the
times of most fabulous antiquity. The same probably is
true of the pepper plants among the South Sea Islands and
the Indian Archipelago, and of the thorn-apples used among
the natives of the Andes, and on the slopes of the Himalayas; while in Northern Europe the ledum and the hop,
and in Siberia the narcotic fungus, have been in use from
time immemorial.
As from different plants, in different parts of the world,
the favourite intoxicating liquor was obtained, so from different plants the favourite narcotic was extracted by different races of men. But this important difference prevails
between the two classes of indulgences, that while in all the
fermented liquors, as I have said, the same alcohol or in



8           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
toxicating spirit exists, each narcotic in use contains its own
peculiar principle.  From  whatever source obtained, the
fermented liquor produces nearly the same effect upon the
human system. But each narcotic indulgence produces its
own peculiar and special effect. Tobacco and opium, and
hemp and coca, and the hop and the toad-stool, while they
all exercise a narcotic influence upon the human frame, do
so in a form and with modifications which in each case are
peculiar, in many respects full of interest, and always worthy
of deep study and consideration.  These narcotic substances,
therefore, occupy an important place in the chemistry and
chemico-physiology of common life.
I. TocAcco.-Of all the narcotics I have mentioned,
tobacco (fig. 56) is in use over the largest area, and among
the greatest number of people.  Opium is probably next to
it in these respects, and the hemp plant occupies the third
place.
Tobacco is believed to be a native of tropical America;
at all events, it was cultivated and used by the native inhabitants of various parts of that continent long before its
discovery by Europeans.  In 1492, Columbus found the
chiefs of Cuba smoking cigars, and Cortes met with it afterwards, when he penetrated to Mexico. From America it
was introduced into Spain by the Spaniards, it is not certain
in what year. In 1560 it was brought to France by Nicot,
and in 1586 to England by Sir Francis Drake, and the
colonists of Sir Walter Raleigh. Into Turkey and Arabia,
according to Mr. Lane, it was introduced about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in 1601 it is known to
have been carried to Java.  Since that time both the cultivation and the use of the plant have spread over a large
portion of the habitable globe.
Thus the different parts of America in which it is now




EXTENSIVE GROWYTHI OF TOBACCO.            9
grown include Canada, New Brunswick, the United States,
Mexico, the western coast as far as 40~ south latitude,
Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad, and the          Fig. 56.
other West India Islands.  In
Africa it is cultivated on the Red
Sea and the Mediterranean,  in
Egypt, Algeria, the  Canaries,
along the western coast, at the
Cape of Good Hope, and at numerous places in the interior of
the continent.  In Europe, it has        /
been raised with success in almost  /   (
every country, and it forms at 
present an important agricultural
product in  Hungary, Germany,
Flanders, and France.  In Asia,
it has spread over Turkey, Persia,
India, Thibet, China, Japan, the
Philippine Islands, Java, Ceylon,  id
Australia, and  New   Zealand.,Y
Among narcotic plants, indeed, it           I
occupies a similar place to that
of the potato among food plants.
It is the most extensively cultivated, the most hardy, and the..
most tolerant of changes in tem-    -.Nicotianc tfttabacun
perature, altitude, and  general    The Virginia Tobacco.
climate.  From  the equator to Scale, 1 inch to a foot and a half.
the fiftieth degree of latitude it may be raised without
difficulty, though it grows best within thirty-five degrees of
latitude on either side of the equator. The finest qualities
are raised between the fifteenth degree of north latitude,
that of the Philippines, and the thirty-fifth degree, that of
Latakia in Syria.
1~0. EXTENSIVE USE OF TOBACCo.-And the use of the




10          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
plant has become not less universal than its cultivation.
Next to salt, it is supposed by some to be the article most
extensively consumed by man.  Tea alone can compete with
it; for although it may not be in use over so large an area,
tea is probably consumed by as great a number of the human race.* In America, tobacco is met with everywhere,
and the consumption is enormous.  To its use in some parts
of the United States, at the present moment, King James's
description, in the opinion of many, applies more justly
than to the practice in any other part of the world —' A
custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmfull
to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black
stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless."
In Europe, from the plains of sunny Castile to the
frozen Archangel, and from the Ural to Iceland, the pipe,
the cigar, and the snuff-box, are a common solace, among
all ranks and conditions of men. In vain, when it first
came among us, King James opposed it by his Counterblast
to Tobacco; in vain Pope Urban the Eighth thundered out
his bull against it; in vain was the use of it prohibited in
Russia, and the knout threatened for the first offence, and
death for the second.  Opposition and persecution only
excited more general attention to the plant, awakened
curiosity regarding it, and tempted people to try its effects.
So, in the East, the priests and sultans of Turkey and
Persia declared smoking a sin against their holy religion;
yet the Turks and Persians have become the greatest
smokers in the world.  In Turkey, the pipe is perpetually
in the mouth.  In In:lcia, all classes and both sexes smoke.
The  Siamese chew  moderately, but smoke perpetually.
The Burmese of all ranks, of both sexes and of all ages,
* See what is said in the succeeding chapter as to the consumption of the hop in
England.




SPREAD OF THE USE OF TOBACCO.             11
down even to infants of three years old, smoke cigars —
(CRAWFORD).  In China the practice is so universal that
every female, from the age of eight or nine, wears, as an
appendage to her dress, a small silken pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe.
Indeed, from the extensive prevalence of the practice
in Asia, and especially in China, Pallas argued long ago
that the use of tobacco for smoking in those countries must
be more ancient than the discovery of America.  " Amongst
the Chinese," he says,'" and amongst the Mongol tribes,
who had the most intercourse with them, the custom of
smoking is so general, so frequent, and has become so indispensable a luxury; the tobacco-purse affixed -to their belt
so necessary an article of dress; the form  of the pipcs,
from which the Dutch seem  to have taken the model of
theirs, so original; and lastly, the preparation of the yellow
leaves, which are merely rubbed to pieces, and then put
into the pipe, so peculiar, that they could not possibly derive all this from America by way of Europe, especially
as India, where the practice of smoking is not so general,
intervenes between Persia and China." *
This opinion of Pallas has since been supported by
high botanical authorities.   Thus Meyen says: " It has
long been the opinion that the use of tobacco, as well as its
culture, was peculiar to the people of America; but this is
now proved to be incorrect, by our present more exact
acquaintance with China and India. The consumption of
tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense extent, and
the practice seems to be of great antiquity, for on very old
sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco-pipes
which are still used. Besides, we now know the plant
which furnishes the Chinese tobacco; it is even said to
grow wild in the East Indies. It is certain that this to* Quoted in M'CULLOCI{'S Commercial Dictionary, ed. 1847, p. 1314.




12           THE NARCOTICS WVE INDULGE IN.
bacco plant of Eastern Asia is quite different from the
American species." *
According to the recent travellers, lMessrs. Hue and
Gabet, the yellow tobacco of eastern Thibet and western
China is the leaf of the Nicotiana rustica.  In flavour it
resembles the finest Syrian tobacco, which is also the leaf
of the N. rustics.  The tobacco of central and southern
India is the Nicotiana tabacuzn, or Virginian tobacco; that
of northern India, the N.'rustica —(HooKER).
The common green tobacco (fig. 57) is a smaller plant
Fig. 5T.   than the Virginian, being only 3 to 5 feet
-*.~,  A      in height, and has shorter and broader
leaves, and smaller flowers, with rounded
_'   instead of pointed segments.  It is the
-[~:.~  ~'~  species generally cultivated in Russia,
Sweden, and North. Germany, and two
varieties of it are grown in some parts
_~J<l[ 7<~      of Ireland, under the names of Oronooko
and Negrohead.  It is said, I do not
know upon what authority, to have been
/::.S ~y < imported to Britain from  America in
* 1570.  The variety cultivated in China
is still smaller than the one represented
in the above figure.
If this be really the species cultivated in western China, the argument
-    of Meyen loses much of its weight, and
the opinion that eastern Asia did not
derive the use of tobacco from America
ricotiana rusticaCommon green Tobacco. must rest chiefly on the general prevascale, 1 inch to the foot. lence and antiquity of the custom in
China.  Other late writers, indeed, dissent from  this
opinion, and consider that there can hardly be a doubt but
Botanical Geography (Ray Society), 1846, p. 861.




COMMON GREEN TOBACCO.                15
that tobacco was introduced into the different countries of
the East from  Europe, and by Europeans-(CRAWFORD).
Other considerations, however, which it would be out of
place here to discuss, incline me to regard its introduction
in this way as less certain than it appears to Mr. Crawford.
The truth may possibly be, that species of the tobacco
plant are native to Europe and Asia as well as to America,
and that only the custom of using them as narcotics was
introduced into Western Europe from the New World.
But whichever of these opinions we adopt in regard to
the East, still, one of the most remarkable circumstances
connected with the history of tobacco is the rapidity with
which its growth has spread, and its consumption increased,
in those countries to which we are certain that the use of
it came from America. In 1662, the quantity raised in
Virginia, then the chief producer of tobacco on the American shores of the Atlantic, was only 60,000 lb., and the
quantity exported from that colony in 1689 only 120,000
lb. During the 160 years which have since' elapsed, the
produce of this coast has risen to nearly twice as many
millions of pounds!
The- enormous extent to which its use has increased in
our own country, may be judged of from the fact, that
while in the above-mentioned year (1689) the total importation was only 120,000 lb. of Virginian tobacco, part of
which was re-exported, the consumption in the United
Kingdom is at present about 30,000,000 lb.! Thus the
quantity entered for home consumption in1851..            was    28,062,841 lb.
1852...,,  28,558,733 "
1853...            29,73,561"
And to this must be added the large quantity of contraband
tobacco, which the heavy duty of 3s. a lb. tempts the smuggler to introduce.




14               THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
That the consumption among us is still rapidly  on  the
increase, appears from the above numbers; but it is more
clearly shown by the following table, which exhibits the
quantities consumed at each of the last four decennial
periods:Years.    Total consumption.   Population.    Consumption
per head.
1821      15,598,152 lb.      21,282,960     11.71 oz.
1831      19,583,841,         24,410,439    12.80
1841      22,809,360,,       27,019,672     13.21
1851      28,062,841,,       27,452,692     16.86,, *
These  numbers  show  that, during the  last of these  periods of ten years, the consumption of the United  Kingdom
increased  one-fourth, or from   13~ to  17  ounces  per head.
But these last numbers do not truly represent the consumption in either of our two islands.   Great Britain, as in  the
case of tea and ardent spirits, consumes a much larger proportional quantity than Ireland does. Thus, in 1853, the
home consumption in the two countries wasGreat Britain.     Ireland.
Total consumption.         24,940,555 lb.. 4,624,141 lb.
Consumption per head... 19 ounces.. 12 ounces
-being  one-half greater in Britain than in Ireland.
The duty on tobacco is 3s. a lb., and its produce in the
United Kingdom was, in
Total duty.     Duty per head.
1852. ~4,560,742..   8S. 2d.
1853....  4,751,760.        8s. 4d.
In  Europe, generally, the  consumption  is restricted  by
the heavy duties imposed  upon  it   yet the consumption of
the United Kingdom is said to be less than that of most
* See an interesting paper by Mr. Crawford in the Jouz/ral of the Statistical
Society, xvi., p. 50.




~TOTAL PRODUCE OF TOBACCO.                    15
of the other European nations. In France it is about 18~
ounces-three-eighths of this quantity being used in the
form of snuff.  In Denmark, it amounted, in 1848, to,about
70 ounces, or 4~ lb. per head; and in Belgium it averages
at present 73~ ounces, or 43 lb. per head.'  These quantities are probably to some extent beyond the European
average.  But in some of the States of North Americathe
proportion greatly exceeds these quantities; while among
Eastern nations, where no duty is imposed upon tobacco, it
is believed  to be greater still.   Mr. Crawford  therefore
estimates the average consumption of tobacco by the whole
human race of 1000 millions at 70 ounces a head, and the
total produce and consumption of this favourite narcotic
at two millions of tons, or 4480 millions of pounds! t At
800 lb. an acre, this would require upwards of 5~ millions
of acres of rich land to be kept constantly under tobacco
cultivation. The comparative magnitude of this quantity
will probably strike the reader more forcibly when it is
stated that the whole of the wheat consumed by the inhabitants of Great Britain-estimating it at a quarter a-head,
or in round numbers at 20 millions of quarters-weighs
only 4} millions of tons.  The tobacco yearly raised, therefore,; for the gratification of this one form of the narcotic
appetite, weighs as much as the wheat consumed by ten
millions of Englishmen.  And reckoning it at only double
the market value of wheat, or twopence and a fraction per
pound, it is worth in money as much as all the wheat eaten
in Great Britain!
* Annutaire Statistiqzue Belge, 1854, p. 123.
t In New South Wales, where tobacco is free from duty, theo average consumption, by recent official returns is about 14 lb. per head of the population,-three
times as much as in Belgium. It is doubtful, however, if as large sums are now
anywhere spent upon this indulgence as there were in England in the time of King
James I., who says: " some of the gentry bestowing three and some four hundred
pounds a ycere upon this precious stink."




16           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
The largest growers of tobacco at present are the United
States of America.  Their annual production, at the last
two decennial periods of their census returns, was estimated in
1840.                         at 219,163,319 lb.
1850.......,    199,752,646,,
Being about one-twentieth part of the whole supposed produce of the globe.
2~. VARIETIES OF TOBACCO. —As many as forty species
of the tobacco plant have been enumerated by some writers.
The greater number of these are now, however, regarded as
varieties, though eight or ten distinct species are still retained, of which different varieties are grown in different
countries.  Of the Virginian tobacco (1V tabacum) fig. 56,
at least eight varieties are distinguished and named, and of
the common green tobacco (1. 9rustica), fig. 57, there are
probably as many more.
These facts possess an economical and chemical, as well
as a botanical interest; for, on the one hand, the quality
of the tobacco grown in the same locality, and in the same
circumstances, differs with the variety of plant cultivated;
and, on the other, the proportions of the chemical ingredients for which tobacco is distinguished likewise differ
with the species or the variety.
Other circumstances also affect those sensible properties for which tobacco is prized. The climate, the soil, the
mode of culture, the kind of manure applied, the period at
which the leaves are gathered, the way in which they are
dried and cured, the time they are kept in store, the distance to which they are carried to market,* and the process
* Well packed tobacco, like some wines, improves by a sea voyage. It undergoes by the way a species of fermentation, by which its flavour is mellowed. European tobacco is said to be much better when smoked in America than in its native
Europe.




VARIETIES OF TOBACCO.               17
by Oaitch they are prepared for use-all these circumstances
exercise a well-known influence upon the quality of the
leaf. These conditions being so varied, there can be only
few places in which they all conspire to the production of
the most valuable crop.  Hence, as is the case with the vine,
and with the tea and coffee plants, the localities which yield
tobacco in the greatest perfection are not only few in number, but generally very limited in extent.
The finest tobacco of America is produced in the island
of Cuba. That of the island of Luzon, in the Philippines,
from which the celebrated Manilla cigars are made, is nearly
equal to that of Cuba.  A fine but strong tobacco is produced in the province of Cadoe in Java, where it is grown
in a naturally rich soil alternately with rice, and without
manure. In Hindostan, a fine tobacco, known by the name
of Bilsah, is grown in the province of Malwa, and in the
province of Guzerat another fine variety, called Kaira. All
these are the produce of the Nicotiana tabacum.  In central Asia, the yellow tobacco of China and Thibet is peculiarly mild and agreeable, though, probably from its rarity,
the inferior tobacco of India, when carried to Lhassa, sells
as high as 30s. a pound-(HooKER). In western Asia, the
most prized tobaccos are those of Latakia (the ancient
Laodicea) in Syria, and of Shiraz in Persia.  The former,
like the Chinese tobacco, is the leaf of the N. -'ustica,
the latter that of a species called N. persica.  Thus the
finest tobacco has a wide range of latitude, though the districts in which it is anywhere produced are, as I have said,
very limited in extent. A warm summer appears to be
necessary to the production of a delicately-flavoured leaf.
That of temperate and cold regions is generally harsh and
strong, as if it abounded more in the narcotic ingredients
upon which the qualities of tobacco principally depend.
How very much the mercantile values of the tobacco of




18           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
different countries differ from each other, may be judged of
by the prices they bear as they are brought to the English
market. These are very nearly as follows:Canada..  4d. a pound.   Turkey... Os. 9d. a pound.
Kentucky. 6d.,,     Columbian.. Os. 10d.,,
Virginian.. 7d.,,  Cuba..  is. 6d.
Maryland.. 9d.,,   Havannah.. 3s. 6d.
St. Domingo.. 8d.,
The commercial history of Dutch-grown  tobacco is
somewhat curious.  In  the valley of Guelderland-the
Veluwe, as it is called-about two millions of pounds of
tobacco are raised. Of this nearly one-half is bought by
the French government for the supply of France.  In. that
country it is used partly for cigars, and partly for making
snuff. The rest of the Guelderland tobacco is shipped to
North America, and even to Cuba.  The fineness of the
leaf, and its freedom from thick fibres, make it in request
for the outer covering of cigars. In this case the market
value of the tobacco is independent of its general quality or
its chemical composition.  Chinese tobacco is equally employed for covering cigars.
30. FORMS IN WHICH  TOnACCO IS USED.  Tobacco is
used in nearly all countries for each of the three purposes
of chewing, smoking, and  snuffing.   The first of these
practices is in many respects the most disgusting, and is
now rarely seen in this country except among sea-faring
men.  On shipboard smoking is always dangerous  and
often forbidden, while snuffing is expensive and inconvenient,
and less perfectly satisfies the narcotic appetite.  If the
weed must be used, therefore, the form of chewing is more
excusable in the sailor.
In some of the southern and western states of North
America, chewing to an offensive extent prevails; and in
Iceland, according to Madame Pfeiffer, tobacco is chewed




TOBACCO IN  ICELAND.                         19
and snuffed C" with/ the same infatuation as it is smoked  in
other countries." The traveller in northern Sweden may
have observed  the  bunde  who accompanies or drives his
post-horses, putting a large pinch of snuff from time to time
into his mouth, thus applying to the wrong organ, as he
conceives, the finely-powdered leaf. An Icelander applies
the snuff to his nose, but in a peculiar manner.   " Most of
the peasants," says Madame Pfeiffer, "and even many of the
priests, have no proper snuff-box, but only a box made of
bone, and  shaped  like  a powder-flask.   When  they  take
snuff they throw back the head, insert the point of the flask
in the nose, and shake a dose of snuff into it.   They  then,
with the greatest amiability, offer it to their neighbourhe to his; and  so it goes round  till it reaches the owner
again."*
The  box described in  this passage is only a Highland
horn null, a little different in shape from those of modern
fashion.  The  Highlander lifts the powder to his nose with
a little shovel; the Icelander, using the small end of the
horn, at once pours it in. But among the Celto-Scandinavians of northern Britain, there is the same love  of the
powdered tobacco as in Iceland and northern Scandinavia,
and the same amiability in handing round the box as is seen
in  primitive  Iceland.   Are  these  not lingering  relies of
similar social customs, which still point to the ancient unity
and common origin of the three now disconnected peoples? t
* Madame PFEIFFER'S Visit to Iceland, London edition, p. 179.
t I insert, in the form of a note, a reference to a use of tobacco, of which I can
scarcely speak with confidence. It is said to be employed by unprincipled private
brewers, in some parts of England, for adulterating beer, and by porter-sellers to
adulterate porter. The country labourer who cannot afford of an evening to buy
more than a single glass of beer, desires something for his little money which shall
not only be tasty in his mouth, but also in a sensible degree affect his head. A few
tobacco leaves, introduced after the manner of hops, are said to give this quality to
the beer, and a little tobacco-extract to the porter. Several trustworthy persons,
who profess to know, assure me that such a use of tobacco is by no means uncommon.
How is it possible to protect the poor man against fraudulent persons, whom, by a
morbid craving, he encourages to conspire against himself




n20.         THE NARCOTICS WVE INDULGE IN.
The practice of using snuff is said to have come into
England after the Restoration, and to have been brought
from France.  The name of rappees (r'pCs), which we give
to our moist snuffs, is certainly of French extraction, and a
very large proportion of the tobacco now used in France is
in the form of snuff.
For the smoker and chewer, tobacco is prepared in various forms, and sold under many names. The dried leaves,
coarsely broken, are sold as canister or knaster.  When
moistened, compressed, and cut into fine threads, they form
cut or shag tobacco. Softened with molasses, or with syrup,
and pressed into cakes, they are called Cavendish or negrohead, and are used indifferently either for chewing or smoking. Moistened in the same way, and beaten until they
are soft, and then twisted into a thick string: they form the
pig-tail or twist of the chewer.  Cigars are made of the
dried leaves deprived of their midribs, sprinkled sometimes
with a solution of saltpetre to make them burn better, and
rolled up into a short spindle. When cut straight across,
or truncated at each end. as is the custom at Manilla, they
are distinguished as cheroots.
In preparing them for the snuff-taker, the dried leaves
are sprinkled with water, laid in heaps, and allowed to heat
and ferment from one to six months. During this fermentation a chemical decomposition takes place in the leaves,
and they give off at first nicotin and ammonia,* and afterwards water and acetic acid. They are then reduced to
powder, moistened with salt and water, and put into close
boxes.  Here they again heat and ferment.  This gives
them an agreeable ethereal odour and the well-known
pungency of snuff.  Rappees, or moist snuffs, are usually
* Ammonia is an invisible kind of til;, or gas, which gives its smell to the harts
horn (liquid ammonia), and to the common smelling-salts (carbonate of ammonia
of the shops. It consists of the two gases, nitrogen and hydrogen.




EFFECTS OF TOBACCO.               21
prepared from the soft part of the leaves.  Dried snuffs, like
the Scotch and Welsh, are made from the fibres or midribs.
The former are variously scented to suit the taste of the
customer.
The quality and flavour of the snuff are materially affected by the variety of tobacco used-by the part of the
leaf from which the snuff is formed-by the extent to which
the two fermentations are carried-by the degree of heat at
which the leaves are dried or roasted for dry snuffs-and
by the length of time during which they are exposed to this
heat. The kind of influence exercised by the fermentation
and roasting will appear, when I shall have described the
properties of the ingredients on which the activity of tobacco
upon the human system depends.
40. EFFECTS OF TOBACCO.-In whichever of the three
ways it is used, the effects produced by tobacco appear to
be much the same in kind; they differ chiefly in degree.
But, extensively as it is consumed, it is remarkable how
very few persons can state distinctly the effects which tobacco produces upon them —the kind of pleasure which the
daily use of it gives them —why they began, and for what
reason they continue the indulgence. If the reader be a
consumer of tobacco, let him ask himself these questions,
and he will be surprised how little satisfactory the answers
he receives will be. In truth, few have thought much on
these points-have cared to analyse their sensations when
under the narcotic influence of tobacco-or if they have
analysed them, would care to tell truly what kind of relief
it is which they seek in the use of it.
"In habitual smokers," says Dr. Pereira, a high authority in such matters, "the practice, when moderately
indulged, provokes thirst, increases the secretion of saliva,
and produces that remarkably soothing and tranquillising
effect on the mind, which has caused it to be so much ad



22               THE  NARCOTICS WE  INDULGE  I-1.
mired and adopted by all classes of society, and by all na.
tions, civilised and barbarous." * Smoked to excess, and
especially by persons unaccustomed to its use, it produces
nausea, vomiting, in some cases purging, universal trembling,
staggering, convulsive movements, paralysis, torpor, and
death.   Cases  are  on record of persons killing  themselves
by smoking seventeen or eighteen pipes at a sitting. With
some constitutions it never agrees; but both Dr. Pereira,
and  Dr. Christison, in  his Trecttise on Poisons, agree  that
"cno well-ascertained ill effects have been shown to result
from- the habitual practice of smoking." Dr. Prout, an
excellent chemist, and a physician of extensive medical experience, whom all his scientific contemporaries held in
much esteem, was of a different opinion. But even he expresses himself obscurely as to its being generally deleterious when moderately indulged in.t
The  effects of chewing are  of a  similar kind; but the
vapours which accompany the smoke of burning tobacco are
more penetrating, and act more speedily than the juice
which is squeezed from the leaf, as it is chewed, and occasionally  turned  over, in  the  mouth.    Those  of snuffing,
* fateria M~edica, third edition, p. 1431.
t I give Dr. Prout's own words: " Tobacco disorders the assimilating functions in
general, but particularly, as I believe, the assimilation of the saccharine principleSome poisonous principle, probably of an acid nature, is generated in certain individuals by its abuse, as is evident from their cachectic looks, and from the dark and
often greenish-yellow tint of the blood. The severe and peculiar dyspeptic syliptoms sometimes produced by inveterate snuff-taking are well known; and I have
more than once seen such cases terminate fatally with malignant disease of the
stomach and liver. Great smokers, also, especially those who employ short pipes
and cigars, are said to be liable to cancerous affections of the lips. But it happens
with tobacco as with deleterious articles of diet, the strong and healthy suffer comparatively little, while the weak and predisposed to disease fall victims to its poisonous operation. Surely, if the dictates of reason were allowed to prevail, an article
so injurious to the health, and so offensive in all its modes of enjoyment, would
speedily be banished."
Yet reason is not so certainly on Dr. Prout's side; for Locke says: " Bread ot
tobacco may be neglected; but reason at first recommends their trial, and custom
makes them pleasant."




EFFECTS OF TOBACCO.                 23
also, are only less in degree. The same influence of to.
bacco, which, when the quid or the pipe is used, promotes
the flow of saliva in the mouth, manifests itself, when snuff
is taken, in producing sneezing, and in increasing the discharge of mucus from the nose. The excessive use of snuff,
however, blunts the sense of smell, alters the tone of voice,
and occasionally produces dyspepsia and loss of appetite.
In rarer cases, it ultimately induces apoplexy and delirium.
It is chiefly because of " the soothing and tranquillising
effect it has on the mind," as it is expressed by Dr. Pereira,
that tobacco is indulged in.  And were it possible, amid
the teasing paltry cares, as well as the more poignant griefs
of life, to find a mere material soother and tranquilliser,
productive of no evil after-effects, and accessible alike to all
-to the desolate and the outcast equally with him who is
rich in a happy home, and the felicity of sympathising
friends-who so heartless as to wonder or regret that millions of the world-chafed should flee to it for solace! I
confess, however, that in tobacco I have never found this
soothing effect.  This, no doubt, is constitutional; for I
cannot presume to ignore the united testimony of the millions of mankind who assert, from their own experience, that
it does produce such effects.  Its influence, indeed, appears
very much to depend upon the constitution and natural
temperament of the consumer. Among Europeans this is
manifested chiefly by the difference of its effects upon different individuals, causing some to reject and avoid it, while
others constantly and eagerly indulge in it.  But in other
countries, as in North America, the effects it produces se.
parate, physiologically, entire regions from each other.
The States of intellectual New England and New York, for
example, taken as a whole, appear to dislike the use of
tobacco; at least there is a very large, thinking, and con
scientious body of men in these States, who are exerting




24           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
themselves to repress and suppress the use of the weed
and who even desire a legislative enactment to prevent it
The western and southern States, on the other hand, largely,
and almost universally, indulge in tobacco; and one cannot
travel from New York towards those States without coming
in contact with/the practices of smoking and chewing in
their most offensive forms. In the one region the mass of
thoughtful and religious men condemn the use of tobacco,
chiefly, I believe, on moral grounds; in the other region, a
vast majority of the mind, as well as almost universal practice, uphold and maintain it.#
These  are very interesting  physiological facts, well
worthy of calm study on the part of those whose feelings
will permit them  to look at the matter coolly, and whose
minds are capacious enough to take in and balance contradictory opinions and testimony.  Climate gradually affects
constitution and temperament.  It has so affected, I believe,
but in different ways, the two regions of North America to
which I have referred. Upon constitutions and temperaments so diversely altered the constituents of tobacco act
differently, and thus the broadest assertions, both of the
abusers and of the defenders of tobacco in the several regions, may be strictly true, though decidedly opposed to
each other, and entirely contradictory.t
Again, in New England, it is alleged as'a strong moral
argument against the use of tobaeco, that it provokes thirst,
and leads almost necessarily to excess in drinking, to frequent intoxication, and to all the evils which flow from  it.
This, which is sometimes alleged at home, and often with
truth, is singularly at variance with its reputed effects among
* In Russia, the Skarovierze, or " Old Believers," a very moral sect of dissenters
from the Greek Church, look with horror on the use of tobacce -(Dc LAGNY).
t There is much wisdom in the Irish form of equivocal assent to a doubtful asserionl: " Truefor yous "-meaning, " with my knowledge you would think differently."




EFFECTS OF TOBACCO.                 25
the Asiatic nations. Mr. Lane, the translator of the Arabian
Nights, says, that " being in a slight degree exhilarating,
and at the same time soothing, and unattended by the injurious effects which proceed from wine, it is a sufficient luxury to many who without it would have recourse to intoxicating beverages." Mr. Layard, whose intercourse with
Eastern nations has been most extensive, entertains the same
opinion; while Mr. Crawford, who has also seen much of
Eastern life, " thinks it can hardly be doubted that tobacco
must, to a certain extent, have contributed to the sobriety
both of Asiatic and European nations." *
These opposite facts form another interesting physiological study. In North America the smoking of tobacco
provokes to alcoholic dissipation; in Asia it restrains the use
of intoxicating drinks, and takes their place.  How complicated are the causes out of which these different effects
spring! Climate, temperament, bodily constitution, habits,
and institutions, act and react upon each other; and according to the peculiar result of all these actions in this or that
country, the same narcotic substance produces upon the mass
of the people, a salutary, a harmless, or a baneful effect!
Generally of the physiological action of tobacco upon the
bulk of mankind, and apart from its moral influences, it may
be received as characteristic of this substance among narcoticsFir'st, That its greater and first effect is to assuage and
allay and soothe the system in general.
Second, That its lesser and second, or after effect, is to
excite and invigorate, and at the same time give steadiness
and fixity to the powers of thought.
To what special action of its chemical constituents on the
brain and nerves, the soothing action and the pleasing rev* Journal of the StastittcaZ oSociety, March, I858, p. 2.
VOL. II.-2




26          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
erie, so generally spoken of, is to be ascribed, we can only
guess. According to Dr. Madden, " the pleasure of the reverie consequent on the indulgence of the pipe, consists in a
temporary annihilation of thought. People really cease to
think when they have been long smoking. I have asked
Turks repeatedly what they have been thinking of during
their long smoking reveries, and they replied,' Of nothing.'
I could not remind them of a single idea having occupied
their minds; and in the consideration of the Turkish character there is no more curious circumstance connected with
their moral condition." *
Is it really a peculiarity of the Turkish or Moslem temperament, that tobacco soothes the mind to sleep while the
body is alive and awake? That such is not its general
action in Europe, the study of almost every German writer
can testify. With the constant pipe diffusing its beloved
aroma around him, the German philosopher works out the
profoundest of his results of thought. He thinks and dreams,
and dreams and thinks, alternately; but while his body is
soothed and stilled his mind is ever awake. From what I
have heard such men say, I could almost fancy they had in
this practice discovered a way of liberating the mind from
the trammels of the body, and of thus giving it a freer range
and more undisturbed liberty of action. I regret that I
have never found it act so upon myself.
50. CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF TOBAcco.-The active
substances or chemical ingredients of tobacco or of tobacco
smoke, those by which all its varied effects are produced,
are three in number: a volatile oil, and a volatile alkali,
which exist in the natural leaf-and an empyreumatic oil,
which is produced during the burning of the tobacco in the
pipe.
a. Thze volatile -oil.-When the leaves of tobacco are
* Traves in T-srky, vo.. p. 1.




TOBACCO FIRST SOOTHES.                 27
mixed with water and submitted to distillation, a volatile
oil or fat comes over in small quantity. This fatty substance
congeals or becomes solid, and floats on the surface of the
water which distils over along with it.  It has the odour of
tobacco, and possesses a bitter taste.  On the mouth and
throat it produces a sensation similar to that caused by tobacco smoke.  When  applied to the nose, it occasions
sneezing; and when taken internally, it gives rise to giddiness, nausea, and an inclination to vomit. It is evidently
one of the ingredients, therefore, to which the usual effects
of tobacco are owing; and yet it is remarkable, that from a
pound of leaves only two grains of this fatty body are obtained by distillation. Upon such minute quantities of
chemical ingredients do the peculiar action and sensible
properties of some of our most powerful medicinal agents
depend!
b. The volatile alkali. -When tobacco leaves are infused
in water made slightly sour by sulphuric acid, and the infusion is subsequently distilled with quicklime, there comes
over mixed with the water a small quantity of a volatile,
oily, colourless, alkaline liquid, which is heavier than water,
and to which the name of nicotin has been given.  It has
the odour of tobacco, an acrid, burning, long-continuing tobacco taste, and possesses narcotic and very poisonous qualities.  In this latter respect it is scarcely inferior to prussic
acid, a single drop being sufficient to kill a dog. Its vapour
is so irritating, that it is difficult to breathe in a room in
which a single drop has been evaporated. The proportion
of this substance contained in the dry leaf of tobacco varies
from 2 to 8 per cent.*
So far as experiments have been made, the tobaccos of
* The reader may recollect the great sensation produced in 1851 by the trial of
the Comte de Bocarm6 at Mons, and his subsequent execution, for poisoning his
brother-in-law with nicotin.




28          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
Havanna and Maryland contain 2 per cent, that of Ken.
tucky 6, that of Virginia nearly 7, and that of France from
6 to 8 per cent. It is rare, however, that a hundred pounds
of the dry leaf yield more than seven pounds of nicotin. In
smoking a hundred grains of tobacco, therefore-say a quarter of an ounce-there may be drawn into the mouth two
grains or more of one of the most subtle of all known poisons.
For as it boils at 4820 F., and rises into vapour at a temperature considerably below that of burning tobacco, this
poisonous substance is constantly present in the smoke.
From the smoke of a hundred grains of slowly-burning Virginia tobacco, Melsens extracted as much as three-quarters
of a grain of nicotin; and the proportion will vary with the
variety of tobacco, the rapidity of the burning, the form and
length of the pipe, the material of which it is made, and
with many other circumstances.
c. 2The emzpyreumatic oil.-But besides the two volatile
substances which exist ready formed in the tobacco leaf,
another substance of an oily nature is produced when tobacco
is distilled alone in a retort, or is burned as we do it in a tobacco pipe.  This oil resembles one which is obtained in a
similar way from the leaf of the poisonous fox-glove (Digitalis puqpurea).  It is acrid and disagreeable to the taste,
narcotic and poisonous. One drop applied to the tongue of
a cat brought on convulsions, and in two minutes occasioned
death. The Hottentots are said to kill snakes by putting a
drop of it on their tongues. Under its influence the reptiles
die as instantaneously as if killed by an electric shock. It
appears to act nearly in the same way as prussic acid.
The oil thus obtained consists of at least two substances.
If it be washed with acetic acid (vinegar), it loses its poisonous quality. It contains, therefore, a harmless oil, and a
poisonous alkaline substance which the acetic acid combines
with and removes.  The nature and chemical properties of




THE JUICE OF CURSED  HEBENON.                      29
this alkaline poison have not as yet been investigated. The
crude oil is supposed to be " the juice of cursed hebenon,"
described by Shakespeare as a distilment.*
Thus three active chemical substances unite their influences to produce the sensible effects which are experienced
during the smoking of tobacco.  All three are contained in
variable proportions in the smoke of burning tobacco. The
form  and  construction  of the  pipe, among other circumstances, influence, as I have said, the proportion of these
ingredients which the smoke contains. Thus the Turkish
and Indian pipes, in which the leaf burns slowly, and the
smoke is made to pass gently bubbling through water, arrest
a large proportion of the poisonous vapours, and convey the
smoky air in a much milder form to the mouth. The reservoir of the German pipe retains the grosser portions'of the
oily and other products of the burning tobacco, and the long
stem of the small Russian pipe has a similar effect. The
Dutch  and  English  clay  pipes  retain  less;  the  metal
(bronze or iron) pipes of Thibet (fig. 58), by becoming
warm, bring still more of the constituents of the mild Chinese tobacco to the mouth of the smoker; while the  cigar,
* The effects, real or imaginary, of this "juice," are thus described' Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment: whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body:
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body." —amlet, Act i. scene v.




30           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
especially if smoked to the end, discharges directly into the
mouth of the smoker evFig. 58.             erything that is produced
by the burning.  Thus,
the  more  rapidly  the
leaf burns and the smoke
is inhaled, the greater
the proportion of the poiThibet pipe, tobacco-pouch and steel.   sonous substances which
The pipe is of brass or iron, often with an   iS drawn into the mouth.
agate, amber, or bamboo mouthpiece.  And finally, when the saliva is retained, the fullest effect of all the three narcotic ingredients of the smoke will be produced upon the nervous system
of the smoker.  It is not surprising, therefore, that those who
have been accustomed to smoke cigars, especially of strong
tobacco, should find any other pipe both tame and tasteless
except the short black cutty, which has lately come in favour
again among inveterate smokers. Such persons live in an
almost constant state of narcotism or narcotic drunkenness,
which must ultimately affect the health, even of the strongest.
The chewer of tobacco, it will be understood from the above
description, does not experience the effects of the poisonous
oil which is produced during the burning of the leaf, The
natural volatile oil and the nicotin are the substances which
act upon him. These, from the quantity of them which he
involuntarily swallows or absorbs, impair his appetite, and
gradually weaken his powers of digestion.
The same remarks apply to the taker of snuff. But his
drug is still milder than that of the chewer. During the
first fermentation which the leaf undergoes in preparing it
for the manufacture of snuff, and again during the second
fermentation, after it is ground, a large proportion of the
nicotin escapes or is decomposed. The ammonia produced
during these fermentations is partly the result of this decom



SNUFF MILDER IN ITS EFFECTS.               31
position.# Further, the artificial drying or roasting to which
tobacco is exposed in fitting it for the dry snuffs, expels a
portion of the natural volatile oil, as well as an additional
portion of the natural volatile alkali or nicotin.  Manufactured snuff, therefore, as it is drawn up into the nose, and
especially dried snuff, is much less rich in active ingredients
than the natural leaf. Even the rappees, though generally
made from the strongest Virginian and European tobaccos,
containing 5 or 6 per cent of nicotin, retain only 2 per cent
when fully manufactured.
I have already stated that in all the sensible properties
by which the unadulterated leaf of the tobacco plant is characterised, the produce of different countries and districts exhibits important economical differences. All such diversities in quality and flavour, in strength, mildness, odour,
&c., the chemist explains by the presence of the above-named
active ingredients, sometimes in greater, and sometimes in
smaller proportion; and it is interesting to find science in
his hands first rendering satisfactory reasons for the longestablished decisions of taste. Thus lie has shown that the
natural volatile oil does not exist in the green leaf, but is
formed during the drying; hence the reason why the mode of
drying and curing affects the strength and quality of the dried
leaf.  He has also shown that the proportion of the poisonous nicotin is smallest in-the best llavannah, and largest in
the Virginian and'French tobaccos.  Hence a natural and
sound reason for the preference given to the former by the
smokers of cigars, who receive directly into their mouths
all the substances which escape from the burning leaf. And,
lastly, by showing that both of the poisonous ingredients of
* Nicotin is one of those powerful vegetable principles which, like the theine of
tea and coffee, are rich in nitrogen. Of this element it contains 17 per cent. It is
from this nitrogen that the ammonia is formed during the decomposition described
in the text.




32           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
tobacco are volatile, and tend to escape slowly into the air,
he has explained why the preserved leaf, or the manufactured
cigar, improves by keeping, and, like good wine, increases
in value by increase of age.
As to the lesser niceties of flavour by which certain
samples of tobacco are distinguished, these probably depend
upon the presence of other odoriferous ingredients, not so
active in their nature, or so essential to the leaf as those already mentioned.  The leaves of plants, in respect to their
odours, are easily affected by a variety of circumstances,
and especially by the- nature of the soil they grow in, and
of the manures applied to them. Even to the grosser senses
and less minute observation of Europeans, it is known, for
example, that pig's dung carries its gout into the tobacco
raised by its means.  But the more refined organs and nicer
appreciation of the Druses and Maronites of Mount Lebanon
readily recognise by the flavour of their tobacco the variety
of manure employed in its cultivation. Hence, among the
mountains of Syria, and in other parts of the East, those
samples of tobacco are held in the highest esteem which
have been aided in their growth by the droppings of the
goat.
60. ADULTERATIONS OF TOBACCO. —But in countries
where high duties upon tobacco hold out a temptation to
fraud, artificial flavours are given by various forms of adulteration.  " Saccharine matter (molasses, sugar, honey, &c.)
which is the principal adulterating ingredient, is said to be
used for the purpose of both adding to the weight of the
tobacco, and of rendering it more agreeable to the taste.
Vegetable leaves-as those of rhubarb, the beech, and the
walnut-mosses, bran, the sproutings of malt, beet-root
dregs, liquorice, Terra japonica, rosin, yellow ochre, fuller's
earth, sand, saltpetre, common salt, sal-ammoniac * —such
* PrREIxA'5s lMateria lecdica, 3d edition, p. 1427.




TOBACCO EXHAUSTS THE SOIL.            33
is a list of the substances which have been detected in adul
terated tobacco.  How many more may be in daily use for
the purpose, who can tell? Is it surprising, therefore, that
we should meet with manufactured tobacco possessing a
thousand different flavours for which the chemistry of the
natural leaf can in no way account?
Snuff has its own special adulterations, among which hellebore, to provoke sneezing, is the most deadly.
As substitutes for, or admixtures with tobacco, the leaves
of different species of rhubarb, large and small, are collected
in Thibet and on the slopes of the Himalaya. The long
leaves of a Tupistra, called Purp'hiok, which yield a sweet
juice, are also gathered in Sikkim, chopped up and mixed
with the tobacco for the hookah-(DDR. HOOKER).  Other
substitutes for genuine tobacco have been adopted in other
countries, either from poverty or from taste.  As a substitute for tobacco snuff, the powdered rusty leaves of the
Rhododendron campanulatum are used in India, and in the
United States of North America the brown dust which adheres to the petioles of the kalmias and rhododendrons.
Ail these plants possess narcotic qualities. The Otomacs,
a tribe of dirt-eaters in South America, also make a kind
of snuff from the powdered pods of the Acacia niopo. This
snuff throws them into a state of intoxication bordering on
madness, and which lasts for several days. While under its
influence the cares and restraints of life are forgotten, and
dreadful crimes are perpetrated.
7~. TOBACCO AN EXHAUSTING CRor.-One other point in
the chemical history of tobacco, though not connected with
its narcotic influence upon the system, it may be proper here
to notice. I have elsewhere explained* that when vegetable
substances are burned in the open air, they leave unconsumed
a portion of mineral matter or ash. The leaves of plants
* See THEr PLAN4TS WE CULTIVATE.
VOL, II.-2*




34          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
are especially rich in this incombustible ash, and those of
tobacco are among the richest in this respect among cultivated leaves. The dried tobacco-leaf, when burned, yields
from 19 to 28 per cent of ash; or, on an average, every
four pounds of perfectly dry tobacco contain one pound of
mineral'or incombustible matter. It is this which forms
the ashes of our tobacco pipes and the nozzles of our burning cigars.
It is unnecessary here to describe in detail the composition of this ash, but I may remind my reader that all the
substances it contains have been derived from  the soil on
which the tobacco plant was grown, and that they belong to
the class of bodies which are at once most necessary to
vegetation and least abundant even in fertile soils. In proportion, therefore, to the weight of leaves gathered must have
been the weight of these substances withdrawn from the soil.
And as every ton of perfectly dry leaves carries off four to
five hundred-weight of this -mineral matter —as much as is
contained in fourteen tons of the grain of wheat —it will
readily appear, even to those who are least familiar with
agricultural operations, that the growing of tobacco must be
a very exhaustive kind of cultivation. IHe will see in this,
also, one main reason why tobacco plantations have in past
times gradually become so exhausted as to be incapable, in
many instances, of being longer cultivated with a profitwhy once fertile lands are now to be seen lying waste and
deserted-and why the fortunes of tobacco planters, even in
naturally favoured regions, have gradually declined with the
failing fertility of their wearing-out plantations. Upon the
Atlantic borders of the United States of America the bestknown modern instances of the effects of this exhausting
tobacco-culture are to be found. It is one of the triumphs
of the chemistry of the present century, that it has ascer
tained what the land loses by such imprudent treatment




TOBACCO EXHAUSTS THE SOIL.                  35
whatever crop is grown-what is the cause, therefore, of the
barrenness which befalls it-by what new management its
ancient fertility may be restored, and thus how new fortunes
may be extracted from the same old soil.*
* See the Author's Lectures on Agrioultrural Chemistry cnda Geology, 2d edition, p. 644.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
THE HOP, AND ITS SUBSTITUTES.
The hop; whence derived; when brought to England.-Consumption in the United
Kingdom.-Produce of Belgium.-Importance of the hop.-Beauty of the hop
grounds.-Management of the plant.-Properties which recommend its use in
beer.-Varieties of the hop cultivated in England.-Qualities of the Farnham,
K(ent, North Clay, and Worcester hops.-Differences in estimation and flavour.Soils on which they grow.-Chemical constituents of the hop flower.-The oil of
hops.-The aromatic resin.-The lupuline grains.-The bitter principle.-Physiological action of the hop.-Difference between ale and beer.-Bitter substances
used instead of the hop.-Cocculus indicus.-Singular qualities of this berry; its
use In adulterating beer.-Poisonous picrotoxin contained in it.-Narcotic substitutes for the hop in South America, in India, and in China.-The Heetoo,
/Keesho, and Taddo of Abyssinia.-The marsh ledum used in Northern Europe.Uise of the yarrow, clary, and saffron.
II. THE  HoP-Which —- may now  be  called  the  English
narcotic-was introduced  into  this country- ata comparatively recent period.   It- may have been  employed  in Ger-:
many in the times of the Roman writers, but was probably
unknown to them.  Its use, as an  addition  to malt liquor,
appears to  be of German  origin.   Hop  gardens, by  the
name of Humolarive, are spoken of in documents of the early
part of the ninth century, and frequently in those of the




CONSUMPTION OF THE HOP.                    37
thirteenth century. In the breweries of the Netherlands
the hop seems to have been introduced about the beginning
of the fourteenth century. From the Low Countries, or, as
some say, from Artois, which borders upon them, it was
brought to England in the reign of Henry VIII., some
time after his expedition against Tournay, and about the
year 1524. In the twenty-second year of his reign (1530),
that monarch, in an order respecting the servants of his
household, forbad sulphur' and hops to be used by the
brewers. Three quarters of a century later (1603) the introduction of spoilt and adulterated hops was forbidden by
James I. under severe penalties. This appears to show
that, though considerable attention is known to have been
already given to the cultivation of the hop in England, a
large part of the hops supplied to the home market was
still brought from abroad.
10. CONSUMPTION OF THE Hop.-At present, the hops
consumed in the United Kingdom are almost entirely of
home growth, and the consumption is very great. For the
last four years the quantities retained for home consumption, and the amount of duty t paid into the revenue,
amounted toYears.                   Consumption.         Duty.
1850,...... 48,267,158 lb... ~22,576
1851,...            26,188,906,,..   129,580
1852,.                  50,146,639,,..  244,866
1853,.....   80,949,590,,..  152,677
Average,.. 8,875,573,,..  189,425
This average is supposed to represent as large a quantity
of hops as is grown in all the world besides.  How different
a taste does this large consumption argue now from what
* This probably refers to the practice, which still prevails, of whitening or bleaching hops with fumes of sulphur, and which may not then have been so skilfully conducted as it is now.
t The duty is 18s. 8d. the cwt., and five per cent additional.




38          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
must have prevailed in the beginning of the seventeenth
century, when the city of London petitioned Parliament
against two nuisances-against Newcastle coals in regard of
their stench, and against hops in regard they would spoil
the taste of drink and endanger the people!*  The produce
of Belgium, which, for its population of 4} millions, is one
of the largest hop-growers in Europe, amounted in 1853 to
7,653,206 lb.
In Germany, Rhenish Bavaria and the Grand-duchy of
Baden grow much hops, and of excellent quality; but the
amount of the yearly produce I have no means of ascertaining.  Holland grows little, and supplies itself in part by
importations from the United States of North America.
In Russia, a variety of the hop grows wild in the Taurida,
the Ural, and the Altai, but the principal supply is said to
be imported from abroad.
The reason why the quantities retained for home consumption vary so much in the years above given, is that the
crop is a very variable one, and that the crop of plenteous
years is reserved to meet the demand of the less fruitful.
An average consumption of about forty millions of pounds is
very large; but the importance of this plant among the
narcotics in which we indulge appears more clearly, when
we compare the average consumption of it with that of
tobacco.  These are as follows:Hops, average consumption,..  88,875,578 lb.
Tobacco in 1853,....    29,737,561,,
8,638,012,,
The yearly consumption of the hop exceeds, by twosevenths of the whole, the home consumption of tobacco. It
is the narcotic substance, therefore, of which England not
only grows more and consumes more than all the world
besides, but of which Englishmen consume more than they
do of any other substance of the same class.
* See WALTER BLITn's EngliSh ImproVer Improved, 8d edition, 1658.




CULTIVATION OF THE HOP.               39
And who that has visited the hop-grounds of Kent and
Surrey.in the flowering season will ever forget the beauty
and grace of this charming plant?  Climbing the tall poles,
and circling them with its clasping tendrils, it hides the
formality and stiffness of the tree that supports it among
the exuberant profusion of its clustering flowers.  Waving
and drooping in easy motion with every tiny breath that
stirs them, and hanging in curved wreaths from pole to pole,
the hop-vines dance and glitter beneath the bright English
sun-the picture of a true English vineyard, which neither
the Rhine nor the Rhone can equal, and only Italy, where
her vines climb the freest, can surpass.
20. CULTIVATION OF THE HoP. —The hop "joyeth in a
fat and fruitful ground;" as         Fig. 59.
old Gerard wrote in 1596;
"it prospereth the better by
manuring."  And few spots
surpass, either in natural
fertility or in artificial richness, the hop lands of Surrey, which lie along the outcrop of what are called the
green-sand measures in the
neighbourhood of Farnham.
Naturally rich to an extraordinary degree in the nmineral food of plants, the soils
in this locality have been
famed for upwards of two
centuries for the growth of
hops; and with a view to
this culture alone, at the
present day, the best portions sell as high as ~500
an acre.  And the highest            The hop-plant.




40              THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
Scotch farmer-the most liberal of manure-will find him.
self outdone by the hop-growers of Kent and Surrey. An
average expenditure of ten pounds sterling an acre for
manure over a hundred acres of hops, farmed by a single
individual, makes this branch of farming the most liberal,
the  most remarkable, and  the most expensive of any  in
England.
This mode of managing the hop, and the peculiar value
and rarity of hop-land were known very early. They form
parts of its history which were probably imported with the
plant itself.   Tusser, who  lived  in  Henry  VIII.'s  time,
and in the reigns of his three children, in his Points of
IHusbandry thus speaks of the hop:"Choose soil for the hop of the rottenest mould,
Well-doonged and wrought as a garden-plot should:
Not far from the water (but not overfioune),
This lesson well noted, is meet to be knowne.
The sun in the south, or else southlie and west,
Is joy to the hop as welcommed ghost;
But wind in the north, or else northerly east,
To hop is as ill as fray in a feast.
Meet plot for a hop-yard, once found as is told,
Make thereof account as of jewel of gold;
Now dig it and leave it, the sun for to burne,
And afterwards fense it, to serve for that turne.
The hop for his profit, I thus do exalt:
It strengtheneth drink, and favoureth malt;
And being well brewed, long kep it will last,
And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast." *
3~. USES  OF THE  HoP.-The hops of commerce consist
of the female flowers and  seeds of the Humulus lupulus,
or common hop-plant (fig. 60). Their principal consumption
is in the manufacture of beer, and  they possess three prop.
erties which particularly fit them for this use. First, They
* Five Hundred Points of Good 2Htbandry. London edition of 1817, p. 167.




VARIETIES OF THE HOP.                 41
impart to malt liquors a pleasant, bitter, aromatic flavour,
and tonic properties. Second, They give them a peculiar
headiness, often confounded             Fig. 60.
with alcoholic strength, and
thus save to the brewer a
certain proportion of his
malt.  The soporific quali-    ""
ty of beer, also, is ascribed
in part to the narcotic quality of the hop.  Third, By
their chemical influence they
clarify  malt liquors, and
check their tendency to become  sour.   They arrest  
the fermentation at the alcoholic stage; and it appears, from the history of
the  art of brewing, that   zsmuts tpulus-The common hop.
-the  ar   fbhtThe upper is the male plant and flower:
beer which could be kept        the lower is the female flower.
for a length of time has only been manufactured in England
since the hop has been introduced.  " The ale," says Parkinson (1640),." which our forefathers were accustomed only
to drink, being a kind of thicker drink than beere, is now
almost quite left off to be made, the use of hoppes to be put
therein altering the quality thereof, to be much more healthful or rather physicall, to preserve the body from the repletion of grosse humours which the ale engendereth."
40. VARIETIES OF THE Hop.- Of the cultivated hop
there are many varieties; but in our principal English hopdistricts, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, only about five varieties
are extensively grown.  These areFirst. The goldings, grown chiefly in middle and east
Kent. They delight in a rocky, calcarcous soil, or a rich




42           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
friable loam. They thrive only in the most naturally fertile
kinds of soil.
Second. The white-bines are the favourites of Farnham
and Canterbury. They require the same description of soil
as the goldings, are very similar in their appearance and
growth, and have nearly the same value in the market. The
flower of the white-bines is considered to possess the most
delicate flavour, while that of the goldings is thought by
some brewers to have more strength.
These two varieties are most esteemed for the brewing
of pale bitter ale. They both require very long poles, and
on the average of years produce smaller crops and a coarser
kind of hop.
Third. The Jones's stand next in favour with the brewer.
They will grow on inferior land; and as they require very
short poles, and are pretty good croppers, they are in general favour with many growers in Kent.
Fourth. The grape has many sub-varieties, and requires
longer poles than the Jones's.  This variety delights in stiff
heavy soils, after thorough drainage, and produces very
heavy crops.  Hence its prevalence in the Weald.  It is
commonly used for the ordinary sorts of beer.
Fifth. The colegate is a smaller variety of hop than the
grape, but produces enormous crops in Sussex and the Weald
of Kent. It is often surreptitiously passed off in the market
as goldings; but is greatly disliked by the brewers on account of the rankness of its flavour. It is looked on by
many as the worst hop that is grown.
From the kind of soil on which they grow, these two
varieties are also known by the name of clay hops. Those
which are raised in the Weald of Kent and Sussex, should,
I suppose, be called south clay hops, as those which grow
on the stiff clays of Nottinghamshire are known in the market as the north clays.




VARIETIES OF THE HOP.              43
From this brief description of the more common varieties
of this plant, it will be understood that a great diversity of
flavour and quality must prevail among the hops, not only
of different districts, but even of the same county.  Thus
the county of Kent produces hops of various degrees of excellence, the best samples combining in an eminent degree
the qualities of flavour and strength.  The soils of this
county rest chiefly on the chalk, but partly, also, on its
south-west border, on the green-sand formation. Its northern part is covered by the tertiary beds of the London
basin; and it is around Rochester and Canterbury, where
the clays of these tertiaries and the porous chalks meet,
that the best Kent hops are grown. Inferior samples grow
on the clays of the Kentish Weald.
In Surrey, again, the hops of the neighbourhood of
Farnham have from time immemorial borne the highest price
in the British hop-market. They grow on the marly soils
rich in phosphate of lime, which are formed from the rocks
of the green-sand formation; and so much does their excellence depend upon the natural quality of the soil, that the
value of the crop changes sometimes on the mere crossing
of a hedge. The change of quality in the soil in this locality
is often sharp and sudden, and hence the equally sudden
change in the quality of the crops it produces.
The clay hops of Kent and Sussex are coarse and rank,
but those of the small district of Retford in Nottinghamshire, called the north clays, are preeminent in rankness.
They give a coarse flavour to beer, which is almost nauseous
to those who are unaccustomed to it. The stiff clays of the
county of Nottingham, on which these hops grow, lie in the
valley of the Trent, and are formed chiefly from the debris
of the new red sandstone, through which the Trent flows,
with admixtures from the coal measures, magnesian lime.
stone, and lias clay brought down by the feeders of the Trent




14          THE N RCOTICS WE INDULGE IN
Probably a more thorough drainage of this district would
improve the quality of its hops.
To those who are accustomed to the mild flavour of the
Kent hops, that of the north clays is almost nauseous. But
the Kent hops, again, are disrelished by those who have
been accustomed to the still milder flavour of the Worcester
hops.  These excel in this respect the best Kent goldings,
and are usually very taking to the eye. In practice, they
are found to ripen beer sooner than any other variety of hop.
They grow on the red soils of the vale of Severn, and, in
the opinion of beer-drinkers, possess a grateful mildness not
to be found in any other hops. Hence, in Lancashire,
Cheshire, and some other counties, where the taste for the
Worcester hops exists, even fine Kent hops would be rejected
as unsaleable. A nice Lancashire beer-drinker calls beer
hopped with Kent hops porter ale.  They do not answer,
however, for the best descriptions of malt liquour, such as
the pale ale, because they do not impart so fully the keeping
quality.
The red soils of Worcestershire are formed from the
debris of the new red sandstone, sifted and sorted by the
waters of the Severn. The traveller passes through part of
this hop region on his way from Worcester to Malvern. The
red soils of Hereford, on which also hops are largely grown,
are derived from the old red sandstone, and in mildness of
quality the hops they yield are, I believe, similar to those
of Worcester. Rich, open, and friable, these red soils so
far resemble those of Kent and Surrey, from which the Canterbury and Farnham hops are gathered.  The variety of
hop grown in this region differs, however, from those of
Kent and Surrey. It is supposed to be a descendant of the
Flemish red-bine.*
* The proportions in which these several kinds of hops are grown and used In




CONSTITUENTS OF THE H1OP.                   45
Thus the soil or locality in which they are grown, and
the variety raised, have much influence upon the flavour
which the hops will impart to beer. But besides these, the
time of picking, the mode of drying and curing, the care bestowed on the bagging, the place in which they are afterwards kept, and the length of time they have been gathered,
all affect the finer qualities of the hop flower. And, if to
these we add the numerous minute variations which occur in
the process of brewing, from time to time, even in the same
establishment, it will no longer appear surprising that a
very great variety of flavours should be given to beer by the
use of hops alone.
50. ACTIVE INGREDIENTS OF THE IHoP.-In  so  far as
such diversities of flavour depend upon the quality of the hop
itself —and not upon the quality of the water employed,
which much affects the flavour of beer-they are probably
due, as in the ease of tobacco, to the different proportions
in which the active chemical ingredients of the flower exist
in the several samples. These active ingredients, in so far as
is yet known, are three in number —a volatile oil, a slightly
aromatic resin, and a bitter principle.
a. The volatile oil.-When  hop flowers are distilled
with water, they yield as much as 8 per cent of their weight
England may be judged of by the amount of duty paid by those of each locality in
1852 and 1853.
1852.     1853.
Rochester..,     ~97,174    ~61,085
Canterbury....     52,746     883,628
Kent......    149,920       94,713
Sussoex...           68,654    88,668
Worcester...,      12,625    11,283
Farnham.....       16,811     6,909
North clays,...        942       225
Essex,...,                 1,200      807
Sundries,.                           210       69
~244,862   9152,6T4




46          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
of a volatile oil. This oil has a brownish-yellow colour, a
strong smell of hops, and a slightly bitter taste. In this
oil of hops it was supposed that a portion of the narcotic
influence of the flower resided. Recent experiments render
this opinion doubtful. The raw oil is a mixture of two
volatile oils, and sometimes exhibits narcotic properties.
When rectified, these properties disappear. It seems probable, therefore, that in the case both of tobacco and of, the
hop, a minute but variable proportion of a volatile narcotic
substance distils over along with the oil, and that to this
other substance the oil owes the narcotic qualities it sometimes exhibits. The nature of this volatile narcotic body
has not been examined.
The hop has long been celebrated for its sleep-giving
qualities. To the weary and worn, the hop pillow has often
given refreshing rest, when every other sleep-producer had
failed.  It is to the escape of the volatile narcotic ingredient above mentioned, in minute quantity from the
flowers, that this soporific effect of the hop is most probably
to be ascribed.
Upon the same volatile ingredient depends the odour
which is perceived in store-rooms where hops are kept, and
much of the aroma they impart to beer. It is owing to the
escape of this ingredient, even from the most closely-pressed
hops, that they deteriorate in quality so much by keeping,
as usually to fall one-third in value when upwards of a year
old.  By boiling in the wort, also, a portion of the same
delicate aromatic principle is driven off and lost to the beer.
b.:The aromatic resin.-When dry hop-flowers are beat,
rubbed, and sifted, a fine yellow dust separates from them,
which is equal in weight to about a sixth part of that of the
hops. This fine powder is sometimes distinguished by the
name of lupulin.  Hop-buyers talk' of it as the " condition"
of the hop. Under the microscope the powder is seen to




THE BITTER PRINCIPLE.                 47
consist of minute, somewhat transparent, grains or glands
of a rounded form, a golden-yellow colour, and a cellular
texture. By. drying they lose their round form (see fig. 61),
Fig. 61.       and when put into water they give
out an immense number of minute
globules.  The function of these orDried lupuline grains greatly ganised lupulinic glands, as a part of
magnified-showing
a. Granules in the interior.  the plant, is involved in much obb. The hilum or point of attachment to the flower. scurity.  They possess a strong agreeable odour, and a bitter taste.  When taken internally they
are aromatic and tonic. They soothe, also, and tranquillise,
allay pain, reduce the pulse, and in a slight degree provoke
sleep. Alcohol extracts from them, and dissolves out more
than half their weight of a reddish-yellow transparent resin,
which is slightly aromatic, but when pure is not at all bitter.
This is the aromatic resin of the hop-flower, of which it
forms one-twelfth part, or 8 per cent. by weight. What
share this resin has in producing the effects which follow
from swallowing the entire grains, is not satisfactorily
known.
c. The bitter principle.-Besides the resin, the little
grains contain 2 per cent. of a volatile oil, 2 per cent. of
tannin, and 10 per cent of a peculiar bitter principle. This
last is the best-known constituent of the hop, and gives bitterness to our beers. In the other parts of the flower, also,
there exists a bitter ingredient, upon which few accurate
experiments have been made.  The bitter matter of the
grains is said not to be narcotic, but what is its true action
on the system is not known. The tannin helps to clarify
the beer.
But though the specific action of each of the chemical
principles contained in the hop flower has not been very
well ascertained, the united action of all of them together is
well known.  The tinctures and extracts of hops which we




48               THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
use in medicine, and introduce into our beers, contain thelm
all, so that all the virtues of the  hop, in whichever of the
ingredients  it resides, are  present in them  in a greater or
less  degree.   Hence  well-hopped  beer is aromatic, tonic,
soothing, tranquillising, and in a slight degree narcotic,
sedative, and provocative of sleep. The hop also aids in
clarifying malt liquors, arrests the fermentation before all
the sugar is converted into alcohol, and thus enables them
to be kept without turning sour.
Ale was the name given to unhopped malt liquor before
the use of hops was introduced. This is alluded to in the
passage already quoted from  Parkinson, and in  the two old
lines"r ops, reformation, bays and beer
Came into England all in one year."
The words of Gerard, also, show the original meaning of the
two  words.   "The manifold virtues in hops do manifestly
argue the wholesomeness of beet' above ale; for the hops
rather make it physicall drinke, to keep the body in health,
than an ordinary drink for the quenching of our thirst."
When hops were added, it was called beer by way of distinction; I suppose, because we imported the custom from the
Low Countries, where the word beer was still in use.*
* This word is found both in the new and old dialects of the high and low
German, Dutch, and Flemish, in the form of bier. In France it is bidre, and in
Italy birra. In these latter countries it has superseded the old word cervoise, still
used in Languedoc; cervogia, still heard in Italy-both of which, like the Spanish
cerveza, are from the Latin cervisia, a word used by Pliny for a drink made from
malt.
In Anglo-Saxon it was beor; in new and old Norsk, bior; in Gaelic, beoir; in
Breton, ber or bier; and the Bretons are said by Tacitus to have made a sort or
wine from barley which they called baer.
But this word for the drink disappeared from England, and ale took its place, till it
was brought in again to denote hopped ale, a sense which it did not originally bear.
It disappeared also from the Welsh, whose name for beer is owrw. But though it
has penetrated into France and Italy, l1 is still the only word in use in Scandinavia.
The Scandinavian name, which prevailed among us after the Romans left, points,
like so many other relics, to the race which has chiefly predominated in the Island
since.




DEFECTS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE.             49
Ground ivy (e2epeta glechoma) called also alchoof and tunL4oof, was generally employed for preserving ale before the
use of hops was known.
To the general reader it may appear remarkable —per-'Aps he may even think it a reproach to science-that the
chemistry of a vegetable production in such extensive use as,he hop should still be so imperfect, our knowledge of its
aature and composition, and of the special physiological effects of its several constituents, so unsatisfactory. But the
well-read chemist, who knows how wide the field of chemical
research has become, how rapidly our knowledge of it as a
whole is progressing, and who endeavours in his daily studies
to keep up with that progress,-he will feel no surprise.
He must wish, indeed, to see all such obscurities and difficulties cleared away; but he will feel more inclined to thank
and praise the many ardent and devoted men who in every
country are now labouring in this department, and to encourage them in what they are doing, than to blame or reproach them for being obliged to leave a part of the extensive field for the present uncultivated.
The hop, as we have seen, is to be placed among the
most largely-used narcotics, especially in England.  It differs, however, from tobacco and the other favourite narcotics
to be hereafter mentioned, in being rarely employed alone
except medicinally. It is added to infusions like that of
malt, to impart flavour, taste, and narcotic virtues. Used
in this way it is unquestionably one of the sources of that
pleasing excitement, gentle narcotic intoxication, and healthy
tonic action, which well-hopped beer is known to produce
upon those whose constitutions enable them to drink it.
Other common vegetable productions will give the bitter
flavour to malt liquors. Horehound, wormwood, gentian,
quassia, camomile, fern leaves of different species, broom
tops, ground ivy, common gale, the bark of the box-tree,
VOL. II. -8




50            THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
dandelion, chicory, orange peas, picric acid, chirayta, the
poisonous strychnia,* and many other substances, have been
employed or recommended in England, to replace or supplant the use of the hop.  But none of these are known to
approach it in imparting those peculiar properties which
have given the English bitter beer of the present day its
high reputation.
It is interesting to observe how men carry with them
their early tastes to whatever new climate or region they go.
The love of beer and hops has been planted by Englishmen
in America. It has accompanied them to their new empires
in Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape.  In the hot East
their home taste remains unquenched, and the pale ale of
England follows them to remotest India. Who can tell to
what extent the use of the hop may become naturalised,
through their means, in these far-off regions? Inoculated
into its milder influence, may not the devotees of opium,
and the intoxicating hemp, be induced hereafter to abandon
their hereditary drugs, and to substitute the foreign hop
in their place?  From  such a change in one article of general consumption, how great a change in the character and
habits of the people might we not anticipate?
III. CoccULUs INDICUS can scarcely be classed among
the narcotics in which we voluntarily indulge, and yet it is
one which our humbler beer-drinkers involuntarily consume
to a very considerable extent. It is the fruit or berry of
the Anamirta, cocculus (fig. 62), a beautiful climbing-plant,
which is a native of the Malabar coast and of the Indian
* Strychnia is an intensely bitter substance contained in nux vomica; chirayta,
an intensely bitter plant from India; and picriO acid, an almost equally bitter substance produced by the action of nitric acid upon indigo. The latter two have only
recently been tried for giving bitterness to beer. The first is too poisonous for any
but very reckless people ever to recommend. It is so bitter that its taste can be de.
teeted when dissolved in 600,000 times its weight of water.




COCCULUS INDICUS.                   51
Archipelago. It is sometimes called the Levant nut, or the
Bacca   orientalis.                 Fig. 62.
It has some resemblance  to  the
bay berry, and in 
1850 was imported
into this country to
the extent of 2,359
bags, of one hundredweight   each.
-It is chiefly used for
adulterating  cheap
beer, and it is really
wonderful in  how
many ways this sin.
gular substance is %
fitted  to  aid  the
dishonest brewer in
saving  both  malt
and hops.  I mention  three  of its   Anamirta cocculus —The Cocculus indicus plant.
properties which offer temptations too strong to be resisted
by many unscrupulous people.
If the bruised seeds are digested in water, they yield an
extract which, when added to beer, produces the following
effects:First. It imparts to it an intensely bitter taste, and can
thus be substituted cheaply for about one-third of the usual
quantity of hops, without materially affecting the flavour of
the beer.
Second. It gives afulness and richness in the mouth,
and a darkness of colour, to weak and inferior liquors. In
these respects, a pound of Cocculus indicus is said to be
equivalent to a sack (four bushels) of malt. Or to a thin




52           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
brewing of beer, a pound of this drug will give an apparent
substance equal to what would be produced by an additional
sack of malt.
Thzird. It produces upon those who drink it some of the
symptoms of alcoholic intoxication, and thus adds to the apparent strength and inebriating quality of the liquor.  Like
hops, it also prevents second fermentation in bottled beer,
and enables it to keep in warm climates.
This array of tempting qualities causes it to be used
largely by some brewers, chiefly of the disreputable class, who
seek to gratify, at a cheap rate,* certain wishes and desires
of their customers. The use of it is forbidden by act of Parliament, under a penalty of ~200 to the brewer, and ~500 to
the druggist who sells it to a brewer. But an extract is prepared and sold, and there is reason to believe that it is
extensively used-(PEREIRA).  Some writers on brewing
give plain directions for using the drug; and the quantity
recommended by Morrice to the honest brewer (!) is 3
pounds of Cocculus indicus to every 10 quarters of malt.
By the dishonest, as much as 1 pound is sometimes added to
the barrel of 54 gallons, with Calamus aromaticus and
orris root to flavour it. If 1 pound really save 4 bushels
of malt, the 2,359 cwt. imported in 1850, if all employed
for this purpose, must have saved to the adulterators who
used it the enormous quantity of 1,056,000 bushels i
It is chiefly the humbler classes upon whom this fraud is
practised. The middle classes in England prefer the thin
wine-like ales and bitter beers. The skilled labourer prefers
what is rich, full, and substantial in the mouth; and the
poor peasant, after his day's toil, likes to find at the bottom
of his single pot what will sensibly affect his head. It is
thus chiefly among the working men that the heavy drugged
beer of the adulterator is relished and consumed; and it is
* It is sold at 19s. to 21s. a hundred weight, or 25d. a pound.




FRAUDS ON THE HUMBLER CLASSES.                   53
probable that something of the peculiarly beastly forms of
intoxication sometimes seen among these classes is to be ascribed to the influence of Cocculus indicus.
The effects which this substance produces are said, by
those who have drunk beer drugged with it, to be moro
upon "' the voluntary muscles than upon the intellectual
powers."* If so, a man under its influence may be surprised
by finding his body helpless while his mind is comparatively
clear, and still capable of reasoning and judging with tolerable correctness.  Others say, however, that its effect is
chiefly on the brain, so that its mode of action probably
varies in some degree with the constitution of the individual
who takes it.
In large doses it is poisonous to all animals, and a wellknown use of it is for the stupefying of fish.t Although,
therefore, its special effects upon the human constitution
have not been accurately ascertained by the scientific physiologists, the frequent use of Cocculus indicus, even in small
doses, can scarcely fail sooner or later to injure the health.
This poisonous quality is derived chiefly from a white
crystalline intensely bitter substance called picrotoxin,
which exists in the inner portion of the berry. The way in
which this poisonous ingredient acts upon the system is still
involved in considerable obscurity; but there cannot be a
doubt as to the moral criminality of introducing substances
of so dangerous a kind into the common drink of the least.
protected part of the people.
* PEREIRA, Arateria feedlica, 3d edition, page 2155.
t In India, the bruised leaves of Phyllanithus conami, and the capsules of the
Xanthophyllum hastile (LNDLEY), and on the Himalayas the seeds of the Chaubmoogra, and the fruit of the evergreen Took, or Hydrocarpus, are used for intoxicating fish —(looKER)). The bruised root of the ]?andia dumetorutm has a similar
effect-(RoxuaoRH). I am not aware that any of these is ever administered to man.
The Indians of South America use bruised Angostura bark to intoxicate fishes(HANCOCKo); and the Peruvians make the same use of Cinchona bark (SAUNDERS).




54           TIHE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
IV. OTHER SUBSTITUTES FOR THE HOP.- Other nar.
cotic substances more or less powerful are in different countries substituted occasionally for the hop. And, like Cocculus indicus, the most injurious of these substitutes are
generally introduced into the liquor without the knowledge
of the drinker. Thus10. In South America the bitter stalks of the Schinus
molle are mixed with the chica, which is prepared by chewing the sweet pods of the Prosopis algaroba.*  What is the
action of this bitter substance on the drinker of the chica is
not stated.
20. In India, when the raw cane-sugar (jaggery) is fermented with a view to the distillation of rum, chips of the
dried bark of the Acacia ferruginea or A. leucophlea, are
added to the liquor. It is supposed to act like hops in
moderating the fermentation, and probably gives a flavour
and other peculiar qualities to the rum distilled from it, but
it is not known to be added with a view to any narcotic effects. The rum itself is described by Buchanan as being
execrable.t
30. In China a kind of beer, called tar-asun, is made
from barley or wheat. In brewing this beer, a prepared hop
is added to the wort, which both causes fermentation and
performs at the same time the duties of the hop. Of what
this preparation consists my authority does not say.S
40. In Africa.-In preparing their hydromel, or mead,
the Abyssinians add to the solution of honey a portion of a
bark called heetoo. The leaves and fruit of the tree from
which this bark is taken are narcotic and poisonous. It is
probable, therefore, that the bark, which is described as bit* See THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT, p. 250.
t Joourney througAh the Mlysore, vol. 1, p. 89.; MOREWOOD On Inebriating Liquors, p. 120.




THE MARSH LEPUM.                      55
ter, astringent, and tonic, may also possess a portion of the
same narcotic virtue, and.impart it to the mead.
The leaves of a tree called keesho are likewise used in
Abyssinia for mixing with mead,* but it is not stated if they
possess narcotic properties.  Other travellers speak of a
root called taddo as being in common use among Ethiopian
tribes, as an addition to the mixture of malted barley and
honey of which their favourite drink is made. But nothing
is known of the chemical history of these and the other substances.
50. In Northern Europe.-The Ledunmz paluZstre (the
marsh leduvm, or wild rosemary),
fig. 63, a heath-plant common in
the north of Europe, was formerly
used in Sweden and North Ger-                
many for giving bitterness and
apparent strength to malt liquors.
Its leaves, when infused in the
wort, render the beer unusually
heady, so as to produce headaches,
nausea, and even delirium, when
drunk  to  excess.  In  Germany
the use of it for this purpose is
now forbidden by law.  Like Cocculus indicus  among  ourselves,
however, it is saidt to  be still
used  extensively  by fraudulent
brewers in the northern part of Ledumn palustre-The marsh Ledum, or Labrador Tea.
that country, to give a dangerous The undermost flower and leaf represent those of
intoxicating power to their beer.          reseatif The Labrador
Led.,, latifolibm-The Labrador
When and how shall the poor and    Tea, or broad-leafed Ledurn.
Scale, 1 inch to 2 feet.
the  ignorant find  shelter from  Leaves and flowers nearly natural
knowing fraud?                                sie.
* HARRTS's Highlands of Ethiopia.
t BEOCWITH'S History of Inventions (Bohn's edition), vol. ii, p. 885.




56           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
The Led~un latifoliunt possesses similar narcotic proper.
ties, and, where it occurs in sufficient abundance, is used instead of, or along with the palustre.
In North America, both these plants are known by the
name of Labrador tea, and are used as substitutes for
Chinese tea.  Both are very astringent; and, in addition to
the tannic acid to which this property is due, probably contain also a narcotic principle not yet examined. To this
narcotic principle both the qualities which fit these plants to
be used in cold climates as a substitute for tea, and those
which enable it to impart intoxicating properties to beer,
are to be ascribed. According to Dr. Richardson, the narrow-leafed L. palustre is the better suited of the two for
the making of tea.-*  Both plants would probably well repay
a detailed chemical examination.
The leaves of yarrow  or millefoil (Achillea millefolia)
have the property of producing intoxication. These are also
used in the north of Sweden by the Dalecarlians to give
headiness to their beer.
60  In Enigland, clary (SaZvia'sclarea) is said to give
an intoxicating quality to beer. Saffron, also, the dried
stigmas of the Crocus sativus, has a similar effect.  It exercises a specific influence on the brain and nerves, and
when taken in large doses, causes immoderate mirth and
involuntary laughter.  Its exhilarating qualities are so remarkable that it has been supposed to be the nepenthes of
Homer; and to denote a merry temper it became a proverb,
"C Dormivit in sacco croci " —(he has slept in a saffron bag).
It has the singular property also, of counteracting the intoxication produced by alcoholic liquors, as hops to some extent do. This was known to Pliny, who says that it allays
the fumes of wine and prevents drunkenness.  " It was
therefore taken in drink by great wine-bibbers, to enable
* Sp- Tu; BEVERxAGE WE INFUSE, P. 159.




THE MARSH  LEDUM.                           57
them to drink largely without intoxication."* Its effectf,
however, are very uncertain, and it is now little used in
medicine, and still less, I believe, for adulterating beer.
* For much more on saffron, see PHILLIPS' History of Cultivated Vegetatble
vol. ii, p. 180.
VOL. II. —3




CHAPTER XVII.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
THE POPPY AND THE LETTUCE.
The poppy, ancient and modern use of-Preparation of opium.-Mode of collecting.-How opium is used.-Effects of opium.-It sustains the strength.-Delightful
reveries produced by.-De Quincey's experience.-That of Dr. Madden.-Final
results of opium indulgence.-Seductive influence of opium.-Case of Coleridge.Impotence of the will under its influence.-Difficulty of giving it up.-Bodily and
mental tortures in doing so.-Extent to which opium is used.-Produce and consumption in India and China.-Consumption in Great Britain.-Its use as an indulgence in this country.-Drugging of children, and its effects.-Chemical constituents of opium.-Properties of morphia.-Little known of the true action of
opium.-Average composition of opium.-Varieties in its strength.-Proposed
opium culture in France.-Influence of the variety of poppy on the proportion of
morphia.-Morphia not so poisonous to inferior animals.-Dilution of opium in
India and Java.-Influence of race in modifying the effects of opium.-The Javanese, the Malay, the Negro.-Corrosive sublimate eaten with opium.-Effects of
opium compared with those of wine.-Is opium necessarily deleterious. —Dr. Eatwell's testimony.-Practical conclusions.-Substitutes for opium.-Bull-hoof-The
lettuce, lactucarium and lactucin; resemblance to opium in properties and physiological effects.-Syrian or Steppe rue; its uses in the East as a narcotic indulgence.
V. THE POPPY.-The use of the common white poppy
(Papaver somniferumn), fig. 64, as a  soother of pain  and
a giver of sleep, has been familiar from the earliest periods.
This is partly shown by the names poppy in English, and




COLLECTION OF OPIUM.               59
papaver in Latin-which are said to have been given to the
plant because it was commonly mixed with the food of young
children (pap or papa) to ease pain
Fig. 64.
and secure sleep. In this country,
the chief use of the poppy is as a
medicine.
In the East, however, it is used
as an exhilarating narcotic.  The
Tartars of the Caucasus, who, though
professedly Mahomedans, drink wine
publicly, make it very heady and.
inebriating, by hanging the unripe
heads of poppies in the casks while
the fermentation is going on.  A.
decoction of poppies, also called kokemaar, is sold in the coffeehouses of
the Persian cities, where it is drunk
scalding hot, and produces amusing      _,
effects.  As it begins to operate, the  M
drinkers quarrel with and abuse each
other, but without coming to blows; -     
and afterwards, as its effect increases,
make peace again.  One utters high-,
flown compliments, and another tells
stories; but all are extremely ridiculous both in their words and actions.a   o     m.
Pappaser somni/erum-Com
-(TAVERNIER).                         mon white Poppy.
1o. ~)  i       0PAA T'ON OF 0PIUSL —--   Scale, 1 inch to the foot
lo. PREPARATION OF OPIUM.
But it is the dried or concrete juice of the poppy head that
is generally and extensively employed as a narcotic indulgence. This dried juice is called by the Persians afioun,
and by the Arabs afioum, and hence our European name
opium.
This important drug is obtained by making incisions into




60           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN,
the capsules or seed-vessels of the poppy plant when they are
nearly ripe, allowing the milky juice which exudes to thicken
upon the capsules for twenty-four hours, and then scraping
it off.  The  incisions  are  made
Fig. 05.
downwards through the outer skin
v' i          only.  For this purpose  a  small
knife, called a Nushtur, is used,
which consists of three or four mi-.   nute blades fastened together (fig.
65).  These knives make as many
~-~-~   parallel incisions, which allow  the
2I..   )       juice freely to escape.
1. Poppy heads, showing the  The appearance of the poppy
parallel incisions.
2. Nushturs, or poppy knives. fields in Bengal, and the way in
which the dried juice is collected
Fig. 66.             by the natives, is repre________- _________      sented   in  fig.  66.
The best opium  of
- ______ _-_=_  commerce is a soft unctuous mass, of a reddish or blackish-brown
-    colour, a waxy lustre,
a  strong, disagreeable
i  odour, and  a  bitter,
acrid, nauseous  taste,
N   ~'which remains long in,: the mouth.  It is chief___"1 ~ ~ -~~7     ly collected in Asiatic!-~- - Turkey, in Persia, and
Indians scraping the dried juice from  in India.  The opium
the poppy heads.
which comes-from Smyrna is most esteemed in the European markets, while that
which is produced in India is the most extensively used in
Eastern countries.  The greatest yield of good opium  in




HOW  IT IS USED.                      61
our Indian possessions is stated to be 41 lb. per imperial
acre, and the average to be 20 to 25 lb.
2~. How  IT IS USED.-As a narcotic indulgence, opium
is used in one or other of three ways. It is swallowed in
the solid state in the form of pills; or in that of fluid tinetures, such as our common laudanum; or it is smoked in
minute pipes, after the manner of tobacco.  The first practice prevails in Mahomedan countries, especially in Turkey
and Persia; the second among Christian nations, when individuals happen to become addicted to the practice; the
third in China and the islands of the Indian Archipelago.
In preparing it for smoking, the Chinese extract from the
Indian opium all that water will dissolve. This is generally from one-half to three-fourths of the whole weight.
They then evaporate the dissolved extract to dryness, and
make it into little pills.  One of these they put into a short
tiny pipe, often made of silver, inhale a few puffs at a time,
or one single long puff, and return the smoke through the
nostrils and ears. This they repeat till the necessary dose
has been taken (fig. 67).
Fig. 67.
Opium-box, pipe, lamp, and needle.
The needle is put through two holes on the opposite sides of the pipe, the pill is fixed
on the middle of the needle, as seen in the figure, and immediately over the central hole of the pipe-bowl. The lamp is then applied, and the vapours sucked in.




62           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
At Singapore, the mode of using it is much the same as
in China.  " The opium  shops," says Captain Wilkes, " are
among the most extraordinary sights at Singapore. It is
inconceivable with what avidity the smokers seek this noxious drug at the shop-windows. They then retire to the interior, where a number of sickly-looking persons, in the last
stage of consumption, haggard and worn down with care, are
seen smoking. The drug is sold in very small pieces, and
for ten cents enough to fill a pipe once is obtained.  With
it are furnished a pipe, a lamp, and a couch to lie on, if such
it may be called. The pipe is of a peculiar construction.
and is in part of metal, having an interior or cup just large
enough to contain a piece the size of a pea. The opium is
aifficult to ignite, and it requires much management in the
smoker to obtain the necessary number of whiffs to produce
intoxication in one habituated to its use.  The couch is
sometimes a rude bench, but more often a mat on the floor,
with a small raised bench; and, in the frequented shops, is
generally occupied by a pair of smokers, who have a lamp
between them."*
In Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, the extract is not evapo-,ated to dryness; but, while still liquid, it is mixed with
rinely-chopped tobacco and betel till the whole is absorbed,
This is then made up into pills about the size of a pea. At
convivial parties a dish of these peas is brought in along
with a lamp, when the host takes the pipe, puts in one of
the pellets, takes two or three long whiffs, returning the
smoke through his nostrils, and, if he be an adept, through
his eyes and ears.  He then passes the pipe round the corn
pany, each of whom does the same with the same pipe; and
so they continue smoking till they are intoxicated.t
* UJnited States Explorilg Eaxpedition, vol. ii. p. 299.
t MARSDEN'S History of Sumatrce, p. 288.




SUSTAINS THE STRENGTH.              6r
30. EFFECTS OF OPIuI. —Used in any of the three
ways I have mentioned, its sensible effects are nearly the
same, varying, of course, with the quantity taken, with the
constitution of the taker, and with the frequency of its previous use. The essential and primary action of the drug is
upon the nervous system.
When taken in a moderate dose, the usual results of this
action are, that the mind is exhilarated, the ideas flow more
quickly, and a pleasurable or comfortable condition of the
whole system is experienced, which it is difficult to describe.
It thus acts in a similar way to our wines and spirituous
liquors, and it is chiefly as a substitute for these that it is
used in China.
It possesses, however, a wonderful power of sustaining
the strength, which is not found in alcoholic drinks, and of
enabling men to undergo fatigue and continued exertion under which they would otherwise inevitably sink. Thus the
Halcarras, who carry litters and run messages through the
provinces of India, when provided only with a small piece
of opium, a bag of rice, and a pot to draw water from the
wells, perform  almost incredible journeys.  The Tartar
couriers also, who travel for many days and nights continuously, make much use of it. With a few dates or a lump of
coarse bread, they traverse the trackless desert amidst privations and hardships which can only be supported under
the influence of the drug-(FORBES).  And hence travellers
in the Ottoman dominions generally carry opium with them
in the form of lozenges or cakes stamped with the Turkish
legend, " Mash Allah," the gift of God-(GuRIFFITH). Even
the horses in the East are sustained by its influence. The
Cutchee horseman shares his store of opium with his flagging steed, which thus makes an incredible stretch, though
apparently wearied out before-(BURNES).
The Turkish Theriakis, or opium-eaters, generally begin




64          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
with doses of from half a grain to two grains a-day, and
gradually increase the quantity till it amounts to 120 grains,
or sometimes more.  The effect shows itself in one or two
hours after it has been taken, and lasts for five or six. It
produces a high degree of animation, which the Theriakis
represent as the summit of happiness.
De Quincey took laudanum for the first time to dispel
pain, and he thus describes the effect it had upon him:" But I took it, and in an hour, oh, heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner
spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That
my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes. This
negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those
positive effects which had opened before me —in the abyss
of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a
panacea-a 0apylaKov vx7rEvOEs for all human woes. Here
was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had
disputed for so many ages, at once discovered! Happiness
might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a
pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach."
Dr. Madden describes more soberly his sensations when
under the influence of the drug in one of the coffee-houses
at Constantinople. " I commenced with one grain. In the
course of an hour and a half it produced no perceptible effect. The coffeehouse-keeper was very anxious to give me
an additional pill of two grains, but I was contented with
half a one; and in another half-hour, feeling nothing of the
expected reverie, I took half a grain more, making in all two
grains in the course of two hours. After two hours and a
half from the first dose, my spirits became sensibly excited;
the pleasure of the sensation seemed to depend on a univer
sal expansion of mind and matter. My faculties appeared




DR. MADDEN S EXPERIENCE.             65
enlarged; everything I looked at seemed increased in volume; I had no longer the same pleasure when I closed my
eyes which I had when they were open; it appeared to me
as if it was only external objects which were acted on by
the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure: in
short, it was! the' faint exquisite music of a dream' in a
waking moment.  I made my way home as fast as possible,
dreading at every step that I should commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet touching the ground; it seemed as if I slid along the street impelled by some invisible agent, and that my blood was
composed of some ethereal fluid, which rendered my body
lighter than air. I got to bed the moment I reached home.
The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my brain all
night. In the morning I rose pale and dispirited; my head
ached; my body was so debilitated that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all day, dearly paying for my first essay at
opium-eating. "X
These after-effects are the source of the misery of the
opium-eater.  The exciting influence of the drug is almost
invariably followed by a corresponding depression. The
susceptibility to external impressions and the muscular energy are both lessened. A desire for repose ensues, and a
tendency to sleep. The mouth and throat also become dry;
the thirst is increased; hunger diminishes; and the bowels
usually become torpid.
When large doses are taken, all the above effects are
hastened and heightened in proportion.  The period of depression comes on sooner; the prostration of energy increases to actual stupor, with or without dreams; the pulse
becomes feeble, the muscles exceedingly relaxed, and, if
enough has been taken, death ensues.
Of course all these effects are modified by the constitu.
* MADDEN's Travels in 24rkcey, vol. i. p. 25.




66           THE NARCOTICS'WE INDULGE IN.
tion of the individual, by the length of time he has accustomed himself to take it, and by the circumstances in which
he is placed.  But upon all persons, and in all circumstances, its final effects, like those of ardent spirits taken in
large and repeated doses, are equally melancholy and degrading.' A total attenuation of body," says Oppenheim,
"a withered yellow countenance, a lame gait, a bending of
the spine, frequently to such a degree as to assume a circular
form, and glassy deep-sunken eyes, betray the opium-eater
at the first glance. The digestive organs are in the highest
degree disturbed; the sufferer eats scarcely anything, and
has hardly one evacuation in a week. His mental and
bodily powers are destroyed-he is impotent."
And then, "when the baneful habit has become confirmed, it is almost impossible to break it off.  His torments,
when deprived of the stimulant, are as dreadful as his bliss
is complete when he has taken it.  Night brings the torments of hell, day the bliss of paradise; and after long indulgence, he becomes subject to nervous pains, to which
opium itself brings no relief. He seldom attains the age of
forty, if he have begun the practice early."
Dr. Madden thus describes what he saw of its effects
upon the confirmed Theriakis, as they are called, in the coffee-houses of Constantinople: " Their gestures were frightful; those who were completely under the influence of the
opium talked incoherently, their features were flushed, their
eyes had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression
of their countenances was horribly wild.  The effect is
usually produced in two hours, and lasts four or five; the
dose varies from three grains to a drachm. I saw one old
man take four pills, of six grains each, in the course of two
hours: I was told he had been using opium for five-andtwenty years. But this is a very rare example of an opiumeater passing thirty years of age, if he commences the prac.




COLERIDGE'S CASE.                67
tice early. The debility, both moral and physical, attendant
on its excitement is terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed,
every fibre in the body trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid: several of these I
have seen in this place at various times, who had wry necks
and contracted fingers; but still they cannot abandon the
custom; they are miserable till the hour arrives for taking
their daily dose; and when, its delightful influence begins,
they are all fire and animation.  Some of them compose excellent verses, and others address the bystanders in the most
eloquent discourses, imagining themselves to be emperors,
and to have all the harems in the world at command."
The seductive influence of opium, and the almost irresistible and domineering power it acquires over the minds
of its votaries, are not less wonderful than the mental happiness it confers during the exciting stage of its action on
the body. Of this power of seduction even over the less
delicate and susceptible organisation- of our North European
races, and of the absolute slavery to which it can reduce
even the strongest minds among us, we have two remarkable
examples in the celebrated Coleridge, and in the author of
the English Opiuzm-Eater.  For many years Coleridge was
a slave to opium, and the way in which he became addicted
to it is thus described by himself, in a letter dated April,
1814: —" I was seduced into the accursed habit ignorantly.
I had been almost bed-ridden for many months with swelling in my knees. In a medical journal I unhappily met
with an account of a cure performed in a similar case, by
rubbing in laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose
internally.  It acted like a charm-like a miracle.  I recovered the use of my limbs, of my appetite, of my spirits;
and this continued for near a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint returned, the supposed remedy was recurred to-but I cannot go through the




68          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
dreary history. Sufficient to say, that effects were produced
which acted on me by terror and cowardice of pain and sudden death"-and Coleridge became the slave of opium.
Subsequently, while living at the house of a friend in
Bristol, he put himself in the hands of a medical man; and
here the most melancholy part of his case exhibited itself.
For, while he was pretending to be gradually lessening the
dose under medical instructions, and while his friends were
congratulating themselves that he was absolutely cured, by
being brought down to twenty drops a-day, he was all the
while buying laudanum secretly, and drinking it in large
doses as before! How his moral sense must have been
overborne, and by how powerful a fascination, before he
could have stooped to a deception so degrading as this!
And how extreme his own misery and sense of impotence, when he could write of himself: " There is no hope.
O God, how willingly would I place myself under Dr. Fox
in his establishment; for my case is a species of madness,
only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me
rouse myself.  Go bid a man, paralytic in both arms, to rub
them briskly together, and that will cure him.'Alas!' he
would reply,' that I cannot move my arms is my complaint
and my misery.' "
And even greater misery he paints in another letter
written in the same year (1814).  " Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been attempting to beat
off pain, by a constant recurrence to a vice that reproduces it.
Conceive a spirit in hell employed in tracing out for others
the road to that heaven from which his crimes exclude him!
In short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and
hopeless, and you will form as tolerable a notion of my state
as it is possible for a good man to have."*
* COTTLE'S Early Recollections, vol. ii. p. 185.




TRIALS OF DE QUINCEY.               69
Coleridge lived twenty years after the above was written,
and conquered the evil habit. But after what struggles and
tortures, mental and bodily, who can tell? De Quincey also,
after seventeen years' use, and eight years' abuse, of the
powers of opium, shook off his slavery.  He has left us a
graphic and impressive sketch of the terrible trials and
temptations he had to withstand in finally abandoning the
drug.  " On the 24th of June, 1822," he says, " I began my
experiment, having previously settled in'my own mind that
I would not flinch, but' would stand up to the scratch' under
any possible'punishment.' About 170 or 180 drops had
been my ordinary allowance for many months; occasionally
I had run up as high as 300, and once nearly to 700': in
repeated preludes to my final experiment, I had also gone
as low as 100 drops, but had found it impossible to stand it
beyond the fourth day, which, by the way, I have always
found more difficult to get over than any of the preceding
three. I went off under easy sail-130 drops a-day for
three days; on the fourth I plunged at once to 80. The
misery which I now suffered' took the conceit out of me' at
once; and for about a month I continued off and on about
this mark: then I sunk to 60; and the next day to-none
at all. This was the first day for nearly ten years that I
had existed without opium. I persevered in my abstinence
for ninety hours-i. e., upwards of half a week.  Then I
took-ask me not how much.  Say, ye severest, what would
you have done? Then I abstained again; then took about
25 drops; then abstained-and so on."@
Under manifold pains, irritations, and distresses, some
of which he has described, he manfully, and for months, persevered, and finally achieved his liberty.  " I triumphed:
but think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were
ended. Nor think of me as of one sitting in a' dejected
* Confessions of a-et Englis Opium-Eater, Appendix.




70          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
state. Think of me as of one, even when four months had
passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shat.
tered; and much in the situation of him who has been
racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the affecting account of them by William Lithgow, the most innocent sufferer of the times of James I. Meantime, I derived no benefit from any medicine, except one prescribed
for me by an Edinburgh surgeon of great eminence-ammoniated tincture of valerian."
What a lesson does the experience of these two men
read to us!
Similar effects are described as resulting from the
smoking of opium in China. It appears to be very much a
matter of indifference, therefore, whether the drug be taken
in the solid form of pills, in the liquid form of laudanum, or
in the more subtle form of heated vapour. The smoke acts
more immediately than the other forms of the drug, but its
final effects are very much the same.
4~. EXTENT TO WHICH OPIUM IS USED.-It is impossible to arrive at anything like an approximate idea of the
quantity of opium consumed by the different nations of the
world.  Meyen asserts that the quantity consumed by the
Malays of the Indian Archipelago, in Cochin-China and
Siam, as well as in India and Persia, is so immense that, if
we could obtain an exact statement of it, the amount would
be quite incredible.  In India we know that at least six and
a-half millions of pounds of opium are annually bought by
the East India Company from the native growers, and manufactured into a marketable condition.  To produce this quantity will require upwards of 300,000 acres of land. It yields
a revenue to the Company of three and a-half millions sterling, and is for the greatest part exported.
But besides this, the quantity consumed in India itself
must be immense. The Rajpoots, and other Hindoo tribes,




CONSUMPTION IN CHINA.              71
present opium, at their visits and entertainments, with the
same familiarity as the snuff-box is presented in Europe(FORBES).  And in some districts, as I have already mentioned, it is even administered to the horses. Within the
Company's territories opium is given out with a permit to
licensed dealers, so that the quantity there sold is pretty
well known; but of the amount of the Indian consumption
beyond their territories we can form no estimate.
As to China, we know that, in the season 1837-8, it imported from India three millions of pounds, and the importation has probably increased considerably since that
time. To this importation must also be added the opium
which China receives by lands from the countries which border it towards the west.  The consumption of China at the
present moment is probably not less than four or five millions of pounds' weight, having a market value of as many
pounds sterling. In the same year (1837-8) India exported
about a million and a half of pounds to the islands of the
Indian Archipelago and other places.
The consumption of the United Kingdom is of course
trifling when compared with that of India or China; it is,
however, greatly on the increase.  Thus, the quantity imported into Great Britain was in
1839...         41,000 pounds.
1852....      114,000     "
Or it has increased nearly three times within fifteen years.
This implies either the application of the drug to new purposes, or a greatly increased demand for the uses to which it
was formerly applied.
AMuch uncertainty exists as to the extent to which the
use of opium as a narcotic indulgence, in any of its forms,
really prevails among our full-grown healthy adult populalation, either in town or country. According to De Quincey,




72             THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
opium-eaters were already numerous among us thirty years
ago. But those he mentions were either persons of talent
and eminence, whom the gnawings of indigestion drove to
opium as a stiller of pain, or poverty-stricken operatives in
Manchester and other large towns, who of a Saturday evening soothed their cares and stayed their hunger with a grain
or two of opium. And although the opinion is hazarded
from time to time that the practice of opium-eating is extending among the body of the people, and individual cases
occur now and then in which it is certain that the drug has
been largely used,* yet statistical data are altogether wanting to support the idea that the consumption of opium as a
narcotic indulgence is now, or is likely soon to become, a
national vice among  the inhabitants of any of the three
kingdoms.
Another form  of the  opium  evil, however, has been
shown, upon' unquestionable evidence, extensively to prevail.
In the large manufacturing towns of Lancashire it is a common thing for mothers who work in the factories to put out
their children to nurse, and it is equally common for the
nurses to dose the children with opium for the purpose of
keeping them quiet or of setting them to sleep. It was
stated by the Rev. Mr. Clay, that in the town of Preston
alone, in 1843, "upwards of sixteen hundred families were
in the habit of using Godfrey's Cordial, or some other
equally injurious compound,!'" and that in one of the burial
clubs in that town, sixty-four per cent. of the members die
under five years of age."t The obvious conclusion was,
* A child died, for example, from the effects of opium in September, 1853, at
Boxworth in Cambridgeshire, the mother because it was unwell, having placed a
little piece of crude opium in its mouth to suck. To the announcement of this fact in
the newspapers it was added, " that the mother and her family are all opium-eaters,
and, though labouring people, spend 4s. a-week on the drug 1" In my own frequent
visits to the rural districts I have never heard of the use of opium as an indulgence
in Scotland, and only in one country parish in the centre of England.
t First Report of the Commissionters of Inquiry into the State of Large Towns,
1844. Appendix, pp. 46, 48.




CONSTITUENTS OF OPIUM.              73
that the fatality among the children was connected with the
use of the drug.
A writer in the Morning Chronicle of the 4th of January, 1850, thus describes the effects which this use of opium
produces upon the health of the children: " The consequences of this system  of drugging are suffusion of the
brain, and an extensive train of mosenteric and glandular
diseases. The child sinks into a low, torpid state, wastes
away to a skeleton, except the stomach, producing what is
known as pot-belly. One woman said,'the sleeping stuff
made them that they were always dozing, and never cared
for food.  They pined away.  Their heads got big, and
they died.'
It cannot be denied, therefore, that in one melancholy
form at least, the evil effects of opium are to be seen
amongst us. And it is curious that this should be the very
form of drugging from which the poppy is said to have derived its name.  The diffusion of knowledge among the
mothers of the factory districts is one of the most likely
ways to remove this evil.
50.' CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF OPIUM.-In regard to
its chemical history, opium is probably the best known of
all the vegetable extracts or inspissated juices used in medi
cine. It has been the subject of numerous and elaborate
experimental and analytical investigations, and the results
of these fill many interesting pages in our newest systems
of organic chemistry.
How very complicated a substance even the purest opium
is, the general reader will infer from the formidable list of
peculiar principles which have been found in it. Besides
familiar substances, such as gum, mucilage, resin, fat,
caoutchouc, volatile oil, &c., it contains morphine, narcotine,
codeine, narceine, thebaine, opianine, meconine, pseudomorphine, porphyroxine, papaverine, and meconic acid-eleven
VOL. Ii.-4




74          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
peculiar organic compounds, which occur in greater or less
quantity in nearly every sample of pure opium!
Of all these, the most active is that now almost universally known under the name of morphine or morphia.  Of
this invaluable medicine the best qualities of opium contain
as much as ten per cent. It is colourless, void of smell,
and nearly insoluble in water, but possesses an exceedingly
bitter, unpleasant taste, and what are called by chemists
alkaline properties. It is powerfully narcotic and poisonous,
soothes nervous irritation, stills pain, and when taken in large
doses, imparts a remarkable itchiness to the skin. It is described by some as producing upon the system all the effects
of the natural opium. This, however, is not generally the
case.  Hence it has not, I believe, been anywhere attempted
to substitute this pure chemical compound-the chemical
composition of which is fixed, and the physiological effects
constant and certain-for the crude- and uncertain opium, in
the production of pleasurable excitement and gratification.
The reason of this obviously is, that the full and peculiar effect of the natural drug is due to the combined and
simultaneous action of all the numerous substances it contains.  Each of these modifies the effect which would be
produced by any one of the others taken singly-as the attraction of each planet modifies the course which would be
taken by every one of the others, were it the only one which
revolved round the sun.  It is from the result of all these
conjoined actions that the singular pleasure of the opium
consumer is derived.
At least three of the constituents of opium which have
been named above are known to be narcotic and poisonous.
These atre morphine, codeine, and thebaine. The codeine,
in doses of five or six grains, produces in some a state of excitement resembling intoxication.  The special action of the




COMPOSITION OF OPIUM.              75
other constituents upon the system is still unknown or undecided. Indeed, it is a remarkable thing in chemicophysiological history, that long as opium has been known,
extensively as it has been used, both as a medicine and a
luxurious indulgence, and numerous as are the opinions in
regard to its mode of action which have been promulgated
by medical authorities, we are still so unable to say -.what is
the true action of this drug, that, in the words of Dr. Pereira, "we shall save ourselves much time and useless
speculation by at once confessing our ignorance on this
point." So far does physiology appear still to lag behind,
where our chemistry is tolerably advanced.
It is, no doubt, the complicated nature of the problem
which renders the physiological solution so difficult. In the
crude opium, as I have said, nearly a dozen different substances are mixed up in different proportions and given at
once. The effects of such a mixture we can scarcely hope,
in all cases, satisfactorily to explain.
6O. AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF OPIUM.-The proportions
in which the several active ingredients are mixed up in the
opium of commerce varies much in different samples of the
drug. The country, or locality, in which the plant is grown,
the variety of poppy which is cultivated, the state of ripeness when the poppy-head is cut, the peculiarities of the season during which the sap is collected, the way in which it
is dried and afterwards prepared for market-all these cirumstances influence the proportions of its constituents, and
consequently modify the action of the mixed substance upon
the human system. The Smyrna opium is generally considered the best in the European market; but even in this
the active ingredient, morphia, varies from four to fourteen
per cent.
The mean of five analyses of Smyrna opium, made by




76            THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
Mulder give for this variety the following average compo
sition in a hundred parts:Morphine,.....    6.3
Narcotine,.......7
Codeine,.....   0.
Narceine,.                 9.0
Meconine,.                 0.6
Meconic acid,......     6.1
Fat,....    2.2
Caoutchouc,..                       4.5
Resin,......      2.7
Gummy extractive,..                 25.8
Gum,.....    1.7
Mucilage,......   18.T
Water and loss,....   14.5
100
Besides the substances above mentioned, five others,
thebaine, opeanine, pseudo-morphine, porphyroxine, and papaverine, are found in opium  in  small proportions.  All
these have been discovered since the period of Mulder's
analysis.
Of the above-named  ingredients, morphia being  the
most active, is also the most valuable, and, by the proportion in which it exists in the samples from different localities, determines very much their relative estimation in the
market.  Hence the best Indian opium  is inferior to the
Turkish. It never yields more than five per cent. of morphia; but it is richer in the less esteemed ingredient narcotine. The opium of Persia is equally poor in morphia.
These latter facts show that, though opium is chiefly collected and used in warm climates, yet that mere warmth of
climate, whatever may be its other effects on the white
poppy, does not alone cause the juice of- its ripening capsules to be rich in morphia. On the contrary, British and
German grown opium  has been found to contain more morphia than that of commerce, and opium collected in France




PROPERTIES OF MIORPHIA.             77
has yielded as much as 16 to 28 per cent. of this ingredient.
This large yield of morphia possesses in this part of the
world more of a scientific than of an economical interest,
since both the dearness of labour and the variableness of
climate in the British Islands are opposed to the idea of a
profitable cultivation of opium. It may possibly be otherwise in some parts of France. Recent experiments made in
that country are supposed to show that the variety of poppy
already cultivated there for its seed may be so treated as to
yield a harvest of opium at an expense which need not exceed one-fourth the market value of the drug obtained.
And as the seed which afterwards ripens uninjured, will
pay all the ordinary cost of culture, it is believed by many
that in the collection of opium there is the prospect of great
future advantage to the agriculture of France.
In this plant, as in tobacco, variety as well as locality
has an influence on the quantity of the active ingredients
contained in its sap. Thus opium collected in Germany
from  the white poppy (variety album) yielded only 7 per
cent. of morphia, while other samples collected from the
black poppy (variety nigrumrn) yielded 16~ per cent.
It is a singular circumstance in the physiological history
of morphia and its compounds, that, though so poisonous to
man, it can be swallowed with comparative impunity, and in
large doses, by apes, dogs, cats, hares, birds, and other animals. A full dose of morphia for a grown man is oneeighth of a grain; and of acetate or muriate of morphia,
one-fourth of a grain; but an ape has been known to swallow 500 grains of morphia in a single month. It passes off
harmlessly in the urine, which, in the case of the above ape,
sometimes contained as much as one per cent. of morphia —
(FLANDIN).
It is a curious physiological fact, that even in man the




78          THE NARCO1ICS WE INDULGE IN.
active narcotic ingredients of opium often escape in a sim
ilar way. Morphia has been detected in the urine, and
children have been poisoned by the milk of nurses who took
much laudanum.  This character the active constituents of
opium possess in common with many other narcotic principles, such as those of the deadly nightshade, the henbane,
the thorn-apple, the intoxicating fungus, and with many
other substances used in medicine.
In India the opium is given out for sale with a permit
to licensed dealers. But it is so much reduced in strength
by admixtures of various kinds before it reaches the retailers in the bazaars, that it does not possess one-thirtieth of
the intoxicating power of the natural drug —(HooxER).*
In Java, where it is also a government monopoly, it is sold
to Chinese dealers, who are bound to dilute it with tobacco
and betel in a prescribed proportion, which varies with the
quality of the opium, and to sell it thus reduced at a fixed
price. Thus prepared for consumption, it is known by the
name of tandou, and is extensively used. The opiumhouses are only allowed to be open in the day time, that accidents from quarrelling may be as much as possible prevented.
7~. INFLUENCE OF RACE AND CONSTITUTION.-This precaution is the more necessary in Java, because of the peculiarly exciting influence which opium exercises over the
Javanese, the Malays, and the negro races.
Although both Coleridge and De Quincey have given
such glowing descriptions of the action of opium in their individual cases, yet the British opium-eater in general is by
no means subject to the extraordinary excitement either of
body or of mind which these writers describe. The common effect, according to Dr. Christison, "is merely to re* Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 86.




EXCITABILITY OF THE JAVANESE.            79
move torpor and sluggishness, and to make the opium-con.
sumer, in the eyes of his friends, an active and conversable
man.*
But, as we have seen, the general effects of the drug in
Turkey and Persia, as related by travellers, are very different. And they are still more exciting in the Indian Archipelago, and among some of the African races.
"The Javanese," says Lord Macartney, "under an extraordinary dose of opium, become frantic as well as desperate.  They acquire an artificial courage; and, when suffering from misfortune and disappointment, they not only stab
the objects of their hate, but sally forth to attack in like
manner every person they meet, till self-preservation renders
it necessary to destroy them."  They shout, as they run,
Amnok, amok; which means, "kill, kill;" and hence the
phrase, running a-muck.  Captain Beekman was told of a
Javanese who ran a-muck in the streets of Batavia, and had
killed several people, when he was met by a soldier, who
ran him through with his pike. But such was the desperation of the infuriated man, that he pressed himself forward
on the pike, until he got near enough to stab his adversary
with a dagger, when both expired together.
On the Malays the effects of opium are described as being nearly the same both in kind and in degree. In reading
of them, one is reminded of the excitement which formerly
prevailed in a less fatal form at Donnybrook and other Irish
fairs, when an unusual dose of poteen had been administered
to the boys.
The influence of race, as it affects the physiological action either of substances introduced into the stomach, or of
ideas presented to the mind, is the same in kind as the influence of individual constitution. It is only greater in de* Treatise on Poisons, p. 721.
17




sO          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
gree, and startles us sometimes because of the extent te
which it appears exaggerated. The influence of constitution
is recognised and considered in every dose of medicine we
take or administer, and in the way in which good or evil
tidings are communicated to our friends. We more rarely
allow for differences of race in dealing with foreign nations,
or in criticising their behaviour and actions under given circumstances.
In the Malays and Javanese we have the excitable temperament, accompanied by the unrestrained outward forms
of expression, which are characteristic of Eastern nations.
What affects us Anglo-Saxons lightly or slowly, touches
them instantly, and penetrates deep. The emotions which,
when awakened, we are accustomed to restrain and hide,
they openly and vividly display, and by indulgence heighten
often to an overpowering degree. The Negro tribes partake
of a similar organisation.  "In this respect," says Mrs.
Beecher Stowe, " they have an Oriental character, and betray their tropical origin. Like the Hebrews of old, and
the Oriental nations of the present day, they give vent to
their emotions with the utmost vivacity of expression, and
their whole bodily system sympathises with the movements
of their minds. When in distress, they actually lift up
their voices to weep, and'cry with an exceeding bitter cry.'
When alarmed, they are often paralysed, and rendered entirely helpless." This susceptibility affects all their relations both to living and dead things.  Opium operates upon
different individuals among them  in different ways, as it
does upon the different individuals of European races; but
upon all of them it produces those more marked and striking
effects which, among ourselves, we only see in rare instances,
and in persons of uncommonly nervous temperament.
A singular illustration of the effect of mixed substances
upon the human constitution, when in a state of disease, is




OPIUM COMPARED WITH WINE.             81
presented in the use of a mixture of opium with corrosive
sublimate by the confirmed opium-eaters of the East. The
drug, in its usual form, gradually loses its effect upon the
habitual consumer, so that the dose must be increased from
time to time, if the influence of the drug is to be maintained. But at length, even this resource fails the inveterate opium-eaters of Constantinople, and no increase of
dose will procure for them the desired enjoyment, or even
relieve them from bodily pain. In this emergency, they
have recourse to the pernicious corrosive sublimate.  Mixing at first a minute quantity of this substance with their
daily dose of opium, they increase it by degrees, till they
reach the limit of ten grains a-day, beyond which it is usually
unsafe to pass. This mixture acts upon their long-tortured
frames, when neither of the ingredients, taken alone, will
either- soothe or exhilarate.  But the use of the new medicine only protracts a little longer the artificial enjoyment,
which has become a necessary of life, finally bringing to a
more miserable termination the career of the debilitated and
distorted Theriaki.
80. OPIUM COMPARED WITH WINE.- I have said that in
moderate doses opium acts in a similar way to our wines
and spirituous liquors, and that it is as a substitute for these
that the Chinese use it. By this I do not mean that its
physiological effects are precisely the same, although the
main purpose for which both are used by many —that of
care-dispellers —may be the same. On the contrary, there
are many points of difference in the effects which alcoholic
drinks and opium respectively produce.
The English Opium-eater thus enumerates some of the
points by which, according to his experience, their several
actions are distinguished: "Wine robs a man of his selfpossession; opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles
and clouds the judgment, and gives a preternatural bright,
VOL. I.- 4*




82          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
ness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the admi.
rations, the loves and the- hatreds, of the drinker; opium,
on the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all
the faculties, active or passive; and with respect to the
temper and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that
sort of vital warmth which is approved by the judgment,
tand which would probably always accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antediluvian health.... To sum
up all in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to
inebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition which
calls up into supremacy the merely human-too often the
brutal —part of his nature; but the opium-eater (I speak of
him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote
effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is
paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of
cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of the
majestic intellect."
This language of the Opium-Eater must be read with
that amount of allowance which we naturally concede to poetical writers, who aim at effect in the language they select,
and are not afraid of the startling and uncommon.
90. Is  OPIUM  NECESSARILY DELETERIOUS?-We have
been in the habit, in this country, of regarding the use of
opium in the way of indulgence as an unmitigated evil.
And although to accede to the highly-coloured eulogium of
Mr. De Quincey would be to rush to the opposite extreme,
yet it may perhaps be conceded that our attention has been
generally too much directed to the most dismal features of
the practice, and that we may have judged too hastily as to
its more general effects. Thus Dr. Burnes, long resident in
Cutch and at the court of Scinde, says, that " in general the
natives do not suffer much from the use of opium;" and
that it " does not seem to destroy the powers of the bcdy,
nor to enervate the mind, to the degree that might be




CHINESE EXPERIENCE.                83
imagined."  And as to the Chinese, Dr. Macpherson observes, that " although the habit of smoking opium is universal among rich and poor, yet they are a powerful, muscular, and athletic people, and the lower orders more intelligent,
and far superior in mental acquirements, to those of corresponding rank in our own country."
Among those also who have seen much of the use of
opium in Eastern countries, there are some who, so far from
pronouncing the practice to be an unmitigated evil, actually
prefer its general use to that of alcoholic drinks. Thus Dr.
Eatwell, of the East India Company's Service, whose knowledge of the history and action of opium is acknowledged to
be most extensive, writes as follows:" The question to be determined is not what are the effects of opium used in excess, but what are its effects on the
moral and physical constitution of the mass of individuals
who use it habitually, and in moderation, either as a stimulant to sustain the frame under fatigue, or as a restorative
and sedative after labour, bodily or mental? Having passed
three years in China, I can affirm thus far, that the effects
of the abuse of the drug do not come very frequently under
observation, and that when cases do occur, the habit is frequently found to have been induced by the presence of some
painful chronic disease, to escape from the sufferings of which
the patient has fled to this resource. That this is not always the case, however, I am perfectly ready to admit; and
there are doubtless many who indulge in the habit to a pernicious extent, led by the same morbid influences which induce men to become drunkards in even the most civilised
countries; but these cases do not, at all events, come before
the public eye. As regards the effects of the habitual use
of the drug on the mass of the people, I must affirm, that
no injurious results are visible. The people generally are a
muscular and well-formed race, the labouring portion being




84           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN,
capable of great and prolonged exertion under a fierce sun
in an unhealthy climate.  Their disposition is cheerful and
peaceable, and quarrels and brawls are rarely heard even
amongst the lower orders; whilst in general intelligence
they rank deservedly high amongst orientals.
"I conclude, therefore, with observing, that the proofs
are still wanting to show that the moderate use of opium
produces more pernicious effects upon the constitution than
the moderate use of spirituous liquors; whilst at the same
time it is certain that the consequences of the abuse of the
former are less appalling in their effects upon the victim,
and less disastrous to society at large, than the consequences
of the abuse of the latter."*
That the effects of opium-eating and opium-smoking in
China are not so melancholy as we have been accustomed to
suppose, and that, on the whole, they are not worse than
those which are produced among ourselves by fermented
liquors,-this is the substance of Dr. Eatwell's testimony;
and so far it is both interesting and satisfactory. But his
language is not laudatory like that of De Quincey. He
palliates the vicious indulgence, but says nothing which
should recommend the practice to his readers. The medical
missionaries to China inform  us that confirmed opium-consumers use daily from thirty to two hundred grains of the
pure extract, which is equal to twice as much as the crude
opium.t But were such cases very numerous, they ought to
come more frequently under the public eye than, from the
testimony of Dr. Eatwell, appears to be the case.
100. PRACTICAL CONCLUsIONS.-The true state of the
question in its practical bearings upon ourselves may be
summed up as follows:First, It is certain that opium, like spirituous liquors,
* Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xi. p. 864.
t Ten grains cost 22 cash, about one penny,




SUBSTITUTES FOR OPIUM.              85
produces most melancholy body-and-soul-destroying effects
upon those who give themselves up to its use as a narcotic
indulgence. If day brings them the bliss of heaven, night
brings with it the torments of hell.
Second, It is certain, also, that some can continue for
years to use it in small doses as a narcotic indulgence, without becoming slaves to it, or without appearing to be sensibly affected by it in their general health.
T'hird, But that it is of all indulgences the most wonderfully seductive, and is therefore a most dangerous substance to become familiar with. The infatuation sometimes
reaches such a point that the certainty of death, and of all
the fearful infirmities which in this case precede death, have
no influence on the victim. He coldly answers those who
warn him of his danger that the opium-happiness is beyond
compare-(POUQUEVILLE).
Fourth, That to give up the indulgence produces tortures of mind and body which make cowards and recreants
of the most resolute.  To this fact, the testimony of Coleridge and De Quincey has been already quoted.
Am I then-is the practical question each of my readers
will put to himself-am I possessed of moral and physical
courage, such as will enable mne to resist the fascinations of
this insidious drug, to give it to, or to withhold it from, myself: as may be most for my good?  Do those around me,
and who may be influenced by niy example, possess equal
self-control? The wisest, I believe, will hesitate to answer
these questions in the affirmative, and, for themselves and
those they love, will most anxiously shun the great risk.
VI. SUBSTITUTES FOR OPIUM.-Substitutes for opium
have been sought for and used in different countries.
10. Bull-hoof.-In Jamaica, the Muracuja ocellata, or
bull-hoof, has been called Dutchman's laudanum, because




86          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
certain parts of the plant are supposed to possess the same
virtues as the poppy.  The flowers are principally employed,
and when infused or mixed in the state of powder with wine
or spirits, they are regarded as a safe and effectual narcotic —
(BROWN).
2~. The Lettuce.-In Europe, the different species of
the lettuce (Lactuca) are capable, to a certain extent, of
supplying the place of the poppy. The juice of these
plants, when collected and dried, has considerable resemblance to opium.
If the stem of the common lettuce, when it is coming
into flower, be wounded with a knife, a milky juice exudes.
In the open air this juice gradually assumes a brown colour,
and dries into a friable mass.  The smell of this dried juice
is strongly narcotic, recalling that of opium. It has a
slightly pungent taste, but, like opium, leaves a permanent
bitter in the mouth. It acts upon the brain after the manner of opium, and induces sleep.
To this crude extract the name of Lactucariunz has been
given. Like opium, it dissolves in water to the extent of
about one-half, and in this soluble portion the narcotic virtue
resides. The principal active ingredient is supposed to be a
peculiar substance named lactucin, of which the crude extract contains about one-fourth of its weight.  It contains
other active ingredients, however-the chemical nature and
physiological influence of which have not as yet been rigorously investigated.
The lactucarium is one of those narcotics in which many
of us unconsciously indulge. The eater of green lettuce as
a sallad takes a portion of it in the juice of the leaves he
swallows; and many of my readers, after this is pointed out
to them, will discover that their heads are not unaffected
after indulging copiously in a lettuce salad.  Eaten at night,
the lettuce causes sleep; eaten during the day, it soothes




SUBSTITUTES FOR OPIUM.              87
and calms, and allays the tendency to nervous irritability.
And yet the lover of lettuce would probably take it very
much amiss if he were told that he ate his green leaves,
partly at least, for the same reason as the Turk or Chinaman
takes his whiff from the tiny opium-pipe-that, in short, he
was little better than an opium-eater, and his purveyor than
the opium-smugglers on the coast of China.
3~. Syrianr Rue.-The seeds of the Peganum harmala,
the Syrian or Steppe rue, are used by the Turks as a spice,
and as a red dye. But they are also eaten as a narcotic indulgence, in the place of opium and hemp. I do not know
to what extent this practice now prevails; but, according to
Belonius, the Turkish emperor Solyman kept himself intoxicated by the use of the seeds of Syrian rue.
The active virtues of this seed appear to reside in its
husk. From this husk Fritsche has recently extracted two
interesting peculiar principles, to which he has given the
names of Harmin and Ilarmalin.  The chemical properties
of these substances have been studied to some extent, but
their physiological action on the system has not been investigated. We are therefore still in the dark as to the immediate cause of the intoxicating effects of these seeds.




CHAPTER XVIIT.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN,
INDIAN HEMP.
The common European the same as the Indian hemp.-Its narcotic resin more
abundant in warm climates.-Mode of collecting the resin.-The Churrus or Kirs,
Gunjah, Bang, and alcoholic extract.-Forms in which the hemp is used.-The
Haschisch of Turkey.-Antiquity and extent of its use.-The nepenthes of Homer
an Egyptian drug.-The tombeki of India.-Origin of the word " assassin."-Use
of hemp in Africa and Americas-Effects of hemp on the system.-Sometimes
produces catelepsy.-Experience of M. Moreau.-Excitability produced by it.Errors of perception.-Its effects vary with the individual and with the race.Influence on Orientals greater, on Europeans less.-Experience of M. de Saulcy. —
Chemistry of the hemp plant.-Its volatile oil.-The natural resin and resinous
extract probably contain several substances.-Hemp compared with opium.Differences in their comparative effects.-Extent to which hemp is used.
VII. INDIAN HEMP.-Little is popularly and practically
know in northern Europe of the use of hemp as a narcotic
indulgence; yet in the East it is as familiar to the sensual
voluptuary as the opium treated of in the preceding chapter.
Our common European hemp ( Cannabis sativa), fig. 68,
so extensively cultivated for its fibre, is the same plant with
the  Indian  hemp (Cannabis  Indica), which  from   the  remotest times has been celebrated among Eastern nations for
its narcotic virtues. The plant came to Europe from Persia,




DISTRIBUTION OF THE HEMP PLANT.             89
and is supposed by many to be a native of India; but, like
tobacco and the potato, it has a wonderful power of adapting itself to differences in soil and        Fig. 68.
climate.  Hence it is now  cultivated, not merely on the plains of
Persia, India, and Arabia, but in
Africa, from  its northern  to its
southern extremities; in America,
all over its north-eastern states and
provinces, and on the flats of Brazil;
and in Europe, in almost every
kingdom and country. In northern
Russia it is an important article of
culture, even as far north as Archangel, and from  that region our
manufacturers have been accustomed to receive large supplies of its
valuable fibre.
In the sap of this plant-prob-   - 
ably in all countries-there exists
a peculiar resinous substance, in
which the esteemed narcotic virtue
resides.  In northern climates, the
proportion of this resin in the several parts of the plant is so small
as to have escaped general observation.  The whole  plant, indeed,
Cannabis sativa-The cultihas a peculiar smell, even when            vated hemp.
grown in Europe, which, though    Scale, half inch to a foot.
not unpleasant to every one, often gives headache and giddiness to persons who remain long in a hemp field.  This
probably arises from an escape into the air of a small quan.
tity of a volatile narcotic principle.
But in the warmer regions of the East, the resinous sub



90           TEIE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
stance is so abundant as to exude naturally, and in sensible
quantity, from the flowers, from  the leaves, and from the
young twigs of the hemp-plant. We have already seen that
climate modifies considerably the proportions of the active
ingredients contained in the dried leaf of tobacco, and in the
dried juice of the poppy.  The hemp-plant exhibits a still
more striking illustration of the influence of climate upon
the chemical changes which take place in the interior of living vegetables.  It grows well, and produces abundance of
excellent fibre in the north, but no sensible proportion of
narcotic resin. It grows d~ill better, and more magnificently, in tropical regions; but there its fibre is worthless
and unheeded, while for the resin it spontaneously yields it
is prized and cultivated.
10. MODE OF COLLECTING THE RESIN AND PLANT.-In
India the resinous exudation of the hemp-plant is collected
in various ways. In Nepaul it is gathered by the hand in
the same way as opium. This variety is very pure, and
much prized.  It is called momneea, or waxen chuzrrus.  It
remains soft, even after continued drying; has a fragrant
narcotic odour, which becomes strong and aromatic on heating.  Its taste is slightly hot, bitterish, and acrid, yet balsamic.  In Central India, men covered with leather aprons
run backwards, and forwards through the hemp-fields, beating the plants violently. By this means the resin is detached and adheres to the leather.  This is scraped off, and
is the ordinary churrus of Cabul. It does not bring so high
a price as the momeea.  In other places the leather aprons
are dispensed with, and the resin is collected on the naked
skins of the coolies.  In Persia it is collected by pressing
the resinous plant on coarse cloths, and afterwards scraping
the resin from these, and melting it in a little warm water.
The churrus, or:" kirs," of Herat is considered one of the
best and most powerful varieties of the drug.




FORMS IN WHICH IT IS USED.               91
The plant itself is often collected and dried for the sake
of the resin it contains. The whole plant gathered when in
flower, and dried without the removal of the resin, is called.
gunjah.  In this form it is sold in the markets of Calcutta.
in bundles about three inches in diameter, and containing
each twenty-four plants. The larger leaves and seed capsules separated from the stalks are called bang, subjee, or
sidhee. This form is less esteemed than the gunjah.* The
tops or tender parts of the plant, the flowers, and even the
pistils of the flowers, are separated, and when dried alone
are very powerful, and much esteemed.  The seeds, I believe, are never used as a narcotic indulgence. In some
medical works they are spoken of as cramp-stilling and painremoving; but if they really possess these virtues, it must
be in a very inferior degree; and they probably reside in
the husk,t and not in the body of the seed itself.
When boiled in alcohol the gunjah yields as much as
one-fifth of its weight of resinous extract, and hence this
method of preparing the drug in a pure state has been recommended as the most efficient and economical.  I am not
aware, however, that it is anywhere adopted in the East.
20. FonRs  IN WHICH HEMP IS USED. —Among the ancient Saracens and the modern Arabs, in some parts of
Turkey, and generally throughout Syria, the preparations
of hemp in common use were, and are still, known by the
names of haschisch, hashash, or husheesh.  The most common form of haschisch, and that which is the basis of all
others, is prepared by boiling the leaves and flowers of the
hemp with water, to which a certain quantity of fresh butter has been added, evaporating the decoction to the thickness of a syrup, and then straining it through cloth. The
* Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. i. p. 490.
- As is the case with the Syrian rue, Peganum harmala, described at the close oJ
the preceding chapter.




92          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
butter thus becomes charged with the active resinous primu
ciple of the plant, and acquires a greenish colour.  This
preparation retains its properties for many years, only becoming a little rancid. Its taste, however, is very disagree.
able, and hence it is seldom taken alone, but is mixed with
confections and aromatics-camphor, cloves, nutmegs, mace,
and not unfrequently ambergris and musk-so as to form a
sort of electuary. The confection used among the Moors is
called el m'ogen, and is sold at an enormous price. Dawa.
nese is the name given by the Arabs to that which they
most commonly use. This is frequently mingled, however,
with other substances of reputed aphrodisiac virtues, to enable it to administer more effectually to the sensual gratifications, which are the grand object of life among many of
the orientals.
The Turks give the names of hadschy malach and madjoun to the compositions they use for purposes of excitement. According to Dr. Madden, the madjoun of Constantinople is composed of the pistils of the flowers of the
hemp-plant ground to powder, and mixed in honey with
powdered cloves, nutmegs, and saffron.
Thus the Indian hemp and its products are used in one
or other of four different forms:First, The whole plant dried and known by the name of
gunjah; or the larger leaves and capsules dried and known
as bang, subjee, or sidhee; or the tops and tender parts of
the plants collected after. they have been in flower, and
which in some places are called haschisch; or the dried
flowers, called in Morocco kief, a pipe of which, scarcely the
size of an English pipe, is sufficient to intoxicate; or the
dried pistils of the flower as they enter into the composition
of the madjoun of the Turks. These several parts of the
dried plant, when newly gathered, have a rapid and energetic action.  Their efficacy diminishes, however, by
keeping.




ANTIQUITY AND EXTENT OF ITS USE.            93
Second, The resin which naturally exudes from  the
leaves and flowers, and is, when collected by the hand,
called momeea; or the same beaten off with sticks, and sold
by the name of churrus.
Third, The extract obtained by the use of butter, which,
when mixed with spices, forms the dawamese of the Arabs,
and is the foundation of the haschisch of many Eastern
countries and districts.
Fourth, The extract obtained by means of alcohol from
the gunjah.  This is said to be very active, but I am not
aware of its being in use in the East.
The dried plant is smoked and sometimes chewed. Five
or ten grains reduced to powder are smoked from a common
pipe alone with ordinary tobacco, or from a water pipe
(narghile'), with a variety of tobacco called tombeki.* The
resin and resinous extract are generally swallowed in the
form of pills or boluses.
30. ANTIQUITY  AND EXTENT OF ITS USE. —In one or
other of the forms above mentioned the hemp-plant appears
to have been used from very remote times.  The ancient
Scythians are said by Herodotus to have excited themselves
by "inhaling. its vapour."  Homer makes Helen administer
to Telemachus, in the house of Menelaus, a potion prepared
from the nepenthes, which made him forget his sorrows.
This plant had been given to her by a woman of Egyptian
Thebes; and Diodorus Siculus states that the Egyptians laid
much stress on this circumstance, arguing that Homer must
have lived among them, since the women of Thebes were
actually noted for possessing a secret by which they could
dissipate anger or melancholy.  This secret is supposed to
* The tombeki is said to be the leaf of a species of Lobelia. It is smoked
in a narghil6, and is exceedingly narcotic; so much so that it is usually steeped
in water for a few hours, to weaken it befcre it is used, and the pipe is charged
with it while it is still wet.




94          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
have been a knowledge of the qualities of hemp.  Undex
the name of beng it is also mentioned in the Arabian
Nights, translated by Lane, as the narcotic used by Ha.
roun al Raschid and other heroes of the tales.
It is curious how common and familiar words sometimes
connect themselves with things and customs of which we
know absolutely nothing.  The word assassin-a foreign
importation now long naturalized among us-is of this kind.
M. Sylvester de Sacy, the well-known orientalist, says that
this word was derived from the Arabic name of hemp. It
was originally used in Syria to designate the followers of
" the old man of the mountain," who were called Haschischins, because among them  the haschisch was in frequent
use, especially during the performance of certain of their
mysterious rites.  Others say that, during the wars of the
Crusaders, certain of the Saracen army, intoxicated with
the drug, were in the habit of rushing into the camps of the
Christians and committing great havoc, being themselves
totally regardless of death; that these men were known by
the name of hashasheens, and that thence came our word
"assassin."  The oriental term was probably in use long
before the time of the Crusades, though the English form
and use of the word may have been introduced into Europe
at that period.
Nor is the use of hemp less extended than it is ancient.
In the plains of India it is consumed in every form, and on
the slopes of the Himalayas, it is cultivated for smoking, as
high up as the valleys of Sikkim. In Persia, in the east
of Europe, and in Mahommedan countries, it is in extensive
use. In Northern Africa it is largely employed by the
Moors. In central and tropical Africa it is almost everywhere known as a powerful medicine and a desired indulgence.. In Southern Africa the Hottentots use it under the
name of dacha, for purposes of intoxication; and when the




EFFECTS OF' THE HEMP RESIN.             95
Bushmen were in London, they smoked the dried plant in
short pipes made of the tusks or teeth of animals. And
what is more astonishing, when we consider the broad seas
which intervene, even the native Indians of Brazil know its
value, and delight in its use; so that over the hotter parts
of the globe generally, wherever the plant produces in
abundance its peculiar narcotic principle, its virtues may be
said to be known, and more or less extensively made use of.*
40. EFFECTS OF HEMP ON THE SYSTEM.-This wide use
of the plant implies that the effects of hemp upon the system are generally very agreeable.  In India it is spoken of
as the increaser of pleasure, the exciter of desire, the
cementer of friendship, the laughter-mover, and the causer
of the reeling gait,-all epithets indicative of its peculiar
effects.  Linnemus describes its power as' narcotica, phantastica, dementens, anodyna et repellens;'  while in the
words of Endlicher, "Emollitum  exhilarat animum, impotentibus desideriis tristem, stultam  laetitiam  provocat, et
jucundissima somniorum coneiliat phantasmata."
a. The effects of the churrus or natural resin have been
carefully studied in India by Dr. O'Shaughnessy. He states
that when taken in moderation it produces increase of appetite and great mental cheerfulness, while in excess it causes
a peculiar kind of delirium and catalepsy. This last effect
is very remarkable, and we quote his description of the results of one of his experiments with what is considered a
large dose for an Indian patient:"' At two P.M. a grain of the resin of hemp was given to
a rheumatic patient; at four P.M. he was very talkative,
sang, called loudly for an extra supply of food, and declared
himself in perfect health. At six P.M. he was asleep. At
eight P.M. he was found insensible, but breathing with perfect regularity. His pulse and skin were natural, and the




96          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE- IN.
pupils freely contracted on the approach of light. Happen
ing by chance to lift up the patient's arm, the professional
reader will judge of my astonishment when I found it remained in the posture in which I placed it. It required
but a very brief examination of the limbs to find that by
the influence of this narcotic the patient had been thrown
into the strangest and most extraordinary of all nervous conditions, which so few have seen, and the existence of which
so many still discredit-the genuine catalepsy of the nosologist. We raised him to a sitting posture, and placed his
arms and limbs in every imaginable attitude.  A waxen figure could not be more pliant or more stationary in each position, no matter how contrary to the natural influence of
gravity on the part! To all impressions he was meanwhile
almost insensible."
This extraordinary influence he subsequently found to
be exercised by the hemp extract upon other animals as well
as upon man. After a time it passes off entirely, leaving
the patient altogether uninjured.
In this effect of the hemp in India we see a counterpart
of many of the wonderful feats performed by the fakeers
and other religious devotees of that country. It indicates
probably the true means also by which they are enabled to
produce them.
How much power a little knowledge gives to the dishonest and designing of every country, over the ignorant
and unsuspecting masses!
b. Again, the effects of the haschischl of the Arabians,
which probably differ little from those of hemp taken in any
of its forms, have been described to us from his own personal experience by a French physician, M. Moreau.  When
taken in small doses, its effect, he says, is simply to produce
a moderate exhilaration of spirits, or at most a tendency to
unseasonable laughter. Taken in doses sufficient to induce




HAPPINESS PRODUCED BY IT.              97
thefantasia, as its more remarkable effects are called in the
Levant, its first influence is the same as when taken in a
small dose; but this is followed by an intense feeling of
happiness, which attends all the operations of the mind.
The sun shines upon every thought that passes through the
brain, and every movement of the body is a source of enjoyment.  M. Moreau made many experiments with it upon his
own person-appears indeed to-have fallen into the habit of
using it even after his return to France-and he describes
and reasons upon its effects as follows:"It is really happiness which is produced by the
haschisch; and by this I mean an enjoyment entirely moral,
and by no means sensual, as might be supposed. This is a
very curious circumstance, and some remarkable inferences
might be drawn from it...... For the haschischeater is happy, not like the gourmand, or the famishing man
when satisfying his appetite, or the voluptuary in the gratification of his amative desires-but like him who hears
tidings which fill him with joy, or like the miser counting
his treasures, the gambler who is successful at play, or the
ambitious man who is intoxicated with success."'
This glowing description of the effects of the haschisch,
though given by one who had often used it, is on that very
account, like the pictures of the opium-eater, open to suspicion.  We feel as if it were intended as a kind of excuse or justification of the indulgence on the part of the
writer.
When first it begins to act, the peculiar effects of the
haschisch may be considerably diminished, or altogether
checked, by a firm exertion of the will, "just as we master
the passion of anger by a strong voluntary effort." By degrees, however, the power of controlling at will and directing the thoughts diminishes, till finally all power of fixing
the -attention is lost, and the mind becomes the sport of
VOL. II.-5




98          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
every idea which either arises within itself, or is forced upon
it from without.
" We become the sport of impressions of every kind.
The course of our ideas may be broken by the slightest
cause. We are turned, so to speak, by every wind. By a
word or a gesture, our thoughts may be successively directed
to a multitude of different subjects with a rapidity and lucidity which are truly marvellous. The mind becomes possessed with a feeling of pride, corresponding to the exaltation of its faculties, which it is conscious have increased in
energy and power. The slightest impulse carries it along.
Hence those who make use of the haschisch in the East,
when they wish to give themselves up to the intoxication of
the fantasia, withdraw themselves carefully from everything which could give to their delirium a tendency to melancholy, or excite anything but feelings of pleasurable enjoyment.  They profit by all the means which the dissolute
manners of the East place at their disposal. It is in the
midst of the harem, surrounded by their women, under the
charm of music and of lascivious dances performed by the
almees, that they enjoy the intoxicating dawamese; and,
with the aid of superstition, they find themselves almost
transported to the scene of the numberless marvels which
the Prophet has collected in his paradise."
The errors of perception, in regard to time and place, to
which the patient is liable during the period of fantasia, are
remarkable. Minutes seem hours, and hours are prolonged
into years, till at last all idea of time seems obliterated, and
the past and the present are confounded together. Every
notion, in this curious condition, seems to partake of a cer
tain degree of exaggeration.  One evening M. Moreau was
traversing the passage of the opera when under the influence
of a moderate dose of haschisch. He had made -but a few
steps when it seemed to him as if he had been there for two




EFFECTS PRODUCED BY IT.              99
or three hours; and as he advanced, the passage seemed
interminable, its extremity receding as he pressed forward.
The effect produced by hemp in its different forms
varies, like that of opium, both in kind and in degree, with
the race of men who use it, and with the individual to whom
it is administered. Upon orientals, its general effect is of
an agreeable and cheerful character, exciting them to laugh,
dance, and sing, and to commit various extravagances-acting as an aphrodisiac, and increasing the appetite for food.
Some, however, it renders excitable and quarrelsome, and
disposes to acts of violence. It is from the extravagant
behaviour of individuals of this latter temperament that the
use and meaning of our word assassin have most probably
arisen. It is from such effects of this substance also that
we obtain a solution of the extravagances and barbarous
cruelties which we read of as practised occasionally by
Eastern despots.
Yet, -even among orientals, according to Dr. Moreau,
there are some on whom the drug produces no effect whatever-upon whom, at least, doses are powerless which are
usually followed by well-marked'phenomena. As is the
case with opium, long use also makes larger doses necessary.
To some even a drachm of the churrus becomes a moderate
dose, though sufficient to operate upon twenty ordinary men.
Upon Europeans generally, at least in Europe, its effects
have been found to be considerably less in degree than upon
orientals.  In India Dr. O'Shaughnessy had seen marked
effects from half a grain of the extract, or even less, and
had been accustomed to consider one grain and a half a large
dose; in England he had given ten or twelve or more grains,
to produce the desired effect."* In kind, also, its effects
upon Europeans differ somewhat from those produced upon
Asiatics. It has never been known, for example, to produce
* PERERIA, iateria Medica, p. 1242.




100         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
that remarkable cataleptic state, described in a previous
page as having been observed in India even from a comparatively small dose of the hemp extract; nor, so far as I am
aware, has it ever obtained a footing in any part of Europe
as a narcotic indulgence.
It requires, indeed, a long and gradual training to its
use before its boasted effects can be fully experienced, and
this fortunately is not attempted yet in Europe. While in
Jerusalem, M. de Saulcy, with the view of passing pleasantly a tedious evening, indulged himself in a dose of
haschisch, which, upon his uninitiated constitution, produced
only unpleasant results. He thus speaks of it"The experiment to which we had recourse for passing
our time, turned out so utterly disagreeable, that I may
safely say not one of us will ever be tempted to try it again.
The haschisch is an abominable poison, which the dregs of
the population alone drink and smoke in the East, and
which we were silly enough to take in too large a dose on
the eve of new-year's day. We fancied we were going to
have an evening of enjoyment, but we nearly died througb
our imprudence. As I hWd taken a larger dose of this per
nicious drug than my companions, I remained almost insen
sible for more than twenty-four hours; after which I found
myself completely broken down, with nervous spasms, and
incoherent dreams, which seemed to have endured a hundred
years at least."*
50. CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE INDIAN HEMP.Of the chemistry of the Indian hemp comparatively little
is yet known. Had it been as long familiar to Europeans,
or used as extensively by them, as it is in the East, it would
probably, like opium, have already been the subject of repeated chemical investigations. The volatile oil and the
* Journey rouznd the Dead Sea. By F. DE SAULCY. Vol.. p. 140.




CHE.MICAL CONSTITUENTS OF INDIAN HEMP.    101
resin of, hemp are the only two substances which chemists
have yet extracted from this remarkable plant.
a. The volatile oil.-When distilled with water, the
dried leaves and flowers, like those of the hop, yield a volatile oil in small quantity. The properties of this volatile
oil, and its action upon the system, have not been studied.
It is not supposed, however, to have any important connection with the remarkable effects of the plant upon the living
animal.
b. The natuzral resin. —But the whole hemp plant is
impregnated, especially in warm climates, with a resinous
substance in which most active virtues reside. When collected as it naturally exudes, this resin forms the churrus
of India. It is extracted when the leaves are boiled with
butter to form the basis of the haschisch, or when the dried
plant is treated with alcohol to obtain the hemp extract.
It is soft, dissolves readily both in alcohol and ether, and is
separated from these liquids in the form of a white powder
when the solutions are mixed with water. It has a warm,
bitterish, acrid, somewhat balsamic taste, and a fragrant
odour, especially when heated.
Both the resin which naturally exudes from the hemp
plant, and the extract it yields to spirituous liquids, are
probably mixtures of several substances possessed of different
properties and relations to animal life.  The remarl;ably
complex composition of opium justifies such an opinion.
And the analogy of the same substance makes it probable
that the produce of the plant will differ in different localities and countries-so that the churrus of India, and the
haschisch of Syria, may produce very different effects on the
same constitution. But these points have not as yet been
investigated either chemically or physiologically. This substance, therefore, holds out the promise of a rich and interesting harvest to future experimenters.




102          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
60. HEMP COMPARED WITH OPIUM. —The extract of hemp
differs considerably from opium, not only in its sensible
properties, but in its effects upon the system.  It does not
lessen but rather excites the appetite.  It does not occasion
nausea, dryness of the tongue, constipation, or lessening of
the secretions, and is not usually followed by that melancholy state of depression to which the opium-eater is subject.  It differs also in causing dilatation of the pupil, and
sometimes catalepsy, in stilling pain less than opium does,
in less constantly producing sleep, in the peculiar inebriating quality it possesses, in the phantasmata it awakens,
and in its aphrodisiac effects.  It operates likewise in a
smaller dose, and does not produce that apathy to external
impressions by which opium, is characterised. On the contrary, to the intellectual activity imparted by opium it adds
a corresponding sensitiveness and activity of all the feelings,
and of the senses both internal and external.  From the effects of opium a man must be roused by shaking and bodily
movement. Those of haschisch are allayed by gentle sooth.
ing, and bodily stillness.  This drug seems, in fact, to be to
the oriental a source of exquisite and peculiar enjoyment,
which unfits him for the ordinary affairs of this rough life,
and with which happily we are, in this part of the world,
still altogether unacquainted.
It is impossible to form any estimate of the quantity of
hemp, of hemp resin, or of the artificial extract which is now
used in different parts of the world for purposes of indulgence. It must, however, be very large, since the plant is
so employed in one form or another by probably not less
than two or three hundred millions of the human race!




CHAPTER XIX.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
THE BETEL-NUT AND  THE PEPPERWORTS.
The betel-nut and betel palml; plantations of, in the East; extensive growth in
Sumatra.-H-ow this nut is used and prepared.-Fondness for the betel in India.Sensible effects of betel-chewing; its narcotic effects; counteracts opium.-Con
stituents of the betel-nut; its astringent principle.-Consumption of betel.Substitutes for betel.-Catechu and gambir extract; extending consumption of
the latter. —The pepperworts.-Betel pepper or pawn. —Beauty of the plant, and
its importance as an agricultural product.-Mode of cultivation.-Effects of the
betel-pepper.-The intoxicating long pepper or ava.-Chemistry of the pepperworts.-Piperin; its use against fevers.-Grains of Paradise, or malagueta pepper; their use as a spice in Africa and in England. —Use in adulterating beer
and spirituous liquors.
VIII. BETEL-NUT.-The  Areca  or  Betel-Nut, or  Pinang, is the seed of the Areca catechlu, one of the most
graceful species  of palm.   On  the  slopes  of the  Khasia
mountains in the Himalaya, above the flat Bheels, where
palms are numerous,' the cultivated areca raises its graceful head and feathery crown, like  an arrow  shot down from
heaven, in luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes"
-(DR. HooKER).   Almost everywhere in India it is extensively cultivated. In Ceylon, throughout Malabar, and
higher up the coast, it is seen in vast plantations. The




104          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
produce of these plantations is of great importance.  As
every one chews betel, the consumption of areca nuts in
trig. 0.           India is incredibly great.
It forms, therefore, a most
important article of traffic.
In the Sunda Islands..... the areca palm grows wild.
=__         _____            In  the  Philippines, the. —    labourer is paid in betel
rolls, as he is with coca
leaves in some parts of
Peru; and the betel-nut
is one of the most valuable articles of produce in
Sumatra.   Whole  shiploads are yearly sent off
from  the latter island to
Malacca, Siam, and  Cochin-China.  The total export was, a few years ago,
Arexa eatechus.-The Betel-nut Palm.
Height, thirty feet.    estimated at 80,000 or 90Fruit, half the natural size.  000 piculs (each 1331 lb.
English\) the greater part of which went to China.*
1 ~. How THE BETEL-NUT IS USED.-The Betel-nut is
about the size of a cherry, slightly pear-shaped, very hard,
and externally not unlike a nutmeg of inferior quality.  It
is chewed along with the leaf of the betel pepper and a little quicklime, and a supply of each of these is often carried
by the betel-chewer in a box, provided with compartments
for the purpose. In describing his visit to the Sultan of
Sooloo, Captain Wilkes says: —" On the left hand of the
Sultan sat his two sons, on the right his councillors, while
immediately behind him sat the carrier of his betel-nut
* Ten to twelve millions of pounds.




HIOV BUYOS ARE MADE.                105
casket.  The casket was made of filagree silver, about the
size of a small tea-caddy, of oblong shape, and rounded at the
top.  It had three divisions-one for the nut, another for
the leaf, and a third for the lime.  Next to this official was
the pipe-bearer, who did not appear to be held in equal estimation."*
In preparing the betel for chewing in India, the nut is
cut into long narrow pieces, and rolled up in leaves of the
betel pepper, previously dusted on one side with moist
chunam (the quicklime of calcined shells).  In Lukon, one
of the Philippines, Meyen found in every corner of the house
a little box or dish in which are kept the betel rolls (6uyos),
prepared for the day's consumption; and a buyo is there offered to every one who enters, just as a pinch of snuff or a
pipe is with us. " Travellers, and those who work in the
open air, carry the buyos for the day in little boxes or bags,
as the Peruvians do their coca.  The preparation of the
betel falls on the female members of the family, who, during
the forenoon, may generally be seen lying on the ground andmaking buyos. The consumption of these is very great.
Every one who can afford it puts a fresh buyo in his mouth
every hour, which he can chew and suck for half an hour at
least."t  Persons who have lost their teeth have the ingredients ground up into a paste, so as to render chewing
unnecessary.
The fondness for the betel in these eastern countries
amounts to something like a passion. It is spoken of with
enthusiasm.  Many would rather forego both meat and
drink than their favourite betel-(BLuME).  The Tagali
maidens regard it as a proof of the uprightness of the intentions of a lover, and of the strength of his affection, if he
take the buyo from his mouth-(MEYEN).  The betel-nut is
* lUnited States' Exploring Expedition (London edition), vol. ii. p. 277.
f MEYEN, Geography of Plants (Ray Society), p. 352.




106         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
to the Eastern Archipelago what the coca is to Eastern
Peru.
2~. EFFECTS OF THE BETEL-NUT.-The visible effects
of the betel are, that it promotes the flow of the saliva, and
lessens the perspiration from the skin.  It tinges the saliva
red; so that when spit out, it falls on the earth like blood.
It gives a red colour to the mouth, teeth, and lips, which,
though at first sight disgusting to Europeans, is by the
natives considered ornamental.  It imparts also an agreeable odour to the breath, and is supposed to fasten the
teeth, cleanse the gums, and cool the mouth. The juice is
usually, but not always, swallowed.
Its effects as a narcotic have not been so clearly detailed.
To persons not accustomed to it, the nut is powerfully astringent in the mouth and the throat, and the quicklime
often removes the skin, and deadens for a time the sense of
taste. But it causes giddiness when chewed to any extent.
On those who are accustomed to use it, however, the betel
produces weak but continuous and sustained exhilarating
effects. And that these are of a most agreeable kind, may
be inferred from the very extended area over which the
chewing of betel prevails among the Asiatic nations. In
the damp and pestilent regions of India, also, where the
natives live upon a spare and miserable diet, it is really
very conducive to health. Part of its healthful influence in
fever-breeding districts is probably to be ascribed to the
pepper-leaf which is chewed along with the betel-nut.
Its alleged effect in rousing persons who are under the
influence of opium, as tea counteracts that of spirituous
liquors, is somewhat remarkable.  During the visit of Captain Wilkes to the Sultan of Sooloo, he had the opportunity
of seeing the betel used for this purpose. That sultan's
son, shortly after taking a few whiffs from. the opium-pipe,
was entirely overcome, and became stupid and listless.




CONSTITUENTS OF THE BETEL-NUT.         107
When but partially recovered from the stupor, he called for
his betel-nut, to revive him, by its exciting effects. This
was carefully chewed by his attendant to a proper consistency, moulded into a ball, and then slipped into his mouth.
30~. CONSTITUENTS OF THE BETEL-NUT.-The chemistry
of the Betel-nut is quite obscure.  It is very astringent,
and abounds in a peculiar species of tannin, which is' extracted in India by boiling the nut in water, and is brought
to this country under the name of catechu.  In the moist,
relaxing climates of the East, this strongly astringent substance acts beneficially upon the system.  To it are probably to be ascribed some of the good effects experienced by
Perron, who states that he!" preserved his health, during a
long and difficult voyage, by the habitual use of betel;
while his companions who did not use it died mostly of dysentery."
But the ordinary and understood action of a merely astringent substance does not account for the giddiness caused
by the betel-nut in a young chewer, nor for the gentle intoxication it produces in all.  These properties seem to imply the presence in the nut of some narcotic ingredient
which is as yet unknown.  From the circumstance of no
such substance having been yet discovered in the nut, some
writers are inclined to ascribe the intoxicating influence of
the buyos altogether to the pepper-leaf in which the nut is
enclosed. Upon this point, however, we must suspend our
judgment until the chemist has had an opportunity of sub.
mitting both nut and leaf to a rigorous chemical examination. My own opinion is, that the coveted effect upon the
system is the result of the combined influence-first, of the
constituents of the nut; second, of those of the fresh pepper; and, third, of substances which are produced or evolved
in the mouth in consequence of the chemical action of the
lime and of the saliva upon the ingredients of both nut and




108         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
leaf. Upon all this, light will no doubt be thrown before a
long time elapses.
40. CONSUMPTION OF BETEL.-We have no means of estimating the absolute quantity of this nut which is consumed
yearly by the Asiatic nations; but it must be very great.
It is chewed by probably not less than fifty millions of men!
If we allow to each chewer ten pounds weight a-year, which
is less than half an ounce a-day, this would give the enormous consumption of five hundred millions of pounds' weight
every year! Only tobacco, among the narcotics in common
use, is used in larger quantity than this.
The small quantity of the betel-nut imported into this
country is converted into charcoal for tooth-powder, probably
from some imaginary idea that it is superior for this purpose
to other kinds of charcoal.
IX. SUBSTITUTES FOR BETEL.-AS substitutes for the
betel-nut, astringent extracts are coming into extensive use
in the East. Thusa. The catechu, which is extracted, as above described,
by boiling the areca nut, is extensively chewed in India, in
place of the nut itself. It is there called cashtu, and is
known in this country by the older name of Terra Japonica.
In the north of India, towards the foot of the Himalayas,
a similar catechu is extracted by boiling the wood of the
Mimosa catechu, which grows wild there and in Ava. This
is chewed in the same way as the areca catechu.
b. The gambir extract-which greatly resembles the
Terra Japonica, but has a sweetish taste, and is still more
astringent-is another substitute for the nut. The NAauclea
gantbir, and NV. aculeata, are shrubs six or seven feet in
height, the leaves of which, by boiling with water, yield the
gambir extract. In the island of Sumatra, in Java and the
other Dutch colonies, in India, Malacca, Singapore, and




THE PEPPERWORTS.                  1 0
many other localities, large plantations of these shrubs exist.
The leaves are gathered from two to four times a year, and
are boiled with water for five or six hours in iron kettles.
The decanted liquor is then thickened by further boiling,
and poured into moulds, when it hardens.  This extract is
of a blackish-brown colour, has at first a sweetish taste, and
a pleasant aromatic flavour, which afterwards becomes astringent and bitter.  It is chewed by the Malays in Sumatra, and in the Dutch colonies generally, in place of, or
along with, the betel-nut; and the use of it is said to be
rapidly extending throughout India.
Very salutary virtues are ascribed to the gambir extract, and it is said especially to assist digestion.  It is no
doubt a mixed substance, containing several chemical ingredients. It has not, however, been chemically investigated; so that what it contains in addition to the astringent
principle, or whether it possesses any narcotic virtues, we
have as yet no means of knowing.  The quality, and probably the composition, varies in different localities. The most
esteemed samples are those from Penang and the coast of
Bengal.
In 1833 the quantity of this substance produced on the
island of Penang alone amounted to seventy thousand
piculs, and in Singapore to twenty thousand-or together,
to ten millions of pounds —(MEYEN). The production in
these localities was at that time rapidly extending, so that
the total Eastern consumption must now, in 1854, be something quite enormous.
X. THE PEPPERWORTs.-Various species of pepper are
known to be possessed of narcotic properties, and several of
these are in constant and most extensive use in tropical
countries. The pepperworts are for the most part climbing
plants, and where they grow wild, frequently strangle the
tree they embrace.




110          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
10. THE BETEL PEPPER OR PAWN.-The leaf of the
betel pepper (Chavnica betle and C. Si
raboa), fig. 70, is always chewed along
with the betel-nut, as above described.
The almost universal use of the betelnut makes the culture of this pepper
one of great importance in the-East,
especially in the neighbourhood of large
towns.  Every person who possesses a
little bit of land usually grows the
Chacvica betle-The Betel
leaf, or Betel Pepper.  leaves for his own consumption; and
Scale, 1 inch to 3 inches. it may often be seen clinging round the
stems of the beautiful betel palms which overshadow their
dwellings. But in the towns, incredible quantities are
every day sold in the markets, and piles of the leaves,
three or four feet high, are carried about in baskets.
The plantations of betel pepper are laid out like our beanfields, but the plants. stand eighteen inches apart, and
their large, beautiful, heart-shaped leaves give the whole
field a bright green colour, such as belongs to few other
plants. They require much water, and are allowed to climb
on poles like hops for the first eighteen months.  They are
then detached, and are directed round fast-growing young
trees, which have meanwhile been planted between them.
The leaves may be gathered in the third or fourth year, and
the plants bear for six or seven years, afte.-!hich they die
and must be replaced.-(MEYEN).
In Northern India, and towards the I-imalayas, the
plant, though in almost equal demand, cannot be cultivated
in the open fields, and is therefore raised under cover where
the atmosphere is sufficiently moist.  Dr. Hooker, when
travelling on the banks of the Mahanuddee, towards the foot
of the Himalayas, observed some curious low sheds erected
for the growth of pawn or betel-pepper. These sheds were




INTOXICATING LONG PEPPER.
twenty to fifty yards long, eight or twelve broad, and
scarcely four feet high. They were of bamboo, wattled all
round, and over the top. Inside the sheds slender upright
rods were placed a few feet apart, up which the pepper
climbed, and speedily filled the place with their deep green
glossy foliage. The native enters every morning and carefully cleans the plants.  Great attention is paid to them, as
they would not live twenty-four hours if exposed to the open
air; but the cultivation is, nevertheless, very profitable.
This mode of culture extensively prevails.
I have already described the effects of the betel-chewing
in general. What portion of these effects is due to the pepper-leaf in which the nut is wrapped up, has been experimentally ascertained. But as other varieties of pepper, which
are used alone, are known to possess narcotic properties,
some are inclined to ascribe the greater part of the peculiar
influence of betel-chewing to this pepper-leaf. I do not coincide with this opinion. As I have already explained, the
observed effects are, in the present state of our knowledge,
to be ascribed rather to the conjoined influence of the constituents of both nut and leaf, and to the chemical action of
the quicklime used along with them, and of the saliva upon
both.
20. THE INTOXICATING LONG PEPPER.-The narcotic effects of the Ava, or Macropiper methysticun, are more
certain and more celebrated.
This plant has a thick, woody, rugged, aromatic woodstalk, which, when reduced to a pulp and then steeped in
water, forms an intoxicating beverage.* This is in extensive
use among the South Sea Islanders, both as a medicine and
as an inebriating indulgence. It possesses a recognised narcotic influence, which is derived from some ingredient contained in the root. The same ingredient probably exists in
*See THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT.




112           THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
the leaves, which are chewed along with the betel-nut in
stead of those of the betel-pepper.
The roots and thickest parts of the stems of long pep.
per, cut into small pieces and dried, form a considerable
ig. 71.
Macropiper methysticez —The Ava Pepper shrub.
Scale, 1 inch to 3 feet.
Leaf, 1 inch to 2 inches. Outline of leaf, natural size.
Part of stem and root, showing section, natural size._
article of commerce all over India, under the name  of
Pipula moola;* but I am  not aware if they are used for
narcotic or intoxicating purposes.
Of the chemistry of the pepperworts we as yet know
comparatively little. They all yield, when distilled with
water, a volatile oil, which has the taste and smell of pepper.
This oil is colourless, and is usually of the same chemical
* PEREIBA, liateria ffedica, p. 1260.




USE OF GRAINS OF PARADISE.             113
composition as the oils of turpentine, lemons, and orange.
peel or neroli. Alcohol extracts from the pepperworts several resinous substances, which possess the acrid properties
of pepper in great perfection. But they all contain, besides
these, a solid white crystallisable substance known by the
name of Piperin, which is said to equal quinine in its influence over intermittent fevers.  All the three constituents,
indeed, which I have mentioned-the oil, the resin, and the
piperin-exercise a beneficial action in cases of intermittent
fever; and to this action we are safe, I think, in ascribing a
portion at least of their salutary influence in tropical regions. While in betel-chewing the astringent principle of
the nut checks the tendency to internal relaxation, the feverchasing principles of the pepper leaf preserve the health
amid the steaming vapours which the hot sun draws forth
from swamps and jungles and irrigated paddy-fields.
30. GRAINS OF PARADISE.-Guinea grains of Malagueta
pepper are the seeds, not of a pepperwort, but of a species
of Cardamum  (Amomum n melegueta).  They are imported
from the coast of Guinea, where they are used by the natives
as a spice for seasoning their food, and are held in great esteem. The seeds are small and angular, and consist of a
glossy dark-brown husk, enclosing a perfectly white kernel,
which has a hot, pungent, peppery taste. In Africa they are
considered to be exceedingly wholesome.
Grains of paradise were also very anciently in use as a
spice in English cookery. The ancient fee-favour of the
city of Norwich is twenty-four herring pies, each containing
five herrings, to be carried to court by the lord of the manor
of Carleton!- In 1629 these pies were described as being
seasoned with half a pound of ginger, half a pound of pepper, a quarter of a pound of cinnamon, one ounce of cloves,
one ounce of long pepper, half an ounce of grains of pcaradise, and half an ounce of galangals.  I am not aware that




114          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
they are now in use anywhere in England for the seasoning
of food.
About forty thousand pounds of this seed are at present
imported yearly into England. With the exception of what
is used in veterinary medicine, all this is said to be employed for the purpose of imparting a fictitious appearance
of strength to malt and spirituous liquors. By 56 Geo. III.
c. 58, "no brewer or dealer in beer shall have in his possession or use grains of paradise, under a penalty of ~200 for
each offence; and no druggist shall sell the substance to a
brewer under a penalty of ~500 for each offence. Nevertheless, it is both sold and used, principally along with capsicum and juniper berries, to give a hot strong flavour to
London gin; and along with Cocculus indicus and other
bitters, to give a relish and warmth to country beer.  In
passing through Staffordshire some time ago, I was assured
by a person connected with a large manufactory, that he
had himself seen, in a druggist's shop, as much as ten
pounds of grains of paradise sold to a single customer, for
putting into beer.
The effect of hot substances like this in giving to
liquors the appearance of strength, is illustrated by the
qualities of a drink prepared in some of the Turkish provinces.  A greatly esteemed liquor is there made by digesting mint and pimento in water. This liquor possesses so
much of what is taken for alcoholic strength, that the person
who drinks it for the first time supposes he has swallowed
"the most ardent alcohol."  No wonder the iron smelters
and puddlers of Staffordshire drink beer three whole days
out of the fortnight, if their thirst be provoked by grains of
paradise, so that the more they drink, the thirstier they become! It is satisfactory to think, however, that though a
provoker to drunkenness, this adulteration is not known to
be poisonous in itself.




USE OF GRAINS OF PARADISE.          115
But the chemistry of this seed is still unknown. It has
not hitherto been chemically examined, so that we do not
know either what peculiar principles it contains, or what
special physiological action it exercises upon the system.




CHAPTER XX.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
COCA.
Coca, the narcotic of the Andes; description of the plant; mode of cultivation.-Ancient use of the coca leaf; its necessity to the Indian of Peru; how he uses it; its
remarkable effects.-Melancholy temperament of the Indian.-Testimony of Von
Tschudli and Dr. Weddell. —General effects of the coca leaf.-Intolerable craving
of the confirmed coquero. —Evil effects of the coca leaf.-Testimony of Pbppig and
other travellers.-Opinions of old Spanish writers.-Indian reverence for the plant
its characteristic effects.-Lessens the necessity for ordinary food.-Prevents difficulty of breathing in ascending hills.-Experience and testimony of Von Tschudi.-Its introduction into Europe recommended.-Chemical history of the coca
leaf.-The odoriferous resin.-The bitter principle.-The tannic acid.-How the
coca leaf acts.-Difficulties as to its action.-How it resembles tea, the hop, hemp,
and opium.-Like opium, it sustains and inclines to retirement.-Consumption
of coca.-Probable extent and money value of the yearly growth of coca.
COCA, the narcotic of the Andes, is not less interesting than
the narcotics of the East, either in its social or in its physiological relations.   It is little  known  in  Europe-its use
as an indulgence being in a great measure confined to the
native Indians of Bolivia and Peru.
The  Erythr'oxylon  coca  is  a  bush  which  attains the
height of six or eight feet, and resembles the black thorn in
its small white flowers and bright green leaves (fig. 72).
It is a native of the tropical valleys which occur on the




THE COCA OF COMMERCE.                            117
eastern slope of the Andes, in Bolivia and Peru, and it
still grows wild in many parts- of these countries. That
Fig. 72.
Erythroxylon coca-The Coca-leaf plant.
Scale, 1 inch to 3 feet.
Coca leaf, natural size, showing the upper and under sides of tLie leaf.
The under side exhibits the remarkable arched line on each side of
the midrib by which this leaf is distinguished.
which is used by the people, however, is chiefly the  produce
of cultivation. In the inhabited parts of the above valleys




118         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
it forms an important agricultural crop.  Like our common
thorn, it is raised in seed beds, from which it is planted out
into regularly arranged coca-plantations.  The steep sides
of the valleys, as high up as 8000 feet above the level of the
sea, where the mean temperature is from 64~ to 680 Fahr.,
are often covered with these plantations of coca. They are
arranged in terraces rising above one another, as in the
vineyards of Tuscany and the Holy Land. The province
of Yongas is the principal seat of this cultivation in Eastern
Bolivia. In three years the bushes come into full bearing,
and in favourable localities yield three, and, where irrigation is used, even four crops of leaves in a year.  The leaves
are about the size of those of the cherry-tree; and when
ripe enough to break on being bent, they are collected by
the women and children, and dried in the sun. The total
produce averages about 800 lbs. of dry leaves per English
acre. It is sometimes one half more, but often also very
much less.  When nearly dry they emit an odour similar to
that of new-made hay, in which much mellilot or sweetscented vernal grass is contained; hence they occasion headaches among new-comers, as haymaking does with delicate
persons among ourselves.
These sun-dried leaves form the coca of commerce.
When of a good quality they are of a pale green colour.
Dampness causes them  to become dark coloured, in which
state they are less esteemed, and their smell less agreeable.
If they heat through dampness, they become altogether useless. Their taste is not unpleasant; it is slightly bitter
and aromatic, and resembles that of green tea of inferior
quality. It becomes more piquant and agreeable when a
sprinkling of quicklime or plant ashes is chewed along with
them.
1~. ANCIENT USE OF THE COCA LEAF.-The use of this
plant among the Indians of South America dates from very




ANCIENT USE OF THE COCA LEAF.                119
remote periods.  When the Spanish conquerors overcame
the native races of the hilly country of Peru, they found extensive plantations of an herb called coca.*  And they observed among these races the singular custom of chewing
the leaves of this plant during frequent short periods of repose, specially set apart for the purpose.  So general, indeed, was the use of this plant, and so common the demand for it, that it formed the usual money, or medium of
exchange, in Peru.t The practice of using this plant was
already ancient among the Indian races, and its origin was
lost in the mists of remote antiquity. After the introduction of gold and silver money it became the principal article
of traffic.  Its cultivation was a care of the native governments during the reign of the Incas, and it continues equally prevalent to the present day. The beloved leaf is still
to the Indian of the mountains the delight, the support, and
in some measure the necessity of his life. He is never seen
without the leathern pouch (his chuspa), to contain his coca
leaves, and his little gourd-bottle to hold powdered unslacked lime-or, if he is a Bolivian, the alkaline ashes of
the quinoa, of the musa root, or of certain other plants.
When preparing to acullicar, or chew, he first makes
himself as comfortable as circumstances will permit. Ile
lays down his burden, if he has one; he seats himself, and
putting his chuspa between his knees, he pulls out, one by
one, the leaves which are to form his new ball. The attention he gives to this operation is worthy of remark.  The
satisfaction with which he dips his hand into the midst of
the leaves of a full chuspa, and the regret with which he
* The word Coca is derived from the Aymara (Indian) word Khoka, signifying
"plant," in the same way as in Paraguay the indigenous tea-plant is called Yerba,
"the plant " par excellence.
t As tobacco does now among the Damaras, Ovampo, and other tribes of SouthWestern Africa, lately visited by Mr. Galton.-See his Tropical Soutl, Africa, p. 206.




120         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
looks upon his little bag when it is nearly empty-these lit
tle things prove that to the Indian the custom is a source
of real happiness, and not the mere consequence of a want(WEDDELL). Always three, and sometimes four times a day,
he rests from his mining or other labour, or pauses in his
journey, and lays down his burden, to chew in quiet the
beloved leaf.
When riding, or walking, or labouring, the leaves have
little effect. As with opium and hemp, stillness and repose
are indispensable to his full enjoyment of the luxury it produces. In the shade of a tree he stretches himself at ease,
and from time to time puts into his mouth a few leaves
rolled into a ball (an acullico), and after each new supply a
little unslacked lime on the end of a slip of wood moistened
and dipped into his lime-flask. This brings out the true
taste of the leaf, and causes a copious flow of greenishcoloured saliva, which is partly rejected and partly swallowed. When the ball ceases to emit juice it is thrown
away, and a new supply is taken.
The interval of enjoyment conceded to the labouring Indian lasts from fifteen minutes to half an hour, and is generally wound up by the smoking of a paper cigar. Repeated
three or four times a-day, his average consumption of coca
is an ounce or an ounce and a half in the twenty-four hours,
and on holidays double that quantity. The owners of mines
and plantations have long found it for their interest to allow
a suspension of labour three times a-day for the chaccar, as
it is called; and the Indian speedily quits an employer who
endeavours to stint or deprive him of these periods of indulgence.  During these periods his phlegnz is something
marvellous.  No degree of urgency or entreaty on the part
of his master or employer will move him; while the confirmed coquero, when under the influence of the leaf, is heedless of the thunderstorm which threatens to drown him




PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF COCA.           121
where he lies, of the roar of approaching wild beasts, or of
the smoking fire which creeps along the grass and is about
to suffocate or scorch him in his lair.
The Indians of the Peruvian Andes are subject to fits
of melancholy, or are generally perhaps of a gloomy temperament. " In their domestic relations," says Von Tschudi,"' the Indians are unsocial and gloomy.  Husband, wife,
and children live together with but little appearance of
affection.  The children seem  to approach their parents
timidly, and whole days sometimes elapse without the interchange of a word of kindness between them. When not
engaged in out-door work, the Indian sits gloomily in his
hut, chewing coca and brooding silently over his own
thoughts."*
Dr. Weddell, who has lately travelled in Bolivia, bears
a similar testimony in regard to the appearance and manners of these people.  " It is difficult," he says, "' to have
lived for any time among these men, without being struck
by the expression of concentrated melancholy which can be
read upon their features, and which seems to speak of an
undefined but constant suffering.  This physiognomy is,
above all, remarkable among the Aymaras, whose character
is also more taciturn than that of the Quichuas, who inhabit
along with them the table-lands of the Andes." t
One would have supposed that when the free republics
of South America were established, the trials of the longoppressed aborigines would have been at an end, and that
something like political equality would have been established
among the different races.  But such is not the case.  In
Bolivia, every Indian from eighteen to fifty years of age is
subjected to a poll-tax of five dollars if he is a labourer, and
from six to ten if he is a proprietor; and this tax is collect* Travels in Peri, 1838 to 1842, p. 450. London, 184'.
t WEDDELL. Voyage dans le Nord de la Bolivie. Paris, 1853. P. 61.
VoL. II.-6




1 22        THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
ed half-yearly.  No equivalent tax is imposed upon the
whites, and from this source four and a half millions of dollars are derived-the total yearly revenue of the republic
being only ten and a half millions. The unhappy race,
therefore, is still ground down by the dominant blood, and
the melancholy feeling of inferiority is still perpetuated.
It does not appear, however, that the coca adds to the
gloom of the unhappy Indian; on the contrary, he takes it
to relieve himself for the time from the peculiarities of his
temperament. Silence and abstraction are necessary to the
enjoyment, but the use of it makes him cheerful; and it is
to the unhappy, often oppressed, and always poor Peruvian,
the source of his highest pleasures. It has come down to
him as a relic of the ancient enjoyments of his people, and
during the fantasy it produces, he participates in scenes
and pleasures from which in common life he is altogether
excluded.  Dr. Weddell very sensibly remarks, that, as a
relic of the past, he attaches "superstitious ideas to the
coca, which must triple, in his imagination, the benefits he
receives from it," and that its value to him is further enhanced by its being the " sole and only distraction which
breaks the incomparable monotony of his existence."
20. GENERAL EFFECTS OF THE COCA LEAF. -The coca
leaf acts differently according to the way in which it is used.
When infused and drunk like tea, it produces a gentle excitement, followed by wakefulness; and, if taken strong, retards the approach of hunger, prevents the usual breathlessness in climbing hills, and, in large doses, dilates the pupil
and renders the eye intolerant of light. It is seldom used
in- this way, however, but is usually chewed in the form of a
ball or quid, which is turned over and over in the mouth as
is done with tobacco. In this way its action is more gradual
and prolonged than when the infusion only is taken. It is
also very different in jts character, because the constant




CRAVING OF. THE COQUERO.             123
chewing, the continued action of the saliva, and the influence of the lime or ashes chewed along with it, extract from
the leaf certain other active constituents which water alone
does not dissolve when it is infused after the manner of tea.
The cultivation and use of the coca has extended from
the slopes of the Andes eastward, to different parts of Brazil, and to the river of the Amazons. But here it is used
somewhat differently.  The leaves are dried and reduced to
powder in a wooden mortar along with the ash of the leaves
of Cecropia peltata, and in this mixed state are preserved
for use. From time to time a portion of this greenish grey
powder is introduced into the mouth, especially when it is
desired to overcome hunger or drowsiness. It augments
the secretion of saliva, produces a sensation of fulness and
warmth in the mouth, stills hunger, and increases bodily activity.
We have no detailed account, by an actual chewer of the
leaf, of the special effects which it produces; but these must
be very seducing, since, though long stigmatised, and still
very generally considered as a degrading, purely Indian,
and therefore despicable vice, many white Peruvians at Lima
and elsewhere retire daily at stated times to chew the coca.
Even Europeans in different parts of the country have fallen
into the habit. A confirmed chewer of coca is called a " coquero," and he is said to become occasionally more thoroughly a slave to the leaf than the inveterate drunkard is to
spirituous liquors.
Sometimes the coquero is overtaken by a craving which
he cannot resist, and he betakes himself for days together
to the silence of the woods, and there indulges unrestrained
in the use of the weed. Young men of the best families in
Peru become sometimes addicted to this extreme degree of
excess, and are then considered as lost.  Forsaking cities
and the company of civilised men, and living chiefly in




124          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
woods or in Indian villages, they give themselves up to a
savage and solitary life.  Hence the term, a white coquero,
has there something of the same evil sense as irreclaimable
drunkard has with us.
The chewing of coca gives " a bad breath (abominable,
according to Weddell), pale lips and gums, greenish and
stumpy teeth, and an ugly black mark at the angles of the
mouth.  The inveterate coquero is known at the first glance.
His unsteady gait, his yellow skin, his dim and sunken eyes
encircled by a purple ring, his quivering lips, and his general apathy, all bear evidence of the baneful effects of the
coca juice when taken in excess." —(VoN TsCHUDI.)
Its first evil effect is to weaken the digestion; it then
gradually induces a disease locally named the opilacion.
Biliary affections, with all the painful symptoms which attend them in tropical climates, and, above all, gall stones,
are frequent and severe. The appetite becomes exceedingly uncertain, till at length the dislike to all food is succeeded
by an inordinate appetite for animal excrement. Then dropsical swellings and boils come on; and the patient, if he can
get it, flies to brandy for relief, and thus drags out a few
miserable years, till death relieves him.*
These descriptions are sufficiently repulsive, but they
exhibit only the dark side of the picture. A similar representation could be truthfully made of the evil effects of wine
or beer in too numerous cases, without thereby implying
that these liquors ought either to be wholly forbidden, or of
our own accord entirely given up. Where coca was most in
use, Dr. Weddell states that he met with none of the extreme cases mentioned by Pbppig.  The chewing of the
leaf, he says, produces ill effects sometimes upon Europeans
who have not contracted the habit in their youth. And in
* PBPPIG, Reise in Chile, Per urncd auf dem Amazon Strton, 1827 to 1832
chap. iv.




OPINION OF THE INDIANS.             125
two or three cases which came under his observation, he ascribed to the abuse of it the production of a' peculiar aberration of the intellectual faculties characterised by hallucinations." Von Tschudi also, as the sum of his inquiries,
says: " Setting aside all extravagant and visionary notions
on the subject, I am clearly of opinion that the moderate
use of coca is not merely innoxious, but that it may even be
very conducive to health.  In support of this conclusion, I
may refer to the numerous examples of longevity among Indians who, almost from the age of boyhood, have been in the
habit of masticating coca three times a-day.  Cases are not
unfrequent of Indians attaining the great age of 130 years;
and these men, at the ordinary rate of consumption, must
in the course of their lives have chewed not less than 2700
lbs. of the leaf, and yet have retained perfect health. Even
the Indian coquero, who takes it in excess, reaches the age
of fifty years. It is consumed both more abundantly, however, and with less baneful results, in the higher Andes
than in the lower and warmer regions."
It is certain that the Peruvian Indians have always ascribed to it the most extraordinary virtues.  Clusius, writing in 1605, says that wken he asked the Indians why they
always had the coca in their mouths, the answer was, that,
when using it, neither hunger nor thirst annoyed them,
while their strength and vigour were confirmed; and Dr.
Unanui, in the title of his Dissertation on the plant (Lima,
1794), speaks of it as " La famosa planta del Peru nombrada coca."
At the present day the Indians still regard it as some
thing sacred and mysterious. This impression they have
probably inherited as a fragment of their ancient religion,
for in all the ceremonies, whether warlike or religious, of
the times of the Incas, the coca was introduced. It was
used by the priests either for producing smoke at the great




1 26        THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
offerings to the gods, for throwing in handfuls upon the sac.
rifice, or as the sacrifice itself.
" During divine worship the priests chewed coca leaves,
and unless they were supplied with them, it was believed
that the favour of the gods could not be propitiated. It
was also deemed necessary that the supplicator for divine
grace should approach the priests with an acullico in his
mouth.  It was believed that any business undertaken
without the benediction of coca leaves could not prosper, and
to the shrub itself worship was rendered. During an interval of more than three hundred years Christianity has not
been able to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry, for everywhere we find traces of belief in the mysterious powers of
this plant. The excavators in the mines of Cerro de Pasco
throw chewed coca on hard veins of metal, in the belief that
it softens the ore and renders it more easy to work. The
origin of this custom is easily explained, when it is recollected that in the time of the Incas it was believed that the
cozas-the deities of metals-rendered the mountains impenetrable if they were not propitiated by the odour of coca.
The Indians, even at the present time, put coca leaves into
the mouths of dead persons, to secure to them a favourable
reception on their entrance into another world; and when a
Peruvian Indian on a journey falls in with a mummy, he,
with timid reverence, presents to it some coca leaves as his
pious offering.-(VON TSCHUDI.)
30. CHARACTERISTIC EFFECTS OF TIHE COCA LEAF.-Even
those Europeans who are best acquainted with the Indian
races, and have seen most of the action of this plant upon
them, do not deny that, in addition to the ordinary properties of a weak narcotic, the coca leaves possess two extraordinary qualities not known to co-exist in any other substance,
These areFirst, That when chewed they lessen the desire, and ap



LESSENS THE DESIRE FOR FOOD.           127
parently the necessity also, for ordinary food   They not
only enable the chewer, as brandy and opium  do, to put
forth a greater nervous energy for a short time, but actually,
with the same amount of food, perseveringly to undergo
more laborious fatigue or longer-continued labour. With a
feeble ration of dried maize, or barley crushed into flour, the
Indian, if duly supplied with coca, toils under heavy burdens, day after day, up the steep slopes of the mountain
passes; or digs for years in the subterranean mines, insensible to weariness, to cold, or to hunger.  He believes, indeed,
that it may be made a substitute for food altogether; and
an instance given by Von Tschudi seems almost to justify
this opinion.
"A  cholo of Huari, named Hatan Huamang, was employed by me in very laborious digging. During the five
days and nights he was in my service he never tasted any
food, and took only two hours' sleep each night.  But at intervals of two and a half or three hours he regularly chewed
about half an ounce of coca leaves, and he kept an acullico
continually in his mouth. I was constantly beside him, and
therefore I had the opportunity of closely observing him.'The work for which I had engaged him being finished, he
accompanied me on a two days' journey of twenty-three
leagues across the level heights. Though on foot, he kept
up with the pace of my mule, and halted only for the chaccar. On leaving me, he declared he would willingly engage
himself again for the same amount of work, and that he
would go through it without food, if I would but allow him
a sufficient supply of coca. The village priest assured me
that this man was sixty-two years of age, and that he had
never known him to be ill in his life."
How this remarkable effect of the coca is to be accounted for, in accordance with received notions on the subject
of animal nutrition, it is not easy to see.  Dr. Weddell,




THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
who is less decided in his praise of the virtues of the leaf,
says that the facts in favour of the opinion that it is capable
of supporting the strength, in the absence of all other nourishment, have been advanced by so many persons, worthy of
credit, that we must push our scepticism very far if we are
to doubt them.  He asserts, however, that,-as commonly
used, coca does not satisfy the appetite. The Indians who
accompanied him in his tour, though they chewed all day,
yet at night ate like hungry men, and sometimes at a single
meal swallowed as much as would serve him two days.  The
power of enabling them to support abstinence, therefore, is
all he is willing, from his limited experience, to concede to
the plant.  It produces, he says, a peculiar excitement, slow
and sustained, not like that of tea and coffee, exercised
chiefly on the brain, but diffused generally over the nervous
system.
The least we can concede to the plant, therefore, seems
to be, that it enables the body to feed upon itself, so to
speak, for a length of time, without the hunger-pains and
weakness which usually accompany the prolonged abstinence
from ordinary food.
Second, The other extraordinary property of the leaf is,
that, either when chewed or when taken in the form of infusion, like tea, it prevents the occurrence of that difficulty of
respiration which is usually felt in ascending the long and
steep slopes of the Cordillera and the Puna.
" When I was in the Puna," says Von Tschudi, " at the
height of fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, I
drank always, before going out to hunt, a strong infusion of
coca leaves. I could then, during the whole day, climb the
heights and follow the swift-footed wild animals, without
experiencing any greater difficulty of breathing than I should
have, felt in similar rapid movements on the coast.  Moreover, I did not suffer from the symptoms of cerebral excite



AIDS THE RESPIRATION.              129
ment or uneasiness which other travellers have experienced.
The reason perhaps is, that I only drank the decoction on
the cold Puna, where the nervous system is far'less susceptible than in the climate of the forests beneath.  However,
I always felt a sense of great satiety after taking the coca
infusion, and I did not feel a desire for my next meal until
after the time at which I usually took it."
The reason of this action of the leaf is not less difficult
to make out than that of its alleged strength-sustaining capabilities.
When the Spanish conquerors took possession of Peru,
the Indians and all their customs were treated by them with
equal contempt; but every thing connected with their religion was especially denounced  by the  Spanish  priests.
Hence the use of coca was condemned and forbidden.
A council of the church denounced it in 1567 as a,
"' worthless substance, fitted for the misuse and superstition
of the Indians;" and a royal decree, in 1569, condemned the
idea that coca gives strength, as an "illusion of the devil."
But these fulminations were of no avail. The Peruvians
still clung to their esteemed national leaf, and the owners
of mines and plantations, discovering its efficacy in enabling
their slaves to perform. the heavy tasks they imposed upon
them, soon became its warm defenders. Even churchmen
at last came to regard it with indulgence, and, stranger still,
to recommend its introduction into Europe.
One of the warmest advocates of the plant was the Jesuit
Don Antonio Julian, who, in a work entitled Perla de
Ameqrica, laments that coca is not introduced into Europe
instead of tea and coffee.  "It is," he observes, "melancholy to reflect that the poor of Europe cannot obtain this
preservative against hunger and thirst, and that our working people are not supported by this strengthening plant in
their long-continued labours."
VOL. II.-6*




130         TIlE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
Dr. Don Pedro Nolasco Crespo, again, in a treatise pub
lished in 1793, insisted upon the advantages which might
be derived from the introduction of the plant into the European navies.  More recently Von Tschudi has also recommended it as fitted "to afford a nutritious refreshment to
seamen in the exercise of their laborious duties, and to counteract the unwholesome effect of salt provisions."  And,
lastly, Professor Schlechtendal, who has lately written upon
the coca, after commending it as a tonic, soothing, and nutritive-as preventing weakness of the stomach, and the obstructions, colic and hypochondria, to which such weakness
gives rise-adds that, "without doubt, the leaves might be
usefully employed in Europe."
With all this testimony in its favour, we may, I think,
dismiss those fears of the coca leaf which old Spanish prejudices awakened, and which representations, like those of
PNppig, have tended to perpetuate in Europe.  There is
no good reason why it should not be tried among ourselves,
In our climate, and after so long a sea voyage, no doubt its
effects would be weaker than in its native country, but good
may possibly follow from the use of it nevertheless.
40. CHEMICAL HISTORY OFr THE COCA LEAF.-Of the
chemical history of this remarkable leaf we are as yet in a
great measure ignorant. It is known, however, to contain
at least three different constituents, upon the joint action of
all of which the observed effects of the leaf probably in some
measure depend. These are an odoriferous resinous substance, a bitter principle, and a species of tannic acid.
First, The odoriferous resin.-As they reach this coun.
try, the leaves are coated or smoothed over with a resinous
or waxy substance, which is only sparingly soluble in water,
but which ether readily dissolves. When digested in ether
for the purpose of extracting this substance, a beautiful dark
green solution is obtained, which, on being evaporated in the




ITS CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS.            131
open air, leaves a brownish resin, possessed of a powerful, peculiar, and penetrating odour. When exposed for a length
of time to the air, this resinous matter diminishes in quantity, and gradually loses the whole of its smell, leaving a
fusible, nearly inodorous matter behind. Ether therefore
extracts at least two substances from the leaf, one of which
is very volatile, and has a powerful odour. It is probable
that in this volatile substance the narcotic qualities of the
leaf reside. And this is consistent with the fact, that the
leaves gradually lose their smell and virtue, and, after twelve
months, are generally considered worthless; and with the
assertion of those who live in the coca country, that only
among them are the real virtues of the leaf ever experienced
by the consumer. It is usual to make up leaves into hard
packages, covered with fresh hides which shrink and compress the whole as they dry. But notwithstanding this close
packing, resembling that of hard-pressed hop-pockets, they
insensibly give off their volatile ingredients as hops do, and
by transport and keeping continually diminish in value and
estimation.  The volatile resinous- matter extracted by ether
is, therefore, one of the most important ingredients of the
coca leaf.-(JOHNSTON.)
Second, The bitter principle.-We have seen in a preceding chapter' that tea and coffee, besides the volatile ingredients to which their aroma is owing, contain a white, bitter, crystallisable substance known by the name of theine;
and that to this theine the remarkable properties of these
beverages are partly to be ascribed. Coca also contains a
bitter principle, which alcohol is capable of dissolving out
of the leaves. —(FaREY.) But this bitter compound does
not crystallise, and has not yet been obtained in a pure
state, or rigorously examined. It can scarcely be doubted
* See THE BEVERAGaE WE INFUSE, pp. 141, 171.




132          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
that the effect of the leaf upon the coca-chewer is due in
part to the presence of this coca bitter; but what is the
exact nature of its action upon the system has not as yet
been physiologically investigated.
Third. Besides these two substances, the coca leaf contains also a portion of a tannic acid, which, like the tannic
acid of tea, gives a black colour with what are called per
salts* of iron.-(WACKENRUDER.)
The proportions in which these several known ingredients occur in the leaf have not been determined.
50. How  THIE COCA LEAF ACTS.-It will strike the
reader that even this imperfect knowledge of the chemistry
of the plant shows a singular analogy between the coca leaf,
the hop flower, and the tea leaf of China. All contain a
volatile, aroma-giving ingredient; in all a bitter principle
exists; and from all of them a tannic acid can be extracted.
Yet if, with this small amount of chemical knowledge —-aided even by what we know of the action of tea and the hopwe attempt to explain the remarkable effects produced by
the coca leaf, we utterly fail.
How the mere chewing of one or two ounces of these
leaves in a day, partly rejecting and partly swallowing the
saliva,t but wholly rejecting the chewed leaf —how this supports the strength, or can materially nourish the body in
the ordinary acceptation of the term, we cannot understand.
It cannot gSive much to the body; it must therefore act simply in preventing or greatly diminishing the ordinary and
natural waste of the tissues which usually accompanies bodily exertion. As wine and tea act upon the nervous system
of the aged, so as to restrain the natural waste to a quantity
which the now weakened digestion can readily replace, and
* These are compounds of the red or per-oxide of iron with acids.
1 Dr. Weddell states that the saliva is never rejected; and, being a later authori.
ty than Yon Tschudi, whom I have followed in the text, he is probably correct.




COCA RESEMBLES OPIUM.              133
thus maintain the weight of the body undiminished —so it is
probably with coca. In the young and middle-aged it lessens the waste of the tissues, and thus enables a smaller
supply of food to sustain the weight and strength of the
body.
The coca leaf resembles that of hemp, in the narcotic
quality of dilating the pupil, which opium does not possess.
But, on the other hand, it resembles opium in the new
strength it imparts to the worn and weary body.  The
Turkish courier, or the Cutchee horseman, under the influence of opium, reminds us of the Peruvian miner or muleteer who has plenty of coca. In spite of fatigue and exhaustion, both compel their failing limbs to new exertion,
and, unconscious of new pain, accomplish most wonderful
labours.  And in the proneness of the coca-eater to a solitary life we recognise an influence of this herb similar to that
which opium exercises upon those who have experienced its
highest enjoyments. It is alone and in retirement that the
Eastern opium-eater finds his greatest pleasure. And in
our own less sunny climate the same inclination appears to
exist.  " Markets and theatres," says De Quincey, " are not
the appropriate haunts of the opium-eater when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. In that state crowds
become an oppression to him, music even too sensual and
gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence as indispensable conditions of those trances or profoundest reveries,
which are the crown and consummation of what opium can
do for human nature. At that time I often fell into these
reveries on taking opium; and more than once it has happened to me on a summer night, when I have been at an
open window, in a room from which I could overlook the
sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the
great town of L- at about the same distance, that I have
sat from sunset to sunrise, motionless, and without wishing
to move.'




134         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
This description recalls exactly the picture of the confirmed coquero reclining for hours beneath his sheltering
tree, absorbed, abstracted, and heedless of all external
things. Whether his apathy and phlegm ever approached
to that of the coquero, the English Opium-eater does not inform us.
6~. CONSUMPTION OF COCA LEAF.- We have no accurate
data from which to form an estimate of the actual weight of
coca leaf collected and consumed in Bolivia and Peru.
P6ppig estimates the money value of the yearly produce to
be about four and a half millions of Prussian dollars, which,
at Is. a pound, the price it yields to the grower, would make
the annual produce nearly 15,000,000 lbs. This approximation is sufficient to show us its importance to the higher
regions of South America, in an agricultural and commercial, as well as in a social point of view.
Dr. Weddell again, who has recently travelled in Bolivia, informs us that the province of Yongas, in Bolivia, in
which the coca is much cultivated, alone produces 9,600,000
Spanish pounds. The total produce, therefore, is probably
much beyond the 15,000,000 lbs. deduced from the statement of Poppig.
The importance of the plant is shown also by another
fact mentioned by the same traveller-that the revenue of
the state of Bolivia, in 1850, amounted to ten and a half
millions of francs, of which nine hundred thousand, or onetwelfth of the whole, is derived from the tax on coca. Had
he told us the amount of the tax per pound, we should have
been able to approximate more nearly to the total produce
of the state of Bolivia.
When we consider that eastward from Bolivia and Peru,
the culture and use of coca have extended into parts of Brazil and to the banks of the Amazon, it will not appear exaggerated if we estimate the actual growth and consumption




CONSUMPTION OF COCA.                135
of the dried coca-leaf at 30,000,000 lbs. a-year. At is. a
pound, this is worth a million and a-half sterling; and at
the average produce of 800 lbs. an acre, it implies the use
of 37,000 acres of good and carefully cultivated land for the
growth of this plant. We may estimate also that the chewing of coca is more or less indulged in among about ten millions of the human race.




CHAPTER XXI.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
THE  THORN-APPLES, THE  SIBERIAN  FUNGUS) AND  THE  MINOR
NARCOTICS.
The red thorn-apple; its use among the Indians of Peru; its remarkable effects;
taken by the Indian priests; frenzy induced by it; used in the temples of the
Andes and of Greece; Delphic oracles inspired by it; singular coincidence in
priestly deceptions.-The common thorn-apple; its use in Europe for criminal
purposes —In Russia, for giving headiness to beer; in India, to ardent spiritsHow it is employed by the poisoners of India-Spectral illusions occasioned by
the use of it-Narcotic qualities of the leaves.-Chemical history of the thornapples.-The poisonous daturin and the empyreumatic oil; their joint influence
in smoking.-The Siberian fungus; how collected and used; its intoxicating
effects; delusions created by it; its active principle escapes in the urine; may be
again used repeatedly, and by different persons; Siberian custom.-The common
puff-ball; narcotic qualities of its smoke when burning.-Chemistry of the poisonous fungi; they contain amanitin.-Empyreumatic oil of the burning puff-ball.
-The minor narcotics: The emetic holly, the narcotic of Florida; how it is used.
-The deadly nightshade; its remarkable effects; destruction of a Norwegian
army in Scotland.-The common henbane.-The bearded darnel gives headiness
to beer, and poisons bread.-Sweet gale; its use for giving bitterness to beer.Heather beer of the Picts and Danes.-The rhododendrons, poisonous and narcotic.
-The Azalea pontica gives its peculiar qualities to the Euxine or Trebizond
honey.-The andromedas and kalmias of North America act as narcotics.-Poisoning by partridge flesh.-Narcotic effects of sweet odours on some constitutions.
XII. THE THORN-APPLES.-The history of the thornapples as familiar narcotics is no less interesting, and their
effects upon the system not less remarkable, than those of




THE RED THORN-APPLE.-                137
any of the substances I have hitherto described.  Two species are known to be employed in different parts of the
world;
10. THE RED THORN-APPLE (Datur-a sanguinea), fig. 73,
is in use among the Indians of the Andes, by some tribes
of whom the coca leaf, already described, is principally consumed. It grows on the less steep slopes of the Andean
valleys, and is called by              Fig. 78.
the natives Bovachero, or
Yerba de huaca.  The
strong  narcotic  drink,
which they call Tonga.
By the use. of this drink 
they believe that they
are brought into commucation with the spirits of
their forefathers.  Von
Tschudi had an opportu-               -_
nity of observing an In-                     v
dian under the influence
of this drug, and he thus
describes  its  effects    ~
" Shortly  after  having  Datura sanguinea-The Red Thorn-Apple.
swallowed the beverage,       Scale, one inch to nine inches.
he fell into a heavy stupor.  He sat with his eyes vacantly
fixed on the ground, his mouth convulsively closed, and his
nostrils dilated.  In the course of about a quarter of an
hour his eyes began to roll, foam issued from his half-opened
lips, and his whole body was agitated by frightful convulsions.  These violent symptoms having subsided, a profound
sleep of several hours succeeded. In the evening, when I




138         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
saw him again, he was relating to a circle of attentive listeners the particulars of his vision, during which he alleged
he had held communication with the spirits of his forefathers.  He appeared very weak and exhausted." *
In former times, the Indian priests, when they pretended
to transport themselves into the presence of their deities,
drank the juice of this thorn-apple, in order to excite themselves to a state of ecstasy. And although the establishment of Christianity has weaned the Indians from their
idolatry, it has not yet banished their old superstitions.
They still believe that they can hold communication with
the spirits of their ancestors, and that they can obtain from
them a clue to the treasures ooncealed in the huacas, or
graves; hence the Indian name of the thorn-apple, Huacacachu-grave-plant-or Yerba de huaca.
When the decoction is taken very strong, it brings on
attacks of furious excitement.  The whole plant is narcotic,
but it is in the seeds that the greatest virtue resides. These
are said by some authors to have been used also by the
priests of the Delphic temple in ancient Greece to produce
those frenzied ravings which were then called prophecies.
Such a practice certainly obtained in the Temple of the Sun
at Sogamossa-(LINDLEY.)  This Sogamossa is near Bogota, in the Andes of New Grenada.
It is sufficiently strange to see how similar modes and
means of imposition were made use of by the priests of nearly every false religion in ancient times, for the purpose of
deluding their credulous countrymen. But it is truly remarkable that among the mountains of Greece, in the
palmiest days of that classic country, the same observed
effects, of the same wild plant, should have been employed
by the~priests of Apollo to deceive the intellectual Greeks, as
at the same time were daily used by the priests of the sun to
* VON TsCHuDI, Travels tn Peru, p. 269.




PRIESTLY DECEPTIONS.              139
deceive the rude and credulous Indians among the far distant mountains of the Andes.  The pretended second-sight,
and the other marvels told of the old seers of the Scottish
Highlands, may owe their origin to nothing more noble or
mysterious than a draught of thorn-apple, nightshade, or
belladonna tea.
2~. THE COMMON THORN-APPLE (Datura stramonium)
has been long known even in Europe to possess narcotic
properties.  In Germany and France the seeds are said to
be frequently made use of for the perpetration of crime.*
In Russia they are added to beer to make it heady and intoxicating-a practice which formerly prevailed also in China, but has been now long forbidden-(GMELIN).  In Upper
India, the mountain villagers of Sirinagur, and other provinces, employ the same seeds to add to the intoxicating
qualities of their common spirituous liquors. In Lower India, the poisoners, who all belong to the caste of Pasie, or
dealers in toddy, make use of the seeds of the datura in plying their odious craft. They go about singly or in gangs,
haunting the traveller's resting-places, where they drop half
a rupee weight of seeds, pounded or whole, into his food.
This produces an intoxication of twenty hours' duration,
during which he is robbed, and left either to recover or to
sink under the stupefying effects of the narcotic.  The seed
is gathered at any time, place, or age of the plant, without
apparent influence upon its efficacy —(Dr. HOOKER).t
In this country the seeds are rarely used, except under
the direction of a medical man, or when they happen to be
swallowed by mistake; and it is singular that when an overdose does happen thus to be taken, especially if it is by a
child, the delirium it occasions is often accompanied by
spectral illusions more or less wild. A little girl who had
* CnRISTISON On Poisons, p. 841.
t Himalayan Journals, vol.. p. 66.




140         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
taken a drachm and a half of the seeds became furiously de
lirious in two hours, saw spectral illusions, and so continued
during the night, with intervals of lethargic sleep. Next
morning she fell fast asleep, and after some hours awoke
quite well-(FOWLER).  The symptoms of this case very
closely resemble the reputed effects of the seeds of the red
datura on the Indians of New Granada. They remind us
of the supposed meetings with their ancestors, which, under
the influence of the infusion, the Indians esteem themselves
privileged to hold.
The narcotic property is not confined to the seeds, but
is probably possessed by the whole plant. Alarming narcotic effects have been produced by applying the leaves to
an extensive burn, where, from the removal of the skin, the
ingredients of the leaf were capable of being absorbed into
the system of the patient.  In this country the dried leaves
and plant are frequently smoked by persons affected with
certain forms of spasmodic asthma. For this use they are
sometimes made up into the form of cigars, and sold by the
druggists for smoking in the same way as tobacco. The
smoke is generally swallowed, but few persons, I believe,
attempt to use it, except by the direction of a medical adviser.
All the species of thorn-apple, so far as they have hitherto been examined, contain a solid, white, crystalline, poisonous compound, to which the name of daturin has been
given.  The taste of this substance is at first bitterish, it
then becomes acrid, and recalls the taste of tobacco.  When
taken internally, it strongly dilates the pupil, and in its general action upon the system very much resembles the poisonous principle contained in the well-known common henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). It is to the action of this ingredient that the singular effects produced by the seeds, as
above described, are believed to be chiefly due.




THORN-APPLE CIGARS.               14i
But when the thorn-apple, leaf and stem, are smoked,
an empyreumatic oil is produced, similar to that which is
yielded by tobacco leaves when burning in the pipe of the
smoker.* Like that of tobacco, also, this empyreumatic oil
is very poisonous. The narcotic, soothing, and spasm-stilling effects of the smoke of the thorn-apple, are partly due to
the presence of the vapours of this oil. The poisonous daturin of the stramonium leaf may also rise in vapour and
mingle with the smoke, as the poisonous nicotin does with
the smoke of burning tobacco (p. 316); but this has not as
yet been tested by experiment. If so, then, as in the case of
tobacco, the full effect experienced by smoking the datura is
made up of the joint influence of the mixed vapours of the daturin and of the empyreumatic oil which the smoke contains.
The presence of these powerfully narcotic and poisonous
principles explains why, as experience has proved, the smoking of the thorn-apple is by no means unattended with danger. The custom of swallowing the smoke causes more of
the poisonous ingredients to be absorbed into the system
than is usually the case in the smoking of tobacco.
XIII. THE SIBERIAN OR INTOXICATING FUNGUS (Amanita muscaria) is to the native of Kamtschatka what opium
and hemp are to the eastern Asiatics, coca to the Peruvian,
and tobacco to the European and North American races.
The natural craving for narcotic indulgences has in Siberia
found its gratification in a humble toadstool.
This fungus has a close resemblance to some of the edible fungi, and is not unlike our common mushroom (fig. 74).
It grows very abundantly in some parts of Kamtschatka,
and hence its use in that country.  It is either collected
during the hot months, and hung up to dry in the air, or it
is left in the ground to ripen and dry, and is afterwards
* See the chapter on Tobacco.




1 42         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
gathered. The latter are more narcotic than those which
are artificially dried.
When steeped in the expressed juice of the native whortleberry ( Vaccinium  uliginosum,), this fungus imparts to it
the intoxicating properties of strong wine. Eaten fresh in
soups and sauces, it exhibits a less powerful intoxicating
quality. But the most common way of using it is to roll it
up like a bolus, and to swallow it whole without chewing.
If chewed, it is said to disorder the stomach.
Fig. 74.            One large or two small fungi
are a common dose to produce a
l     pleasant intoxication for a whole' day.  If water be drank after it,
the narcotic action is increased.
The desired effect comes on in
the course of an hour or two after
the dose is taken.  Cheerfulness
is first produced, then the face
becomes flushed, giddiness and
drunkenness follow in the same
way as from  wine or spirits, involuntary words and actions succeed, and sometimes the final efAmanita lMuscaria —Siberian or  feet is an entire loss of consciousIntoxicating Fungus.  ness.  In some it provokes to
remarkable activity, and stimulates to bodily exertion. In
too large doses it induces violent spasms. Upon some individuals it produces effects which are very ludicrous. A
talkative person cannot keep silence or secrets.  One fond
of music is perpetually singing; and if a person under its
influence wishes to step over a straw or small stick, he takes
a stride or a jump sufficient to clear the trunk of a tree.
The haschisch produces similar erroneous impressions as
to size and distance as the one last mentioned,  And it is




REMARKABLE PROPERTY.               143singular that the erroneous perceptions to which these drugs
give rise temporarily-and in the case of haschisch, with a
half consciousness of their deceptive character-exist permanently in many lunatics.  The reader may also have met
with descriptions of old women who were proved to be
witches by their being unable to step over a straw!
But the most singular effect of the amanita is the property it imparts to the fluid excretions. It has been known
from time immemorial to the inhabitants of Siberia that the
fungus gives to the urine an intoxicating quality. This continues for a considerable time after taking it, so that a man
who is moderately intoxicated the one day, and has slept
himself sober by the next morning, will, by drinking  as is
the custom-a tea-cup of his own urine, become more completely intoxicated than before. It is not uncommon, therefore, for confirmed drunkards in that country to preserve
their urine as a precious liquor in case of a scarcity of the
fungus.  This intoxicating property of the fluid is capable
of being propagated, so to speak; for every one who partakes of it is similarly affected. Dr. Langsdorff says, that
if a second person takes the urine of the first, a third that
of the second, and so on, the intoxication may be propagated through five individuals.  Thus, with a very few amanitse, a party of drunkards may keep up their debauch for
a week.
We have already seen that morphia, the active principle
of opium, passes through the body into the milk and other
liquid excretions. The same is the case also with the active
principles of cinchona bark, of hemlock, of belladonna, aconite, &c. The Siberian fungus no doubt contains, like most
of these, a strongly poisonous narcotic principle. This narcotic ingredient, however, has never been obtained in a separate state, as no chemical investigation of this species of fungus has ever yet been made.  We can only judge from




144          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
analogy, therefore, as to the nature of the active substance
it contains.
We have no experience as yet in this part of Europe of
any effects so remarkable as these being produced by any
species of fungus. The qualities of this class of plants seem
to vary with the climate in which they are grown; but it is
probable that some of our poisonous fungi, when tried in the
same way, will be found to possess properties analogous to
those of the amanita of Siberia.  This is rendered more
likely by the fact that our common puff-ball, the Lycoperdon
proteus, which is not poisonous, emits fumes when burned
which possess narcotic properties in a high degree.
It has long been observed, indeed, that poisonous fungi
in general, when eaten, produce narcotic among their other
effects. It has; also been popularly known in this country
that the smoke of the burning puff-ball, though in itself
wholesome and eatable, has the property of stupefying bees,
and it has frequently been used for that purpose when a
hive was to be robbed. But it has recently been tried upon
higher orders of animals, and similar effects have been found
to be produced upon them also. When the fumes of the
burning fungus are slowly inhaled, all the ordinary symptoms of intoxication gradually appear. These are followed
first by drowsiness, and then by perfect insensibility to pain,
like that which follows the use of chloroform; and if the
inhalation be continued, this is succeeded by convulsions,
occasionally by vomiting, and after some time by death.
While recovering from its action, an animal is sometimes
perfectly conscious, while it is still insensible to pain.*
The chemistry of this tribe of plants is still very obscure.
Two active principles, however, have been recognised in such
of the fungi as are possessed of poisonous properties. When
distilled with water, they yield a volatile acrid principle
* MedicaZ Time3, June 11, 1853, and C. emist, July 1853.




CHEMISTRY OF THESE FUNGI.            145
which has been little examined; and when extracted by
water and alcohol, a brown solid substance is obtained, to
which-on the supposition that it is the active principle of
the genus Amanita-the name of amanitin has been given.
But neither the chemical relations nor the specific action of
these substances on the human body have as yet been inves
tigated. It may be to their conjoined influence upon the
system that the singular effects of the Siberian fungus are
to be ascribed.
The unpoisonous puff-ball has not yet been shown to
contain any narcotic ingredient resembling the amanitin of
the poisonous species.  The narcotic effects produced by its
smoke when burning must, therefore, at present, be ascribed
to the empyreumatic oil, which, like tobacco and the thornapples, it yields when burned.  This mingles with the
smoke, and along with the smoke is drawn into the lungs
and there absorbed.
XIV. THE MINOR NARCOTICs.- Besides the narcotics
already mentioned, which may be regarded as national indulgences, and are used by large bodies of men, there are
several which possess so much of a local or historical interest, as to make them not unworthy of a brief consideration. I class these together under the name of Minor Narcotics.
10. THE EMETIC HOLLY (Ihex vomitoria), is the narcotic
of the Indians of Florida.  An infusion or decoction of the
leaves is drunk before the opening of their councils, and on
other important occasions. That their heads may be clear
when grave questions are about to be discussed, they are
said to fast three whole days, drinking meanwhile the infu
sion of this plant.  This infusion is sometimes spoken of as
the black drink, probably from its colour.
In moderate doses it acts upon the kidneys, and inVOL. II.-'7




146         THE NARCOTICS WE 1NDULGE IN.
creases the perspiration. Taken more largely, it moves the
bowels and causes vomiting. Used in the proper manner, it
also induces a state of excitement and frenzy, so that among
the Seminoles it serves the same purposes as opium does in
the East. How it is administered to produce these more
purely narcotic effects, I have not found described by any
author to whom I have had access.
The chemical history of this plant is quite unknown. As
a holly, however, (Ilex), it is botanically related to the plant
which yields the Paraguay tea.* It probably contains an
active principle, therefore, which has an analogy to the
theine of the tea leaf.
20. THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE.-The black berries of
the deadly nightshade or dwale (Atropa belladonna), by
their beautiful brightness sometimes tempt the young to eat
them by mistake. They are powerfully narcotic, and among
their earliest symptoms induce the appearance of the most
besotted drunkenness. The dried leaves, or an infusion of
the leaves, acts in a similar manner. Even a small dose
causes an extravagant delirium, which is usually of an agreeable kind. This is sometimes accompanied by excessive and
uncontrollable laughter, sometimes by incessant talking, but
occasionally by a complete loss of voice.  The state of mind
sometimes resembles somnambulism, as in the case of a
tailor who for fifteen hours was speechless and insensible to
external objects, and yet went through all the operations of
his trade with great vivacity, and moved his lips as if in
conversation —(CHRISTISON).
This narcotic is never now used among us except as a
medicine.  It possesses an historical interest, however, from
the circumstance, related on the authority of Buchanan the
historian, " That the destruction of the Danish army, com.
manded by Sweno, king of Norway, when he invaded Scot* See THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE.




THE BEARDED DARNEL.                  147
land, was owing to the intoxicating qualities of the berries
of this plant, which the Scots mixed with the drink they
were obliged to furnish to the invaders.  For while the
Danish soldiers lay under its soporific influence, the Scotch
fell upon them, and destroyed so many, that there were
scarcely sufficient left to carry the king on board of the only
ship that returned to Norway."*
30. COMMON HENBANE.- The roots of black henbane
(Hyoscyamus niger) are strongly narcotic and inebriating.
Three grains of the dried watery extract of this root are
about equal to one of opium, but it is not so certain in its
effects. I am not aware that it has ever been used as a narcotic indulgence.
40. THE BEARDED DARNEL.-Of the home-grown narcotics, natives of our islands,            Fig. 75.
the bearded darnel (Lolium  temulentum), fig. 75, commonly
called sturdy or ryle, creeps occasionally  into  our  fermented)
liquors and our bread.   This
grass grows in many places as an
abundant weed in the corn-fields
of some of our more slovenly
farmers.  When ripe, it is cut
down and thrashed with the corn
among which it grows; and when
the grain is afterwards imperfecty cleaned, these seeds remain
among it.  They have been long LolZu temulentwm-Bearded Darnel or Ryle.
known to possess narcotic and        Scale, an inch to a foot.
singularly  intoxicating  proper-      Seeds, natural size.
ties. When malted along with barley, which, when the
grain is ill-cleaned, sometimes unintentionally happens, they
* MOREHOUBS On Intomaicating Lipqors, p. 104.




148         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
impart their intoxicating quality to the beer, and render it
unusually and even.dangerously heady. When ground up
with wheat and made into bread, they produce a similar
effect, especially if the bread be eaten hot. Many instances
are on record in which effects of this kind, sometimes amusing and sometimes alarming, have been produced by the unintentional consumption of darneled bread or beer.
A recent case occurred on Christmas-day (1853) at Roscrea, in Ireland, where several families, containing not less
than thirty persons, were poisoned by eating darnel flour in
their whole-meal bread. They were attacked by giddiness,
staggering, violent tremors similar to those experienced in
the delirium tremens produced by intoxicating liquors, impaired vision, coldness of the skin and extremities, partial
paralysis, and in some cases vomiting.  By the use of
emetics and stimulants all were recovered, though greatly
prostrated in strength.
The narcotic principle in these seeds has not yet been
discovered.  When distilled with water they yield a light
and a heavy volatile oil; but that the narcotic virtue resides
in these oils, has not yet been shown. No volatile alkali,
like the nicotin of tobacco (p. 316), has been detected in the
water and oils which distil over.
50. SWEET GALE.-Though now, I believe, out of use in
this country, the sweet gale (Myrica gale) is another native
narcotic, of which the qualities appear to have been familiar
to the ancient inhabitants of our islands. All the northern
nations are said to have used this plant in former times to
give bitterness and apparent strength to their fermented
liquors.  In Sweden this practice still prevails; and, as fat
back as 1440, King Christopher of Sweden confirmed an ocl
law, which inflicted a fine upon those who collected this plant
before the proper season, or' from another person's land.*
* BEOCWITe'S History of lsneentions (Bohn's edition), vol. ii. p. 885.




THE RHODODENDRONS.                   149
A tradition prevails in Ireland that the Danes knew how
to make beer out of heather; and Boethius has preserved
an early Scotch tradition of a similar kind.  "In the deserts
and moors of Scotland," he says, "there grows an herb
named heather, very nutritive to beasts, birds, and especially to bees. In the month of June it produces a flower of
purple hue as sweet as honey. Of this flower the Picts
made a delicious and wholesome liquor. The manner of making it has perished with their extermination, as they never
showed the craft of making it except to their own blood." *
It is just possible that the grain of truth contained in this
tradition may be, that the Pictsflavoured their barley-worts
with twigs of flowering heather; or that, like other northern
nations, they used the narcotic gale which grows among the
heather, to give a bitter flavour and a more intoxicating
quality to the liquor they made from them.
60. THE RHODODENDRONS form  a well-known group of
plants in which much narcotic virtue resides. The flowers
of the Rhododendron arboreum are eaten as a narcotic by
the hill people of India. The rusty-coloured leaves of the
Rhododendron campanulatum are used as snuff by the natives of India, and the brown dust which adheres to the petioles of the kalmias and rhododendrons is used for a similar purpose in the United States of North America-(DECANDOLLE). The Rhododendron chrysanthemum, a Siberian
bush, is one of the most active of narcotics; but whether it
is employed in its native country. as a narcotic indulgence, I
am not aware.
The Azalea ponztica (fig. 76), a kindred shrub, which
grows abundantly on the borders of the Black Sea, and
* A more precise tradition, current in Teviotdale, has been preserved in LEYDEN'S Bemains, p. 320, and in Mr. Christmas's very curious book, The Cradle of the
Tiein Giants (vol. ii. p. 198), to which I am indebted for the above extract from
Boethius.




150          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
hangs out its tempting flowers in the season of honey-making, is said to be the source of the narcotic quality for which
the Trebizond honey is famous.  The effects of the Euxine
honey, according to Pallas, resemble those produced by the
bearded darnel, and occur where no true rhododendrons
Flg. 76.         grow.   The natives, he adds,
-.           are well aware of the poisonous'" ~'~"qualities of this azalea.  Goats,
which browse on its leaves before the pastures become green,
feel its influence, and both cattle
and sheep are sometimes killed
by it.  The extraordinary effects
which the honey, extracted from
the flowers of this azalea produced upon the soldiers of Xenophon,* bear ample testimony to
their narcotic qualities.
I might notice many other
plants which, though  not employed as indulgences, have yet
been frequently observed in common life to exhibit narcotic efAzalea pontica —The Almenian  fects. Thus, among heath-plants,
Azalea.
Scale for plant in flower, with the the Andromeda polifolia, a small
leaves unexpanded, 1 inch to 5 feet.
-Scale for leaves and cluster of shrub found wild in the bogs of
flowers, 1 inch to 3 inches.  northern Europe and America,
is an acrid narcotic, and proves fatal to sheep.  Similar
properties have been observed, in the United States, in the
Andromeda mariana, which is there called kill-lamb, or stagger-bush, because it is supposed to be poisonous to lambs
and calves, producing a disease called the staggers.
In the same country the leaves of the Kalmia latifolia
* See THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT..




NARCOTIC ODOURS.                151
are poisonous to many animals, and are reputed to be narcotic, but their action is feeble. Bigelow states that the
flesh of pheasants which have fed on the young shoots is poisonous to man; and cases of severe illness are on record
which have been ascribed to this cause alone.  Ihis property reminds us of those active ingredients of opium and the
Siberian fungus which can pass unchanged through the milk
and other liquid excretions of persons who consume them.
About New York and in Long Island the Kalmia angustifolia is believed to kill sheep, and is known by the
names of sheep-laurel, sheep-poison, lamb-laurel, and lambkill. The flowers of the kalmia exude a sweet honey-like
juice, which is said when swallowed to bring on a mental
intoxication, both formidable in its symptoms and long in
duration-(ToRREY). In this it appears closely to resemble
the Armenian azalea.
Finally, I may remark that, according to Dr. Bird, the
odour of vanilla intoxicates the labourer who gathers it.
Even the perfumes of the rose, the pink, and other common
sweet-smelling flowers, act on some persons as narcotic poisons-(ORFILA). And the vapours arising from large quantities of saffron are said to produce similar effects-headache, apoplexy, and sometimes death. So much does the
constitution of the individual exalt and increase the physiological action of substances which, to the mass of mankind,
are not only harmless, but rcally sources of refined pleasure
and enjoyment.




C EAPTER XX I.
THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
Extended uso of narcotic indulgences.-Numbers of men among whom they are con
sumed.-The use of them to be restrained chiefly by moral means.-Their agricultural and commercial importance.-Total annual production and value.-Their
wonderful properties, and interest to the physiologist.-Analogy between diseased
states of mind, natural and artificial.-Do all our feelings arise from physical
causes?-Special properties of the different narcotics,-Defective state of our
knowledge.-National influence of narcotics.-They react upon the constitution
and character.-Coincidences in Asiatic and American customs.-Ancient connection between the continents.-General summary.
I CANNOT dismiss the  subject of the  narcotics of common
life, without drawing the attention of my readers to a few
of the more interesting considerations which the facts above
enumerated suggest to us.
1~. THEIR EXTENDED USE.-And the first reflection which
occurs, as we cast a backward glance over the whole subject,
is the almost universal use of narcotic indulgences.   Siberia
has its fungus-Turkey, India, and  China, their opiumPersia, India, and Turkey, with all Africa from  Morocco to
the Cape of Good  Hope, and  even  the  Indians of Brazil,
have their hemp and haschisch —India, China, and the
Eastern Archipelago their bete.-nut and betel-pepper —the




UNIVERSAL USE OF NARCOTICS.            153
Polynesian islands their daily ava-Peru and Bolivia their
long-used coca-New Granada and the Himalayas their red
and common thorn-apples-Asia and America, and all the
world, we may say, their tobacco-the Florida Indians their
emetic holly-Northern Europe and America their ledums
and sweet gale-the Englishman and German their hop, and
the Frenchman his lettuce.  No nation so ancient but has
had its narcotic soother from the most distant times-none
so remote and isolated but has found within its own borders
a pain-allayer and narcotic care-dispeller of native growthnone so savage which instinct has not led to seek for, and
successfully to employ, this form of physiological indulgence. The craving for such indulgence, and the habit of
gratifying it, are little less universal than the desire for and
the practice of consuming the necessary materials of our
common food.
Thus it may be estimated that the several narcotics are
usedTobacco,    among   800   millions of men.
Opium,       "      400     "   "
Hemp,        "   200 to 300    "   "
Betel,       "      100      " "
Coca,        ".10      "   "
A tendency which is so evidently a part of our general
human nature, is not to be suppressed or extinguished by
any form of mere physical, fiscal, or statutory restraint. It
may sometimes be discouraged or repressed by such means,
but even this lesser result is not always attainable. This
was proved by the failure of the Spaniards, in their attempts
to check the consumption of coca in Peru, of kings and
priests to prohibit the spread of smoking in Europe and
western Asia, and more recently by the similar failure of the
imperial crusade against the use of opium in China.  An
empire may be overthrown by inconsiderate statutory intermeddling with the natural instincts, the old habits, or the
VOL. II. —7




154          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
growing customs of a people, while the instincts and habits
themselves are only strengthened and confirmed.
While he laments, therefore, the excesses to which some
are led in the use of narcotic substances, the enlightened
philanthropist will look to moral rather than to physical or
fiscal means as most likely to repress them. The minds of
the people who use them must be enlightened. They must
be taught to understand what will promote in the greatest
degree both their bodily health and their permanent mental
comfort. And what will operate more than all, they must
be trained up to self-control and self restraint, and to the
habit of reining in their natural desires for this or that form
of gratification. This, unhappily, mere intellectual culture
will never do.
It is, indeed, not less melancholy than it is remarkable,
that some of the most striking known instances-of the abuse
of opium, for example-have occurred among men of great
mental powers, and of more than ordinary intellectual attainments. The reader of the preceding pages will recollect
the total paralysis of the bodily and mental energies which
befell our great Coleridge while he was a slave to opium;
and how the English Opium-eater, as well as many others,
found mere intellectual power unable to contend with the
excited instinctive cravings of their bodily constitutions,
when by long indulgence they had become diseased. Examples like these ought to impress upon every one a Christian
sense of his own weakness, and incline him voluntarily to
turn aside from the temptations which such men were unable
to resist.'
20. THEIR AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE.
* It is comparatively easy to avoid acquiring habits, but it is very difficult to
overcome such as are already formed. It was stated the other day at a temperance
meeting in London, that of six hundred thousand persons in the United States who
had taken the pledge, four hundred and fifty thousand had broken it I




THEIR AGRICOLTURAL IMPORTANCE.                155
-Then  in regard to these narcotic substances, it may be
questioned whether many more people are employed in raising the common necessaries of life, than in cultivating and
preparing these apparently unnecessary indulgences. Certainly no other crops, except corn, and perhaps cotton, represent more commercial capital, employ more shipping and
other means of transport, are the subject of a more extended
and unfailing traffic, and the source of greater commercial
wealth. The correctness )f this may be judged of by the
following estimates of the annual produce and value of a few
of the narcotics I have mentioned:
Produce   Total produce   Acres em-   Value  Total value in
per acre.   in lb.    plonyed.  per lb.    pounds sterling.
Tobacco,  800 lb.  4,480,000,000   5,600,000    2d.  ~837,000,000
Opium,    20 "      20,000,000   1,000,000   20s.   20,000,000
The Hop,  660"      80,000,000    120,000    is.    4,000,000
Coca,..  800 "     30,000,000    387,000    is.    1,500,000
5,610,000,000   6,725,000    ~60,500,000
Besides these, there are consumed in the East five hundred millions of pounds of betel, and twenty millions of
pounds of catechu and gambir extract.
Of course, all these estimates are to a great extent conjectural, but they are sufficiently near the truth to show how
important an influence the narcotic appetite exercises upon
the rural labors and commercial intercourse of mankind.
Its influence on domestic economy becomes equally apparent when we consider how large a proportion of the weekly earnings is often among ourselves expended in gratifying
this appetite. But in India, where, on an average, not more
than sixpence a-head is yearly spent by the whole population
in the purchase of clothing,* narcotic indulgences form the
second great necessary of common life.
Bombay Gazette.




156         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
30. THEIR WONDERFUL ACTION upon the system is not
less worthy of attention.  The haschisch, besides the more
usual intoxicating effect by which it makes the patient, like
the infatuated lover, see
"H elen's beauty in a brow of Egypt,"
brings on that remarkable, rare, and inexplicable condition
of the living body, which is distinguished by the name of
catalepsy. The limbs of the patient may be moved at will
by the bystander; but in opposition to the law of gravity,
and apparently without an effort on the part of the patient,
they remain for an indefinite period in any position in which
they may be placed. The thorn-apple calls up spectral illusions before the deceived eye, and enables the forlorn and
down-trodden Indian to hold refreshing converse with the
spirits of his rich and powerful ancestors. The Siberian
fungus gives insensibility to pain, while consciousness still
remains, and, in common with the haschisch, it creates the
singular delusion that a straw is too formidable an obstacle
to be stepped over. The common puff-ball deprives the pa
tient of speech, motion, and sensibility to pain, while he re
mains alive to all that passes around him. It thus realises,
and proves to be possible, that nightmare of our dreams, in
which we imagine ourselves stretched on the funeral bier,
sensible to the weeping of real, and the secret satisfaction
of pretended friends; aware of the last screw being fixed in
the coffin, and the last sod clapped down above us in the
grave-yard, and are yet unable to move a lip for our own
deliverance! And then how melancholy the idiotic laughter produced by the deadly nightshade —so like that which,
in rare and mournful cases, is seen on the old and withered
features of one who, in the vigour of his manhood, charmed
the world by the brilliancy of his genius, or astonished it by
the majesty of his intellectual powers t How singular, in




THEIR WONDERFUL EFFECTS.              157
fine, that influence of coculus indicus, which leaves the mind
clear and strong after the limbs have become feeble and the
gait tottering, as if the whole man were deadly drunk!
In all these effects the physiologist finds matter of most
attractive, most interesting, most useful, and yet most profound and mysterious study. By what kind of action upon
the system does the active ingredient of hemp produce the
diseased condition we call catalepsy; or that of the thornapple, the condition in which men see visions and dream
dreams; or that of the fungus, the fearful state of the most
fearful nightmares; or that of the nightshade, the melancholy drivelling of the long-strained and worn-out intellectual faculties?  How interesting such questions, yet how
impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to answer
them!.And yet towards the understanding of these remarkable
phases of the human mind, chemistry has already brought
us far on our way. It has put into our hands distinct chemical substances, by which any one of these states can be produced temporarily, and at will.  Is it by the agency of similar substances, formed naturally in the system, that these
diseased states of mind are naturally produced? If so, can
we artificially, and by chemical means, counteract these, so
as either to retain the mind in a sound condition, or to restore it to its natural health?
Can we produce, for example, virtual insanity —imaginary happiness,* imaginary misery, or the most truth-like delusions-by introducing into the stomach, and thence into
the blood which is passing through the hair-like blood-vessels of the brain, a quantity of a foreign body too minute to
be recognised by ordinary chemical processes; and may not
real natural insanity, in any of its forms, be caused by the
natural production within the system itself of minute quan* "Madness hath imaginary bliss, and most men havo no more."-TrPpm.




158          THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
tities of analogous substances possessing similar virtues 1
And, if so produced, will our future chemistry teach us to
remove the mental disease, by preventing the production of
the cause, or by constantly neutralising its effects?
And these are not merely ends to be aimed it. Even
now they appear to be not beyond the pale of hope. For
what are so like to each other as the natural and artificial
states of mental derangement, and how much light do they
throw upon each other?  A monomaniac, in apparently perfect bodily health, takes the strangest fancies into his brain,
and talks of and reasons upon them as if they were real. A
person labouring under delirium tremens sees sights which
are invisible to others, and speaks of them to his attendant,
as real and present. The second-sighted seer, in his gifted
moments, receives strange warnings from shadowy ghosts,
and with full faith believes in and reveals them. A strong
man, under the influence of haschisch, or the Siberian fungus, sees a huge tree in a tiny straw, and persists in his inability to step over it, as if the tree were really there. A
child swallows common thorn-apple seeds, and forthwith
spectral illusions dance before it, which the child regards as
real. A decoction of a similar plant calls up to the presence
of the Indian of Peru the spirits of his ancestors; he converses with them; and when the effects of the drug have
disappeared, he relates these imaginary conversations to his
neighbours, believing them to be real, and, what is stranger
still, they are listened to with an equal faith in their reality.
An excited, nervously susceptible, or epileptic female sees
lights streaming from human graves, and will-o'-the-wisps
dancing around the poles of a magnet, or issuing in flickering mistiness from the finger-tops of an operator; she
believes and describes them as real, and, like the credulous
Indians, hundreds around her believe the odylic* moonshine
* Reicnenbach ascribes these appearances to an imaginary power, which he calls the
Od fwrce, and hence the term Odylic applied to the phenomena themselves.




HOW INSANITY IS PRODUCED.             159
to be real too.  But are the things seen in any one of these
cases more true and real than they are in all the rest? Are
they not all delusions alike-mere mockeries, which deceive
the diseased or drug-affected senses  And if so nearly
allied in nature, may they not be so also in cause and in
cure?  At all events, what interesting chemico-physiological
experiments are suggested by these striking analogies!
Some physiologists, reasoning from analogy, go still farther.  They ascribe not only these rarer states of mind, but
those also which are much more frequent and common, to
the direct physiological action of material substances. M.
Moreau, for example, guided by his personal experience of
the action of the resin of hemp on his own mind, throws out
the conjecture, " that every feeling of joy and gladness, even
when the cause of it is exclusively moral-that those enjoyments which are least connected with material objects, the
most spiritual, the most ideal-may be nothing else but sensations purely physical, developed in the interior of the system, in the same way as those which are produced by means
of the haschisch." In so far as relates to our internal consciousness, at least, he adds, " that there is no distinction to
be made between these two orders of sensations, in spite of
the diversity of causes to which they are due." This conjecture is eminently suggestive of experimental research,
but it goes deeper into the connection between mind and
matter than any positive knowledge we possess enables us as
yet safely to penetrate.
40. THE SPECIAL PROPERTIES by which they are severally
distinguished are also remarkable features of the narcotics I
have described. Thus, while tobacco soothes, and, accord
ing to some, sets the mind to sleep, opium and hemp stimulate and exalt the mental faculties, giving the feeling and
sense of increased intellectual power.  In the case of opium,
the activity of mind thus produced resembles the activity of




160         THE NARCOTICS WE 1NDULGE IN.
the mind in sleep.  It seems as if, all the bodily organs
being at rest, the thoughts and images floated over oi
through the quiescent brain without fatiguing or wasting it,
as cloud and sunshine flit over a fair landscape without stir
ring or physically changing it. With hemp it is otherwise.
It occasions hunger along with the mental activity. Prolonged thought in the waking man makes the head smoke, as
it were. Like physical exertion, it exhausts the body, and
brings on a hunger which can only be stayed by ordinary
food. And so the mental activity occasioned by hemp resembles more that of the waking than of the sleeping man.
This agrees with another observed difference between the
two.  Opium lessens the susceptibility to external impressions, while haschisch increases and quickens it in a high
degree.  The one shuts up the mind, as it were, within
itself, while the other throws it open to the most lively influence of every bodily sense. It is also in agreement with
all these differences, that the action of opium is interrupted
and lessened by disturbance and bodily motion, while that of
hemp is diminished by stillness and repose. In this latter
quality hemp agrees with ardent spirits.
Coca and opium, again, agree in sustaining the strength,
in certain circumstances, in a marvellous manner; yet they
differ in two important qualities.  The former never induces
sleep as opium does, and even when taken in great excess, it
moves the bowels, while opium usually makes them torpid
and costive. Betel rouses from the effects of opium, as tea
does from that of ardent spirits.  The Siberian fungus opens
and shows the heart as good wine is said to do. Secrets
drop out spontaneously under its influence, and either the
will or the ability to retain them has for the time gone to
sleep.
Such specialties are curious and interesting in them
selves; but they are so also in showing that the several nar



NATIONAL INFLUENCE OF NARCOTICS.         161
cotic substances act upon the system, and disturb the mind
in different ways. They strengthen the probability, therefore, that, by the use of special chemical substances, we may
be able hereafter to control the similarly differing mental
affections by which natural diseases are so often accompanied.
5.0~. How DEFECTIVE OUR KNOWLEDGE Is.-Yet though,
from what we do know, we may venture to express such
hopes as these, it must have struck the reader of the preceding chapters how very defective our knowledge is, both of
the chemical nature and of the physiological action of the
narcotics in which we indulge.  The field of study which
they present is indeed captivating  and extensive; but
hitherto the materials and opportunities for cultivating it
have presented themselves rarely, at intervals, and to few
individuals. The growing sense of the importance of chemical physiology to the art of medicine, however, promises,
by-and-by to make the value of a higher acquaintance with
chemistry more manifest to medical men, and thus to lead a
greater number of that profession to qualify themselves for
chemico-physiological investigations.   As this desirable
change takes place, we may expect to see many gaps in our
present knowledge gradually filling up.
60. NATIONAL INFLUENCE OF NARCOTICS.-WVe.have seen
that almost every part of the world grows and consumes its
own peculiar narcotic. The use of each of these in the country which produces it seems natural enough. It is consumed,
as the national species or variety of grain is, because it is
most easily and plentifully obtained. But when different
narcotics are equally accessible, why is one selected rather
than another?  England, for example, drinks much hopped
beer, while Scotland and Ireland drink comparatively little.
It is, no doubt, owing to some peculiarity in the national
character and constitution that the narcotic hop, and proba



162         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
bly also tobacco, are used more largely in the south than in
the north of our island-that the German and Swede smoke
more than the Frenchman-that opium and haschisch, so
loved in the East, have made such slow progress in our
European affections. And so the different forms in which
the same substance is used are probably, in part at least,
constitutional. France, the North of Scotland, Iceland, and
Northern Scandinavia, are great consumers of snuff. England, Germany (high and low), Southern Scandinavia, and
Russia, prefer to burn their tobacco and inhale its smoke.
Snuff is much used also by the African races who live be.
tween the Red Sea and the Upper Nile, while the Mograbins
are great chewers, and the Turks and Arabs as constant
smokers-(WERNE).  It may be said that differences such
as these are mere matters of taste; but national taste, though
sometimes the child of habit, is more frequently the offspring
of constitution and bodily temperament.
But does the use of the peculiar narcotic not again react
upon the constitution, and gradually change the disposition
and temperament? It probably does. The soothers and
exciters we indulge in to excess are seen gradually to affect
the constitution, and sensibly to modify the temper and constitution of individuals. Let the use of these become general, and similar changes will in time affect the whole people.
We cannot tell how far such constitutional alterations may
proceed. But it is a problem of interest to the legislator,
not less than to the physiologist and psychologist, to ascertain how far and in what direction such changes may gohow much of the actual tastes, habits, and character of existing nations has been created by the prolonged consumption and prevailing forms of the narcotics in daily use-how
far tastes and habits have been modified by the changes in
these forms which have been adopted within historic times
-and what influence their continued use is likely to exer



INDICATE NATIONAL ANALOGIES.                   163
cise on the final fortunes of this or that people.  The fate
of nations has frequently been decided by the slow operation
of long-acting causes, unthought of and unestimated by the
historian, which, while the name and local home of the people remained the same, had gradually changed their constitution, their character, and their capabilities.
70. ASIATIC  AND  AMERICAN  CUSTOMS.-In  connection
with this subject, it is also very striking that so many close
coincidences should exist between Asiatic and American
customs. Such are the very ancient use of tobacco in China, as well as in Central America-the use of hemp by the
natives of Brazil, as well as by those of India and the East
-— the practice of chewing lime or plant ashes with the coca
in Peru, and with the betel in India and  China —the use
of the red thorn-apple by the hill Indians of the Andes, and
of the common thorn-apple by the hill people on the slopes
of the Himalayas. All these coincidences can scarcely be
the result of chance; they are evidences rather of ancient
intercourse between Asia and America-possibly even of
ancient family relationship between their early inhabitants.
We are accustomed to trace analogies among nations by
means of alphabets, names of things, forms of speech, modes
of writing, religious rites, &c., and from these to infer a
family connection or a community of origin. But old habits
and peculiar customs of common life, clung to often not only
with the fondness of a natural instinct, but with a reverence
* It is a singular circumstance, with which I was not acquainted while writing
the chapter on tobacco, that the Mograbins of Northern Africa chew natron (the natron carbonate of soda of the desert bordering countries) with their tobacco; and that
the blacks of Gesira make a cold infusion of natron and tobacco, with a mouthful of
which they delight to rinse their -mouths for a quarter of an hour, and then reject it.
Is this custom of chewing soda with tobacco an imitation of the betel and lime used
by the Indian traders to the African ports of the Red Sea?-or is the origin of both
customs to be found in the abundance of natron about the natron lakes and elsewhere
in Northern Africa? In either case, it is equally remarkable that a similar practice
should prevail on the Andes of Peru.




164         THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.
inspired by high national antiquity-these are not less im
portant evidences of ancient intercourse.  They are also
more persistent. They may survive after power, civilisation, language, alphabets, writings, and even old religions,
have disappeared. The chewing of coca in Peru has outlived all these. The common-life customs and the bodily
features of the people have alone survived.
Philological travellers describe, as the most ancient race
among the Mexican mountains, a tribe of Indians speaking
a monosyllabic language which bears considerable resemblance to the Chinese. The similarity of customs above described is equally close and striking. And the most cautious ethnologist will scarcely refuse to consider the two
kinds of evidence as materially aiding each other, and giving
strength to the conclusion to which they both point-that
a remote family connection exists between the Indian inhabitants of America and the most ancient populations of
Eastern Asia.
8~. GENERAL SUMMARY.-From all that we know on the
subject of the narcotics, we may, I think, extract these general propositions:First, That there exists a universal craving in the whole
human race for indulgences of a narcotic kind. This is
founded in the nature of man.
Second, That this craving assumes in every country a
form which is more or less special to that country. It is
modified most by climate, less by race, and least, though
still very sensibly, by opportunity.
Third, That among every people the form of craving
special to the whole undergoes subsidiary modifications
among individuals.  These are determined by individual
constitution first, and next by opportunity. Hence different
professions, in consequence of acquired habits and states of
body, show the craving in differently modified forms. And




OUR HUMAN WEAKNESS.                165
hence, also, the different classes of society, because of their
unlike means and opportunities, exhibit similar differences.
~Fourth, That differences in physiological action, which
are sometimes very slight, separatea. The more dreaded from the less dreaded narcoticsopium and hemp from tobacco and the hop.
b. The narcotics from the fermented liquors-opium
from alcohol.
c. The milder from  the fiercer alcoholic drinks-the
beers and wines from the brandies.
d. The mildest fermented drinks from the beverages we
infuse-the beers from the teas and coffees.
All these indulgences shade into each other, often by
almost imperceptible degrees, and our constitutions, in favourable circumstances, insensibly adapt themselves to all.
How much, therefore, ought we to be on our guard against
their insidious attractions.
Lastly, I may remark that, with the enticing descriptions
before him, which the history of these narcotics presents, we
cannot wonder that man, whose constant search on earth is
after happiness, and who, too often disappointed here, hopes
and longs, and strives to fit himself for happiness hereafter
-we cannot wonder that he should at times be caught by
the tinselly glare of this corporeal felicity, and should yield
himself to habits which, though exquisitely delightful at
first, lead him finally both to torture of body and to misery
of mind;-that, debilitated by the excesses to which it provokes, he should sink more and more under the influence of
a mere drug, and become at last a slave to its tempting seductions.  We are indeed feeble creatures, and small in
bodily strength, when a grain of haschisch can conquer, or a
few drops of laudanum  lay us prostrate; but how much
weaker in mind, when, knowing the evils they lead us to, we
are unable to resist the fascinating temptations of these insidious drugs!




CHAPTER XXIII.
THE POISONS WE SELECT.
The consumption of white arsenic.-Action of arsenic upon the system.-Practice ol
using it in Styria.-Its effects in improving the complexion and removing breathlessness.-Quantity taken.-Length of time it may be used with impunity.-Illness produced by discontinuing it.-Its effects upon horses.-Its chemico-physiological action in producing these effects.-Ancient love-philtres and charms. —Incredible things formerly believed.-The eating of clay.-Practice in Guinea, in
the West Indies, in Java, in the Himalayas.-Use of bread-meal and mountainmeal in Sweden, Finland, and North Germany.-The Otomacs in South America.
-Humboldt's account.-Does clay support life?-Eaten by the Indians of Bolivia
and Peru.-Its physiological action.-Our ignorance still great.
I SHOULD omit from this outline of the chemistry of common
life some of the most remarkable features it presents, were
I not to add  to  the preceding  chapters on narcotic indulgences a brief notice of two other forms of indulgence not
less wonderful and extraordinary. These are, the habitual
consumption of arsenic, and the practice of eating clay.
I. THE  CONSUMPTION  OF WHITE  ARSENIC. —Arsenic, as
we commonly call it-the white arsenic of the shops and the
arsenious acid  of the  chemist —is  well known as a violent
poison.  Swallowed  in  large  doses, it is what medical writers call an irritant poison.   In  very  minute  doses it is
known to professional men as a tonic and alterative, and is
sometimes administered with a view to these effects. It is




EFFECTS OF ARSENIC UPON MAN.            167
remarkable also for exercising a peculiar influence upon the
skin, and is therefore occasionally employed in cutaneous
diseases. The use of arsenic, however, is unfrequent among
regularly educated practitioners, and it is never, I believe,
used as a household medicine by the people.
In some parts of Lower Austria, however, in Styria, and
especially in the hilly country towards Hungary, there prevails among the common people an extraordinary custom of
eating arsenic. During the smelting of lead, copper, and
other ores, white arsenic flies off in fumes, and condenses in
the solid form in the long chimneys which are usually attached to the smelting furnaces. From these chimneys, in
the mining regions, the arsenic is obtained, and is sold to
the people by itinerant pedlars and herbalists. It is known
by the name of Hidri,* and the practice of using it is of
considerable antiquity.  By many it is swallowed daily
throughout a long life, and the custom is even handed down
hereditarily from father to son.
Arsenic is thus consumed chiefly for two purposesFirst, To give plumpness to the figure, cleanness and softness to the skin, and beauty and freshness to the complexicn.
Second, To improve the breathing and give longness of wind,
so that steep and continuous heights may be climbed without difficulty and exhaustion of breath.  Both these results
are described as following almost invariably from the prolonged use of arsenic either by man or by animals.
For the former purpose young peasants, both male and
female, have recourse to it, with the view of adding to their
c4arms in the eyes of each other; and it is remarkable to
see how wonderfully well they attain their object, for those
young persons who adopt the practice are generally remarkable for clear and blooming complexions, for full rounded
figures, and for a healthy appearance.  Dr. Von Tschudi
* A corruption of Hutter-rauch, smelt-house smoke.




168             TIIE POISONS WE SELECT.
gives the following case as having occurred in his own medical practice: " A healthy, but pale and thin milkmaid, residing in the parish of H -, had a lover whom she wished
to attach to her by a more agreeable exterior; she, therefore, had recourse to the well-known beautifier, and took arsenic several times a-week.  The desired effect was not long
in showing itself; for in a few months she became stout,
rosy-cheeked, and all that her lover could desire. In order,
however, to increase the effect, she incautiously increased
the doses of arsenic, and fell a victim to her vanity.  She
died poisoned, a very painful death." The number of such
fatal cases, especially among young persons, is described as
by no means inconsiderable.
For the second purpose-that of rendering the breathing
easier when going uphill-a small.fragment of arsenic is put
into the mouth, and allowed to dissolve, which it does very
slowly.  The effect is described as astonishing.  Heights
are easily and rapidly ascended, which could not otherwise
be surmounted without great difficulty of breathing.
The quantity of arsenic taken by those who are beginning the practice varies with the age, sex, and constitution,
but it never exceeds half a grain. This dose is taken two
or three times a-week, in the morning fasting, till the patient becomes accustomed to it.  The dose is then cautiously increased as the quantity previously taken diminishes in
its effect.'" The peasant R-," says Dr. Von Tschudi,
" a hale man of sixty, who enjoys capital health at present,
takes for every dose a piece about two grains in weight.
For the last forty years he has continued the habit, which
he inherited from his father, and which he will transmit to
his children."
No symptoms of illness or of chronic poisoning are observable in any of these arsenic-eaters, when the dose is
carefully adapted to the constitution and habit of body of




EFFECTS OF ARSENIC ON ANIMALS.           169
the person using it. But if from want of material, or any
other cause, the arsenic be left off for a'time, symptoms of
disease occur which resemble those of slight arsenical poisoning. Especially a great feeling of discomfort arises, great
indifference to every thing around, anxiety about their own
persons, deranged digestion, loss of appetite, feeling of overloading in the stomach, increased flow of saliva, burning
from the stomach up to the throat, spasms in the throat,
pains in the bowels, constipation, and especially oppression
in the breathing.  From  these symptoms there is only one
speedy mode of relief, namely, an immediate return to arsenic-eating.
This custom never amounts to a passion like that of
opium-eating in the East, betel-chewing in India, or cocachewing among the Peruvians.  It is not, like opium  or
hemp, a source of intense pleasure, the craving for which
cannot be resisted; but, the habit once acquired, the fear
of pain compels its continuance. The use of arsenic has become a necessity of life.
Upon animals the effects are similar to those which are
produced upon man.  It fattens and plumps out the horse,
gives it a bright and glossy skin, and an appearance of high
health and condition. Hence this use of arsenic is very common in Vienna, especially among gentlemen's grooms and
coachmen. They either sprinkle a pinch of it among the
oats, or they tie a piece as big as a pea in linen, and fasten
it to the bit when the bridle is put into the horse's mouth.
There it is gradually dissolved by the saliva, and swallowed.
The sleek, round, glossy appearance of many of the first-rate
coach horses, and especially the foaming at the mouth, which
is so much admired, is owing to the arsenic they get. In
mountainous districts also, where horses have to drag heavy
burdens up steep places, the drivers often put a dose of arsenic into the last portion of food they give them.  This
VOL. IL-8




170             THE POISONS WE SELECT.
practice may be continued for years, with horses as with
men, without the least injury; but if a horse which is used
to it comes into the possession of one who does not give arsenic, it loses flesh and spirits, and its strength sensibly diminishes.  In this state the most nutritious food is unable
to restore the animal to its former appearance; but a few
pinches of arsenic speedily bring it round again.*
Though very different in its nature from the narcotic
substances described in the preceding chapters, yet the
effects which result from the use of arsenic resemble some
of those which are produced by the use of narcotics. Thus
arsenic resembles coca in making the food appear to go farther, or to have more effect in feeding or fattening the body;
and, like coca, it gives the remarkable power of climbing
hills without breathlessness.  Farther, it resembles both
coca and opium, and especially the latter, in creating a diseased and uncomfortable state of body, when the practice of
eating it is interrupted, and in thus becoming through long
use a necessity of life.
The chemico-physiological action of arsenic in producing
these curious effects has not as yet been experimentally investigated.  The peculiar influence exercised by arsenic
upon the skin is the cause of the improved appearance in the
complexion of the human subject, and in the outer coat of
the horse; but the physiological nature of this influence,
and how arsenic comes to exercise it, we cannot even conjecture.
Among other ways in which it acts chemically upon the
system, experiment will probably show that it lessens the
natural waste of the body, and especially that it diminishes
the quantity of carbonic acid discharged from the lungs in a
given time. The consequence of this action upon the lungs
* AMedecinische Wochenschrift of Vienna, 11th October 1851, quoted in the "Brit.
ish Journal of Homceopathy,"'The facts, I believe, are undisputed.




ACTION OF ARSENIC UPON THE SYSTEM.         171
will be —fi~rst, that less oxygen will require to be inhaled,
and hence a greater ease in breathing under all circumstances, but which will be especially perceived in climbing
hills; second, that the fat of the food which would otherwise
be used up in supplying carbonic acid to be given off by the
lungs, will be deposited instead in the cellular tissue beneath the skin, and thus will feed, plump out, and render
fat and fleshy the animal which eats it.
Still, how arsenic produces or can produce such a lessening of the carbonic acid formed within the body, and discharged by the lungs, is quite inexplicable: it is another of
the chemico-physiological mysteries of which common life,
both animal and vegetable, is so full.
The perusal of the above facts regarding arsenic-taken
in connection with what has been previously stated as to the
effects of the resin of hemp-recalls to our mind the dreamy
recollections of what we have been accustomed to consider
as the fabulous fancies of easy and credulous times. Lovephiltres, charms, and potions start up again as real things
beneath the light of advancing science.  From the influence
of hemp and arsenic no heart seems secure-by their assistance no affection unattainable. The wise woman, whom the
charmless female of the East consults, administers to the
desired one a philtre of haschisch, which deceives his imnagination-cheats him into the belief that charms exist, and
attractive beauty, where there are none, and defrauds him,
as it were, of a love which, with the truth before him, he
would never have yielded. She acts directly upon his brain
with her hempen potion, leaving the unlovely object he is to
admire really as unlovely as before.
But the Styrian peasant-girl, stirred by an unconsciously
growing attachment-confiding scarcely to herself her secret
feelings, and taking counsel of her inherited wisdom onlyreally adds, by the use of hidri, to the natural graces of her




172                 THE POISONS WE SELECT.
filling and rounding form, paints with brighter hues her
blushing  cheeks and  tempting  lips, and imparts a new  and
winning lustre to her sparkling eye. Every one sees and
admires the reality of her growing beauty: the young men
sound her praises, and become suppliants for her favour.
She triumphs over the affections of all, and compels the
chosen one to her feet.
Thus even cruel arsenic, so often the minister of crime
and the parent of sorrow, bears a blessed jewel in its forehead, and, as a love-awakener, becomes at times the harbinger of happiness, the soother of ardent longings, the bestower of contentment and peace I
It is probable that the use of these and many other lovepotions has been known to the initiated from very early
times-now given to the female to enhance her real charms
-now administered to the lords of the creation, to add
imaginary beauties to the unattractive. And out of this use
must often have sprung fatal results,-to the female, as is
now  sometimes the case in  Styria, from  the incautious use
of the poisonous arsenic; to the male, as happens daily in
the  East from  the  maddening  effects of the  fiery  hemp.
They must also  have  given  birth  to  many hidden  crimes
which only romance now collects and preserves-the ignorance of the learned having long ago pronounced them unworthy of belief.*
* The many real follies which the history of love-potions contains, in a great measure justify such incredulity. Such, for example, are the absurdities mentioned in
the following passage: " To be brief,-to as great effect does the virgin parchment
serve, as doth the amorous potion or love-drink, of which, as the saying is, Lucretius
the poet died; and Caligula the emperor became with such another to be enraged,
and, in a sort, distracted, and out of his wits; his wife Ciesonia having given him
such a kind of drink, who, for that cause, was also slain by the soldiers that had before killed her husband, as Josephus reporteth. And more than so, this seemeth to
be that HIippomanes, which is apt to stir and procure love, no less than the true Hippomanes plucked from the forehead of a horse colt, whereof Virgil, Propertius, and
other poets speak much; or that RIippomanes which, as Theocritus reporteth, was
planted amongst the Arcadians; or that fish called Remora, which, as Aristotle saith,




THE EATING OF CLAY.                    173
II. THE EATING OF CLAY.-Among the extraordinary
passions for eating uncommon things is to be reckoned that
which some tribes of people exhibit for eating earth or clay.
Though not so directly or immediately poisonous as arsenic,
the swallowing of clay, with our ordinary European constitutions and habits, could scarcely be otherwise than injurious to the bodily health; but in Western Africa the negroes of Guinea have been long.known to eat a yellowish
earth, there called caouac, the flavour or taste of which is
very agreeable to them, and which is said to cause them no
inconvenience. Some addict themselves so excessively to
the use of it, that it becomes to them a kind of necessity of
their lives-as arsenic does to the Styrian peasant, or opium
to the Theriaki-and no punishment is sufficient to restrain
them from the practice of consuming it.
When the Guinea negroes used in former times to be carried as slaves to the West India Islands, they were observed
to continue the custom of eating clay; but the caouac of the
American islands, or the substance which the poor negroes
attempted in their new homes to substitute for the African
earth, was found to injure the health of the slaves who ate
it. The practice, therefore, was long ago forbidden, and has
probably now  died  out in our West India colonies.  In
Martinique, a species of red earth or yellowish tufa was
still secretly sold in the markets in 1751; but the use of it
has probably ceased in the French colonies also. Whether
the custom still exists in Cuba and Brazil, where the
slave-trade is not yet entirely extinguished, we do not
know.  Recent information  upon the  subject is wanting
was good for love, and for happy success in suits of law; oi the bird called Sippe,
spoken of by the same Aristotle; or the lizard, bruised and infused in wine, according as Theocritus prescribeth; or the hair which is found in the end of a wolf's tail;
or else the bone of a frog or a toad, which hath been cast into a nest of ants, by whom
the flesh thereof hath been gnawed away, as Pliny affirnmeth." —The Cradle of the
evins Giants, Scienoe and History. By HENRY CHRISTMAS, M. A. Vol. ii. p. 261.




.174           THE POISONS WE SELECT.
not only from these countries, but also from the western
coast of Africa.
In Eastern Asia a similar practice prevails in various
places. In the island of Java, between Sourabaya and Samarang, Labillardiere saw small square reddish cakes of
earth sold in the villages for the purpose of being eaten.
These have been found by Ehrenberg to consist for the most
part of the remains of microscopic animals and plants, which
had lived and been deposited in fresh water. In Runjeet
valley, in the Sikkim Himalaya, a red clay occurs, which the
natives chew as a cure for the goitre-(HOOKER.)*  The
chemical nature of this Indian clay has not been examined.
In Northern Europe, especially in the remote northern
parts of Sweden, a kind of earth known by the name of breadmeal is consumed in hundreds of cart-loads, it is said, every
year. In Finland a similar earth is commonly mixed with
the bread.  In both these cases the earth employed consists
for the most part of the empty shells of minute infusorial
animalcules, in which there cannot exist any ordinary nourishment.  In north Germany also, on various occasions
where famine or necessity urged it-as in long-protracted
sieges of fortified places-a similar substance, under the
name of mountain-meal, has been used as a means of staying
hunger.
In Southern America, likewise, the eating of clay prevails among the native Indians on the banks of the Orinoco,
and on the mountains of Bolivia and Peru.  The most precise and detailed accounts we possess on this subject, in regard to the Indians of the Orinoco, is given by Humboldt.
In north latitude 70 8/, and west longitude 67~- 18/, he met
with the tribe of the Otomacs, of which he writes as follows:"The earth which the Otomacs eat is an unctuous,
Himalayca  Jburnals, vol. i. p. 145.




CLAY DEVOURED BY THE OTOMACS.            175
almost tasteless clay-true potter's earth-which has a yel
lowish-grey colour, in consequence of a slight admixture of
oxide of iron.  They select it with great care, and seek it in
certain banks on the shores of the Orinoco and Meta. They
distinguish the flavour of one kind of earth from that of
another, all kinds of clay not being alike acceptable to their
palate   They knead this earth into balls measuring from
four to six inches in diameter, and bake them before a slow
fire, until the outer surface assumes a reddish colour. Before they are eaten the balls are again moistened.  These
Indians are mostly wild uncivilized men, who abhor all tillage.  There is a proverb current among the most distant
tribes living on the Orinoco, when they wish to speak of any
thing very unclean-' so dirty that the Otomacs eat it.'
" As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are
low, the people live on fish and turtles. They kill the former
with arrows, shooting the fish, as they rise to the surface of
the water, with a skill and dexterity that has frequently
excited my admiration. At the periodical swelling of the
rivers the fishing is stopped, for it is as difficult to fish in
deep river water as in the deep sea. It is during these intervals, which last from two to three months, that the Otomacs
are observed to devour an enormous quantity of earth. We
found in their huts considerable stores of clay balls piled up
in pyramidal heaps. An Indian will consume from threequarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter of this food
daily, as we were- assured by the intelligent monk, Fray
Ramon Bueno, a native of MIadrid, who had lived among
these Indians for a period of twelve years. According to
the testimony of the Otomacs themselves, this earth constitutes their main support in the rainy season. They eat,
however, in addition, when they can procure them, lizards,
several species of small fish, and the roots of a fern. But
they are so partial to clay, that even in the dry season, when




176            THE POISONS WE SELECT.
there is an abundance of fish, they still partake of some of
their earth-balls, by way of a bonne bouche after their regular
meals.
" These people are of a dark copper-brown colour, have
unpleasant Tartar-like features, and are stout, but not protuberant.  The Franciscan, who had lived amongst them as a
missionary, assured us that he had observed no difference in
the condition and well-being of the Otomacs during the periods in which they lived on this clay. The simple facts are
therefore as follows:  The Indians undoubtedly consume
large quantities of clay without injuring their health; they
regard this earth as a nutritious article of food-that is to
say, they feel that it will satisfy their hunger for a long time.
This property they ascribe exclusively to the clay, and not
to the other articles of food which they contrive to procure
from time to time in addition to it. If an Otomac be asked
what are his winter provisions-the term in the torrid parts
of South America implying the rainy season-he will point
to the heaps of clay in his hut."*
Although the mouths of the Orinoco are at no great distance either from the West India Islands or from the colonies of Guiana, this custom of the Otomacs differs so much
from that of the Guinea negroes that we can scarcely believe
it to have been borrowed by them from any runaway negro
slaves.  It is more probably of old date, if not indigenous
to the country.
This is rendered more likely by the fact that a similar
practice prevails towards the south-west, in the hill-country
of Bolivia and Peru. In describing the various articles he
saw exposed for sale in the provision-markets of La Paz, on
the eastern Cordillera, Dr. Weddell says: " Lastly, the mineral kingdom contributes its share to the Bolivian markets,
and it is sufficient to see the important place which this con* HUMBOLDT'S Views of Yature, pp. 148, 144 Bohn's edition.




PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF CLAY.          177
tingent occupies on the stalls of La Paz, to be satisfied that
the part it plays is deserving of much attention. The substance I allude to is a species of grey-coloured clay, very
unctuous to the touch, and distinguished by the name of
pahsa.  The Indians, who are the only consumers of it,
commonly eat it with the bitter potato of the country, Papa
amargas. They allow it to steep for a certain time in water,
so as to make a kind of soup or gruel, and season it with a
little salt. It has the taste of ordinary clay.
A"  t Chiquisaca, the capital of the State, as I was informed, simall pots are made of an earth called chaco, similar
to the pahsa of La Paz.  These are eaten like chocolate.  I
was told of a senorita who had killed herself by an extreme
fondness for these little pots, but it appears that the moderate use of pahsa is followed by no bad effects. The chemical
examination of these substances shows that they cannot, in
any way, contribute to the nourishment of the body."*
The eating of certain varieties of earth or clay may,
therefore, be regarded as a very extended practice among
the native inhabitants of the tropical regions of the globe.
It stays or allays hunger, in some unknown way, stilling
probably the pain and craving to which hunger gives rise.
It enables the body to be sustained in comparative strength
with smaller supplies of ordinary food than are usually necessary, and it can be eaten in moderate quantities even for
a length of time without any sensible evil consequences.  A
fondness even is often acquired for it, so that it comes at last
to be regarded and eaten as a dainty.
In what way such effects can be produced by such substances we do not understand. That they are produced is
testified by so many witnesses that we cannot refuse our
belief. Yet they appear so contrary to all our common experience as to the dependence of animal life and strength on
* WEDDELL, Voyage dan Ze  nord de la Bolivie, p. 161.
VOL. IT.-8*




178            THE POISONS WE SELECT.
what we usually call the necessaries of life, that we naturally
hesitate to believe what we are so unable to explain. The
more we consider, however, the statements contained in this
and the preceding chapters regarding the beverages, the narcotics, and the poisons, the more we shall be satisfied of the
imperfect state of our knowledge as to what concerns the
maintenance and comfort of our lives. We are especially
ignorant still of the conditions as to quantity and forms of
food under which man will refuse to live in the varied circumstances of climate, habit, and constitution to which he
is subject. But this will come under our notice again, in a
succeeding chapter, when we consider WHAT, HOW, AND WHY
WE DIGEST.




CHE APTER XXIV.
THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
VOLATILE OILS AND  FRAGRANT RESINS.
Vegetable odoars.-The volatile oils; how extracted.-Quantity yielded by plant.-.
The otto of roses; how collected.-The oils exist in different parts of plants.Simple and mixed perfumes.-Analogy between odours and sweet sounds.Odours may resemble and blend with each other.-Extraction of oils by maceration.-Quantity of volatile oils imported.-Composition of oils of lemons, oranges,
&c.-Isomeric oils.-Oils containing oxygen.-Volatile oils of almonds and cinnamon. -Artificial essences.-Oil of spiraea; can be prepared by art.-Manufactured
substitutes for oil of bitter almonds.-Nitro-benzol, or essence de Mirbane.-Nitrobenzyl another substitute.-The camphors.-Chinese and Borneo camphors.-Balsams of Peru and Tolu.-The odoriferous resins; why they become fragrant on
red-hot charcoal; their use as incense.-Vanilla, its fragrance, and analogy to the
balsams.-The Tonka bean; coumarin, the odoriferous principle of this bean.The same principle in vernal grass, melilot, and other plants.-Gives fragrance to
hay, and probably produces hay fever.
AMONG the appliances of common life by which  the comfort
of man in a civilized state is very materially affected, are the
odours he enjoys and the smells he dislikes. Upon the origin, nature, mutual relations, and physiological action of
these, modern chemistry has thrown much light. I shall,
therefore, in  this  place  briefly  illustrate  their  chemical
history.




180              THE ODOURtS WE ENJOY.
The odours we enjoy are nearly all derived, either directly or indirectly, from the vegetable kingdom.  Among
scents in common use, musk, civet, and ambergris, are the
only ones which owe their origin to animal life; while with
pleasant smells of a purely mineral origin we are as yet
altogether unacquainted.
I. VEGETABLE  ODOURs.-The odoriferous substances
yielded by plants are of three kinds-the volatile oils, such
as the oils of lemons and lavender-the camphors, balsams,
and sweet-smelling resins-and the volatile ethers, such as
those which give their agreeable bouquet to different kinds
of wine.
10. THE VOLATILE OILS.-When the parts of odoriferous
plants are distilled with water, an oil passes over along with
the steam, and floats on the surface of the water, which condenses in the receiver. This volatile oil usually exhibits in
a high degree the peculiar smell, and often also the taste of
the plant from which it is extracted.  In this way are obtained the oils of roses, lavender, lemons, oranges, orange
flowers, cinnamon, peppermint, and many others, which in
smell and taste remind us at once of the plants from which
they have been distilled.
The greater part of the oil usually floats on the surface
of the water which distils over along with it.  But this water always retains a small portion of the oil in solution, and
from this oil it acquires both smell and taste.  Thus rosewater, lavender-water, peppermint-water, &c., are simply
waters impregnated with a minute quantity of the oil from
which they severally derive their names. The water distilled from myrtle flowers forms that very agreeable perfume
known in France by the name of eau d'ange.
The quantity of oil yielded by some plants is so small,
that the water which distils over along with it retains it all in




OTTO OF ROSES.                       181
solution.  In such cases the oil is difficult to obtain, and is
in consequence very expensive. Roses' are among the flowers
which yield their oil in such minute'quantities, and hence
the high price of the pure attar of roses.  The rose-gardens
at Ghazepore are fields in which small rose-bushes are planted
in rows.  In the morning they are red with blossoms, but
these are all gathered before mid-day, and their leaves distilled in clay stills, with twice their weight of water. The water which comes over is placed in open vessels, covered with
a moist muslin cloth to keep out dust and flies, and exposed
all night to the cool air or to artificial cold-as we set out
milk to throw up its cream. In the morning, a thin film of
oil has collected on the top, which is swept off with a feather,
and carefully transferred to a small phial. This is repeated,
night after night, till nearly the whole of the oil is separated
from  the water.  Twenty thousand roses are required to
yield a rupee weight of oil, which sells for /~10 sterling —
(HOOKER).*  Pure attar of roses is therefore rarely  to be
met with. That which is sold in the Indian bazaars is
adulterated with sandal-wood oil, or diluted with sweet salad
oils. What we obtain in Europe is generally still more diluted, as the price we usually give for it sufficiently shows.
The odoriferous principle is not always diffused uniformly over the whole'plant. In some, as in mint and thyme,
it resides in the leaves and stem; in others, as in the cinnamon tree, it is in the bark; in others, as in the sandal and
cedar trees, it is in the wood; in others, like the rose, the
lily, the violet, and the jasmin,t it is in the leaves of the
flower. In many, like the Tonquin bean, the anise, and the
* The weight of a rupee is something less than 176 grains. Others say that a thousand roses yield less than two grains of oil. Of course the quantity must vary very
much as the scent of the rose is greater or less.
t Pure ouil ofjasmin is almost as rare and dear as pure attar of roses. At the Great
Exhibition of 1851, six ounces of it were exhibited, the price of which was nine pounds
an ounce.




182              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
carraway, it is in the seed; while in some, like ginger, the
iris, and the vitivert, it is in the root.  It sometimes even
happens that distinctly different scents are extracted from
different parts of the same plant. Thus the orange tree,
from its leaves, yields a perfume called petit grain-from
its flowers, another called neroli-and from the rind of its
fruit the essential oil of oranges, called also essence of Portugal.
These volatile oils and scented waters are used as perfumes for the toilet, to flavour the bonbons of the confectioner,
or for giving an agreeable relish to the finer dishes of the
cook. The oils of roses, lavender, orange-flowers, &c., are
sold only for toilet use, and for scenting the preparations of
the perfumer; while those of lemons, peppermint, cinnamon,
cloves, ginger, &c., are employed almost solely by the confectioner and the cook.
Every pure volatile oil is a definite chemical compound,
possessed of properties which are constant and peculiar to
itself. Among other properties, it possesses an odour, more
or less pronounced, by which it can in most cases readily be
recognised. Upon this odour, when agreeable, its value and
estimation depend; and the quality of the odour determines
the purpose, in perfumery or otherwise, for which it is employed.  The pure and unmixed odours of such single oils
are often highly esteemed, and by some persons preferred to
all other scents. But in preparing delicate perfumes it is
seldom that a single oil, or the parts of one plant only, are
employed for the purpose. The art of the perfumer is shown
by the skill with which he combines together the odoriferous
principles of various flowers, or mingles together many
volatile essences, so as to produce a more grateful scent than
any single plant can be made to yield. In this way the
huille de millefZeurs (oil of a thousand flowers) professes to
be made; and the secret recipe for the popular Eau de




ODOURS DEFINITE AND FIXED.            183
Cologne-called the perfection of perfumery-depends for
its excellency on the same principle.*
Odours resemble very much the notes of a musical instrument. Some of them blend easily and naturally with each
other, producing a harmonious impression, as it were, on the
sense of smell. Heliotrope, vanilla, orange blossoms, and
the almond blend together in this way, and produce different
degrees of a nearly similar effect.  The same is the case
with citron, lemon, vervain, and orange peel, only these
produce a stronger impression, or belong, so to speak, to
a higher octave of smells.  And again, patchouly, sandalwood, and vitivert form a third class. It requires, of course,
a nice or well-trained sense of smell to perceive this harmony
of odours, and to detect the presence of a discordant note.
But it is by the skilful admixture, in kind and quantity, of
odours producing a similar impression, that the most delicate
and unchangeable fragrances are manufactured. When perfumes which strike the same key of the olfactory nerve are
mixed together for handkerchief use, no idea of a different
scent is awakened as the odour dies away; but when they
are not mixed upon this principle perfumes are often spoken
of as becoming sickly or faint, after they have been a short
time in use.t  A change of odour of this kind is never perceived in genuine eau de Cologne. Oils of lemons, juniper,
and rosemary are among those which are mixed and blended
together in this perfume.  None of them, however, can be
separately distinguished by the ordinary sense of smell; but
if a few drops of hartshorn be added to an ounce measure of
the water, the lemon smell usually becomes very distinct.
But though, as I have said, each volatile essence is chemically distinct, and possesses properties peculiar to itself,
* Report of the.Jries of the: Great EhTilbition qf 1851, p. 608.
t SEPTIMUS PIESSE, Annals of Pharmacy and, Chemistry.




184              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
among which the odour is one, yet the delicacy and fragrance
of this odour is found to vary considerably with the locality in
which the plant that yields it has been grown. Thus on the
shores of the Mediterranean, near Grasse and Nice, the orange
tree and the mignonette bloom to perfection in the low, warm
and sheltered spots: while, in the same region, the violet
grows sweeter as we ascend from the lowest land and approach to the foot of the Alps. So lavender and peppermint grown at Mitcham, in Surrey, yield oils which far
excel those of France or other foreign countries, and which
bring eight times the price in the market. This effect of
soil and climate on the odour of plants resembles that which
they exercise in so remarkable a manner on the narcotic constituents of tobacco, opium, and hemp.*
The small proportion of volatile oil which many flowers
yield by distillation has led to other modes of extracting it
for use in perfumery. The flowers are moistened with olive
or other oil, or with pomatum, and, after lying for a while,
are submitted to pressure; or they are put into hot water
and well shaken, with a portion of oil or pomatum, which is
afterwards skimmed off. In either way the oil or fat is impregnated more or less strongly with the odour of the
flowers, and' has acquired a proportionate value.   This
process is called maceration, enfleurage, &c., and fats so
perfumed are generally called French pomatums.  Spirit of
wine extracts the odoriferous principle from these scented
fats, and the solutions are employed for the manufacture of
perfumed waters.
The economical importance of these essential oils may be
judged of from the facts that,
In 1852 there were imported into this country of essential oils about 200,000 lb,
weight, paying a duty of Is. a-pound;
Eau de Cologne to the value of ~20,000 sterling;
* See THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.




COMPOSITION  OF THESE  OILS.                       185
French pomatums and other perfumery valued at ~2200;
And that the total duty of every kind paid in Great Britain, for scents and perfumes, has been calculated at ~40,000 a-year.*
20. COMPOSITIONS OF THE VOLATILE OILS.-A large
number of the odoriferous essences of plants is composed
of the two elementary bodies, carbon and hydrogen only.
And what is very remarkable, many of them, which are otherwise very distinct, consist of these two elements united together in the same proportions. Thus a hundred pounds of
pure oil of turpentine consist ofCarbon,.                  88.24 lb.
Hydrogen,....       11.76
100 lb.
And the oils of lemons, of oranges, of juniper, of rosemary,
of copaiba, of the queen of the meadow, and many others,
though so different in their properties from the oil of turpentine and from each other, consist of exactly the same proportion (88~ lb.) of carbon united to the same weight (I 11 lb.)
of hydrogen. Substances thus differing in properties, and
yet agreeing in composition, are distinguished among chemists
* The quantities of essential oils paying Is. a-pound duty entered for home consumption in 1853 were as follows:Bergamot,...      28,574 lb.
Carraway,.....,602
Cassia,.....      6,163
Cloves,....           595
Lavender,...     12,776
Lemon,.....  67,48
Mint and spearmint,...        163
Otto of roses,...          1,268
Peppermint,....     16,059
Thyme,.....  11,418
Lemon grass,
Citronella,...     47,80
Oils not described, 
195, 346 lb.
The otto of roses comes chiefly from Constantinople and Smyrna; the oil of lemons
from Sicily and Portugal; bergamot in large proportion from Sicily; and anise from
Germany and the East Indies. The oil of cloves imported is small in quantity; but
the consumption is probably ten times as much, the English wholesale druggists being
themselves large distillers of this oil. Carraway is also largely distilled at home,
while of oil of lavender probably as much as 6000 lb. are distilled in England, besides
much oil of peppermint.




.86                THE ODOUItS WE ENJOY.
by the name of Isomegeric bodies. The difference of proper.
ties they exhibit is believed to be a consequence of the unlike
ways in which the minute molecules or atoms of the carbon
and hydrogen are arranged and grouped together in the
different compounds.
Another class of these volatile odoriferous oils contains
a small proportion of oxygen combined with the carbon and
hydrogen of which they chiefly consist. To this class belongs
the volatile oil which bitter almonds (fig. 77) yield when
distilled with water. This fragrant oil is very different
from the fixed oil which  almonds, both  sweet and bitter,
yield when submitted to pressure, and is much used by the
confectioner and cook.
Fig. 77.                           Fig. 78.
Amygdalus commnunis, var. amar'a-    Oirnnamonium zeylanicum-The
The Bitter Almond.                Cinnamon Laurel.
Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet.        Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet.
Scale for flowers, leaf, fruit, stone, and  Scale for leaf, 1 inch to 4 inches.
kernel, 1 inch to 3 inches.          Fruit, natural size.
Of the same kind is the oil of cinnamon, which theyoung
bark of the cinnamon laurel (fig. 78) yields when distilled
with water; and also the oil which is obtained from anise
seed by a similar process. But in this class, the proportions




ARTIFICIAL ESSENCES.                  187
of the several constituents are rarely the same in two different oils.  Thus the three oils above mentioned  consist
respectively ofOil of Anise.  Oil of Cinnamon.   Oil of Bitter Almonds.
Carbon,..  81.08        81.81       72.4
Hydrogen,..   8.11         6.07       13.8
Oxygen,.. 10.81        12.12        13.8
100         100         100
Oil of peppermint and many others belong to this class.
They all differ from one another in composition, the proportions of the three ingredients varying in each case.
30. ARTIFICIAL ESSENCES.-It is a character of all the
volatile oils of the kinds above mentioned, that they cannot
as yet be formed or imitated by chemical art. The progress
of chemistry, however, has recently made us acquainted with
one odoriferous essence, somewhat peculiar in kind, which
can be prepared by an artificial process; and this is probably only the forerunner of many similar discoveries by which
our power over matter is hereafter to be enlarged.
I have already mentioned               Fig. 79.
the volatile oil of the queen of
the meadow (Spircea ulmaria),
fig. 79, as having the  same
composition as oil of turpentine.  But when the flowers of
this plant are distilled with water, they yield, besides this oil,
another  sweet-smelling   substance, known as the essence of
spircea, which differs from  the
oil in its properties, has a different composition, and contains
oxygen.  This essence resembles in its odour the oil of bitter almonds, and is remarkable    Spirwa umaria —The Queen
of the Meadows.
for possessing acid properties.        Scale, 1 inch to 1 foot.




188             THE ODOURS WE ENJOY,
Hence it is known to chemists by the name of salicylous
acid.
When water is boiled upon the bark of the willow tree
(salix), it extracts from the bark a bitter substance, to which
the name of salicine is given, and which possesses many
of the fever-dispelling virtues of the well-known quinine.
When this bitter substance is heated along with bichromate of potash and sulphuric acid, it is converted into essence of spiroea or salicylous acid. Thus we have a method
of forming this essence without the use of the natural flowers
of the spirrea itself. And although this method is too expensive to be adopted on a large scale for the manufacture
of the essence for practical purposes, it holds out the prospect, and will probably lead to the discovery of cheaper
methods, by which not only this, but more valuable perfumes also may be prepared in an economical manner.
Indeed we already possess processes, by means of which
we can imitate, at a cheap rate, though not actually form,
another of the volatile oils above mentioned-the volatile
oil of bitter almonds.  This oil, as is well known, is highly
prized, extensively used, and comparatively costly. The
methods by which it is imitated are as follows:Fig'st, When common coal is distilled in our gas-works,
a quantity of tarry matter (coal tar) comes over along with
the gas which is used for lighting our streets. When this
tarry matter is again distilled by itself, a thin, very combustible liquid, known as coal naphtha, is obtained. This
coal naphtha is a mixture of various substances, one of
which is a very light colourless liquid, distinguished by the
name of benzole. When this benzole is carefully mixed with
nitric acid (aquafortis), it unites with it and forms a sweet
scented compound (nitro-benzol), which in odour and general
appearance can scarcely be distinguished from oil of bitter
almond. It is'known and sold in commerce under the names




ARTIFICIAL ESSENCES.               189
of artificial oil of bitter almonds, and of Essence de Mirbane. It differs in composition from the true volatile oil of
bitter almonds; but it resembles it very closely in odour,
and is an excellent substitute for, it in the scenting of soaps.
It is also safer than the natural oil for use in confections
and cookery, because it can never contain the prussic acid
which is sometimes present in the natural oil.
The second mode of imitating this volatile oil has recourse to substances of a very different origin. The urine
of the horse and the cow contains an acid substance which
is easily extracted from it in the solid state, and which is
known to chemists by the name of hippuric acid. When
this acid is heated over a lamp, it melts, and at 4600 F.
the melted acid begins to boil. There then distills over a
liquid substance, containing 13 per cent. of nitrogen, to
which the name of nitro-benzyl has been given. The
odour of this liquid is so similar to that of the volatile oil
of bitter almonds that it may readly be mistaken for it.
We may expect it therefore to be used in perfumery instead
of the more costly oil. For as the drainings of our stables
and cow-houses are plentiful, and the hippuric acid can be
cheaply extracted from them, the fragrant nitro-benzyl may
be manufactured at a moderate cost.
The thoughtful reader will rightly appreciate the tendency and social importance of results and researches such as
these, with which modern chemical investigations abound.
They tend to give a new value to waste materials, by discovering new uses for them, and to cheapen at the same
time, and bring within reach of the many, the luxuries and
material refinements heretofore confined to the few.
4~. THE CAMPHORS, BALSAMS, AND ODORIFEROUS RESINS are all more or less solid, possess a fragrance more or
less agreeable, and always contain oxygen as one of their
constituents. By combination with oxygen, many of the




190  THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
Fig. 80.            volatile oils become chang
ed into resins.
a. The Camphors.There are several known
varieties of camphor. The
two most familiar in commerce, are the camphor
of  Japan,  called  also
Dutch camphor, because
it is usually brought to
Europe by the Dutch,
and the China or Formosa camphor. Every part
of the camphor tree (Laurus camphora), fig. 80, is
impregnated with the perfume.  It is extracted by
chopping the branches and
Laxm-s camphora —The Camphor Laurel.  boiling them in water-; the
por Camphire tree.  
Scale, 1 inch to 20 fee.  camphor rises to the surScale for flower and leaf, 1 inch to 4 inches.  face, and becomes solid,
when the water is afterwards allowed to cool.
The odour of the camphors is powerful, very characteristic, and to many persons very agreeable. It is used for
scenting soaps, tooth-powders, and numerous other preparations for the toilet.
What is called Borneo camphor is obtained from a
different tree (Dryobalanops), but by the action of nitric
acid is converted into common camphor. An artificial camphor also is prepared from oil of turpentine; but it does not
possess the composition or fragrance of the laurel camphor,
and cannot be used as a substitute for it.
b. The Balsams are thick, more or less fragrant, fluids,
which, like the common turpentines, are obtained by mak



THE CAMPHORS AND BALSAMS.             191
ing incisions into the bark of the trees which yield them.
The balsam of Peru, and the balsam of Tolu, which are
among the best known, are extracted in this way from
different species of myrospermum which grow in Peru, New
Granada, and on the banks of the Magdalena in South
America. They consist chiefly of an odoriferous volatile
oil, which comes over when they are distilled alone, and of
a resin nearly void of smell which remains behind. The
balsam of Peru has a powerful but agreeable odour, resembling that of vanilla.  The balsam of Tolu is very fragrant,
though less powerfully so than that of Peru. The fragrance
of both is increased, and somewhat changed, when they are
dropped on a red hot coal. While burning, the inodorous
resin decomposes, and gives off an agreeable scent.
For their natural odour these balsams are used to flavour
marmalades and other sweetmeats, and as an ingredient in
various perfumes.  For the additional scent they give off
when burned, they are employed as incense, and in preparing the fumigating pastiles which we burn in the chambers
of the sick and elsewhere to disguise or overpower unpleasant smells.
c. The odoriferous r'esins, such as myrrh and frankincense, have comparatively little natural fragrance.  The
balsamic resins, such as storax and benzoin, have more
decided odours, and, like the true balsams, recall the sweet
smell of vanilla. Like the camphors and balsams, all are
used to some extent in preparing articles for the toilet.
But it is for the odours they evolve when burned that
they are chiefly used and valued. When thrown in the
state of powder upon burning charcoal, myrrh, frankincense,
aloes, benzoin, storax, olibanum, and other resins of this
kind, emit an agreeable fragrance. Hence they are largely
used for burning as incense in the Greek and Roman
churches and in Pagan temples. When burned in this way,




192                 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
three effects are produced-First, The volatile oil is driven
off in vapour, and diffuses through the air the scent emitted
by the resin in its natural state.  Second, White vapours
of a volatile fragrant acid, which exists ready formed in the
resin,* ascend and mingle their smell with that of the volatile
oil.  And, thirdly, Another volatile aromatic oil is produced
by the decomposition of the resin upon the red hot charcoal
The vapours of this oil also rise and unite with those of the
other substances, and thus produce the full effect upon the
olfactory nerves for which the.most esteemed varieties of
incense are valued.
d. Vanilla.-I have described the balsams as possessing
an odour which resembles that of vanilla (fig. 81). This
highly-prized perfume resides in the pods of an orchidaceous
plant ( Vanilla aronmatica or planifolia), long known to the
ancient Mexicans for its remarkable fragrance, and probably
used by them, as it is now, for flavouring their favourite
chocolate.  The best vanilla is still brought from  Mexico,
though less esteemed varieties are produced by species of
the plant which grow in other parts of tropical America.
The fruit of this plant, as shown in the annexed figure, is a
long pulpy pod, filled with rounded seeds. When ripe, the
pod is said to yield from  two to six drops of a liquid which
has an exquisite odour, and bears the name of balsam of
vanilla.  This balsam, however, is never seen in Europe.
The pods are dried in the sun, and afterwards slightly fermented, for the purpose of developing their odour, as, when
fresh, they are said to be without smell. In some places
* From benzoin the fragrant benzoic acid is given off-from storax, and the balsams of Peru and Tolu, the cinnamio acid. The benzoic acid is white, solid and
crystalline; and, though so different in its properties, is remarkable for possessing the
same chemical composition as the volatile essence of spirmea already described. It is
often used as an ingredient of pastiles. The cinnamic acid is very like the benzoic,
and derives its name from the fragrant oil of cinnamon, which, by combining with
oxygen, forms cinnamic acid.




THE AROMATIC VANILLA.                  193
they are afterwards rubbed over with oil, and in this state
sent to market.
Fig. 81.
ranillat aromatica-The Aromatic Vanilla
Scale for plant, 1 inch to 6 feet.
Scalo for flowers and fruit, 1 inch to 6 inches.
The odoriferous principles of the vanilla have not yet
been accurately determined. One of them is a peculiar fragrant volatile oil, and another a fragrant acid, probably the
cinnamic. Hence the similarity of the odour of vanilla to
that of the balsams.
As a perfume, vanilla is highly esteemed. Its principal
use, however, is in flavouring chocolate, ices, creams, and
other confectionery. Coffee, and even tea, are sometimes
also flavoured with it. Physiologically, it acts upon the
system  as an aromatic stimulant, exhilarating the mental
functions, and increasing generally the energy of the animal
VoL. II.- 9




194              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
Fig. 82.           system.  Like some other
odours-those of camphor,sj... ~ and patchouli, for example,that of vanilla sometimes exhibits narcotic effects upon those who are
much exposed to it.
Five or six hundred
weight of vanilla are year<-  "_          ly imported into this country.
e. Coumarin.-Nearly allied to the fragrant
ta  resins is an interesting and
widely  diffused  natural
perfume, to which chemists
have given the name of
coumarin.   A   fragrant
/t       bean, the Tonka or Tonga
bean (fig. 82), the fruit of
the Dipterix odorata, formerly well known in this
Dipterix odorata-The Tonka Bean tree.
Scale, 1 inch to 40 feet.  country, and  much  emLeaves and raceme of flowers, 1 inch to
4 inches.           ployed for perfuming snuff,
a. flower; b. kernel or bean; c. pod or fruit.
1 inch to 2 inches.    contains  this  substance
coumarin.  Alcohol readily extracts it from the bean; and
by evaporating the alcoholic solution, we obtain the substance
in a solid state. It forms white brilliant needles, possessed
of an agreeable aromatic odour. When heated, it rises in
vapour; and this vapour, when inhaled, acts powerfully upon
the brain. It consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in
the following proportions:Carbon,.73.  7.97
Hydrogen,..   11
Oxygen,.21.92
100




THE TONKA BEAN.                        195
So that it is richer in  oxygen than                Fi 
any of the volatile oils of which the
composition has been given above.
But the interesting circumstance
in  the history  of this substance is,
that, though discovered first in a foreign bean, the produce of a warm climate, it has since been found to exist
in, and  to impart their well-known
agreeable  odours to, several of our
most   common   European   plants.
Among these, the sweet-scented vernal grass (fig. 83), to which we are in
the habit of ascribing the fragrance
of well-made hay, deserves especial 
mention. This grass contains cou- sAnthomanthumn odornatumSweet-scented vernal grass.
marin, and imparts to dry hay the Scale, 1 inch to 9 inches
odour of this substa*nce.                  Single flower, glume, and
odour of this substance.                        seed, natural size.
The following is a list of the sweet-smelling plants in
which coumarin has already been found:Dipterix odorata, or Tonka bean.
Angreecum fragrans, the Faham tea-plant of Mauritius.
Asperula odorata, the common sweet woodruffi
Anthoxanthum odoratum, the sweet-scented vernal grass.
Melilotus officinalis, or common melilot.
Melilotus cserulea, the blue or Swiss melilot.
It is the same odour, therefore, which gives fragrance to
the Tonka bean, to the Faham tea of the Mauritius, to our
melilot trefoil, and to sweet-smelling hay-fields, in which
melilot and vernal grass abound. In Switzerland the blue
melilot is mixed with particular kinds of scented cheese, and
the coumarin it contains gives to that of Schabzieger its peculiar well-known odour.
Many other sweet-smelling grasses are known, such as




196                 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
Hierochloe borealis, Ataxia horsfieldii, Andropogon Iwacan.
cusa, Andropogon schoenanthus or lemon grass, &c. &c., in
which coumarin probably does not exist. Indeed, the Andropogon muricatus (the kuskus of India) yields a favourite
fragrant oil, used as a medicine in that country.  There are
other sweet-smelling substances therefore, without doubt,
from which grasses dried for hay, in different countries, may
derive an agreeable odour.
I have alluded to the influence which, in the form  of vapour, coumarin exercises upon the brain. It is not improbable that the hay fever, to which many susceptible people are
liable, may be owing to the presence of this substance in the
air in unusual quantity* during the period of hay-making. In
seasons which are peculiarly hot, and in localities where the
odoriferous grasses occur in uncommon plenty, such an abundance of coumarin vapour in the air is by no means unlikely
to occur.
* Such fevers may possibly arise also from the diffusion through the air of the pollon of these odoriferous plants. This pollen is supposed, like that of the kalmlias
and rhododendrons, to possess narcotic properties, and, when drawn in by the nose
and mouth, to produce narcotic fever-causing effects upon the system.




CHAPTER XXV.
THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
THE VOLATILE ETHERS AND ANIMAL ODOURS.
Wine ether, how prepared. —Nitric ether and acetic ether.-Wood spirit and wood
ether.-Potato spirit, or oil of grain, and potato ethers.-Oil of winter-green, a
natural ether; how prepared artificially.-Sweet-smelling ethers manufactured as
perfumes. —Pear oil, or essence of jargonelle.-Apple oil.-Grape and cognac oils.
-Pine-applo oil.-Essence of melons.-Essence of quinces. —Hungarian wine oil,
and other artificial fragrances.-Caprylic ethers.-The flavour of whisky.-Propylic ethers.-The bouquet of wines. —Enanthic ether gives the generic flavour to
grape wines.-Characteristic fragrant principles of different wines.-Use of the
sweet flag in flavouring spirits and beer; its abundance in Norfolk.-Odoriferous
substances of animal origin. —Musk; the musk deer; lasting smell of musk.Civet.-Effect of dilution upon odoriferous substances.-Use of civet in Africa.Castoreum and hyraceum.-Ambergris and perfumes prepared from it.-Insect
odours.-General reflections.-Extreme diffusiveness of odours.-Delicacy of the
organs of smell.-How chemistry increases our comforts, gives rise to new arts, and
generally civilizes.
II. —THE  VOLATILE  ETHERS yielded  by plants are at
the present moment the most interesting to the chemist of
all the natural perfumes.   This interest arises from  the circumstance that a careful analytical examination of some of
those produced in living plants, has given us the key not
only to the true chemical composition of these substances
themselves, but also to the mode of producing by art an almost endless variety of odoriferous compounds.




198              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
10. WINE ETHERS.-When spirit of wine (alcohol) is
mixed with twice its bulk of common oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) in a retort, and distilled by the aid of heat, a very
light, volatile, and somewhat fragrant liquid passes over,
which is known by the name of ether, or wine ether. It
differs in composition from alcohol only in containing less of
the elements of water.
If. into the retort, along with the alcohol and sulphuric
acid, a sufficient quantity of nitrate of potash (saltpetre) be
introduced before the mixture is distilled, the nitric acid of
the saltpetre* unites with the ether as it is produced, and a
compound ether distils over, which is the nitric ether of the
shops. This consists of wine ether and nitric acid combined together, and is very light, volatile, and not unpleasantly
odoriferous. If, instead of saltpetre, acetate of potash be
introduced into the retort, acetic acid unites with the ether
during the distillation, and acetic ether, another volatile
ethereal compound, distils over.
By similar processes many other acids may be made to
unite with wine ether, producing in each case a new compound ether, possessed of a composition and properties peculiar to itself.
2~. WooD ETHERs. — When dry wood is distilled in iron
retorts for the manufacture of wood vinegar, there comes
over, along with the tar, water, and vinegar, a quantity of a
peculiar alcohol, which is separated and sold under the name
of wood spirit.
When this wood spirit is distilled with the sulphuric
acid, as in the first of the processes above described, a peculiar ether comes over, which is known as wood spirit ether,
or wood ether. This ether differs from wood spirit as wine
* Nitric acid, known commonly by the name of aquafortis, unites with potash,
and forms nitrate of potash, or saltpetre. Acetic acid (vinegar) and potash form
acetate of potash.




WOOD AND POTATO ETHERS.                 199
ether does from wine spirit (common alcohol), in containing
less of the elements of water. From wood spirit, compound
ethers, also containing the simple ether combined with an
acid, may be formed nearly in the same way as they are
formed from the wine spirit. These compound ethers have
a general resemblance, in properties and composition, to
Athose formed from the wine spirit; but each of them possesses a peculiar, composition and sensible properties, by
which it can be distinguished more or less readily from
every other compound body.
30~. POTATO  ETHERS.-When brandy is manufactured
from potatoes,* there comes over along with it, in the first
distillation, a quantity of a third peculiar spirit of alcohol,
which is known as potato spirit.  It exists also in the crude
spirits distilled from grain,t and from grape husks (p.280),
and gives to these varieties of brandy their disagreeable
flavour. By rectification it is separated from the brandy,
and may thus be obtained in a pure state.  It is more
unpleasant to the taste and smell, and more maddeningly
intoxicating than wine alcohol: and hence the peculiar,
violent, and often poisonous effects, produced by ill-rectified
grain and other raw spirits.
When this potato spirit is distilled with oil of vitriol, it
also yields a peculiar volatile ethereal liquid-the potatospirit ether, or briefly the potato ether; and by processes
similar to those already described, compound ethers are
readily obtained, in which this potato ether is combined with
the nitric, the acetic, and many other acids.
For certain chemical reascns, which it is unnecessary
here to stateWine spirit is called also Ethylic alcohol.
Wood spirit...    Methylic alcohol.
Potato spirit...   Amylic alcohol.
* See pp. 201, 778.
t Hence it is called also oil of grain, and by the Germans AFsel oit.




200              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
In like mannerWine ether is called Ethylic ether, or Oxide of ethyle.
VWood ether....Methylic ether, or Oxide of methyle.
Potato ether...  Amyliec ether, or Oxide of amyle.
And the compound ethers they severally form are named
after the acid and ether they respectively contain. Thus the
common nitric-ether I have mentioned is nitrate of oxide of
ethyle, common acetic ether the acetate of oxide of ethyle,
and so on.
With the aid of this preliminary explanation, the nonchemical reader will readily understand and appreciate all
that follows regarding the progress and actual position of
our knowledge on the subject of ethereal perfumes.
40. OIL OF WINTER-GREEN. —In the State of New Jersey,
in North America, the partridge-berry, tea-berry, or winterFig. 84.             green ( Gaultheria procumbens), fig. 84, grows
abundantly in the woods
and drier swamps. It
is a dwarf evergreen
fragrant heath - plant,
and possesses an agreeable aromatic odour resembling  that of the
Gaultheria procumnbens-Winter-green of New
Jersey.             sweet birch.   It has
Scale, 1 inch to 5 inches.  long been gathered and
Flower and fruit, natural size.
to distilled, like other
fragrant plants, for the sake of the volatile oil, which in this
way may be extracted from  it.  This natural essence is
largely imported into Europe as a perfume, and is known in
commerce by the name of oil of winter-green.
Only a very few  years ago, a French chemist (M.
Cahours), in experimenting with this oil, discovered that,
unlike the sweet-scented volatile oils usually yielded by




ARTIFICIAL SWEET-SMELLING ETHERS.               201
plants-those of peppermint, cinnamon, anise, juniper, &c. —
this was a compound body belonging to the known family of
compound ethers, and, like them, was capable of being decomposed and again re-compounded by chemical art. This
was the first step in a new direction, and opened up a new
field of practical inquiry, which, though as yet only partially
cultivated, has already yielded most unexpected fruits.
I have already spoken (p. 476) of the bitter substance
salicine, which by a peculiar process can be converted into
the fragrant essence of spiraea. By another simple process
this salicine is converted into a solid crystalline acid substance, the salicylic acid; when combined with wood ether,
the salicylic acid forms oil of winter-green.* This compound
is produced naturally in the Gaultheria procumbens; but
the same esteemed perfume, now that we know its nature,
we can also make by art.  But the salicine required in the
process is too costly to admit of its being economically employed, as yet, for the manufacture of this oil.t
5~. ARTIFICIAL  SWEET-SMELLING ETHERS.-Chemical research, however, had meanwhile been discovering in the laboratory other compound ethers, not yet known to occur in
nature, but which were distinguished by smells so sweet as
to entitle them to be placed amongst valuable perfumes.
Many of these have already a well-established place in the
market, and have become articles of extensive and profitable
manufacture. Thus, under the name ofa. Pear oil, or essence  of jargonelle  pears, is sold a
spirituous solution of acetate of amyle oxide, the compound
of vinegar with potato ether.t  This ether, when pure, has
* Or the salicylate of oxide of methyle.
t Salicine is largely extracted from willow bark, and is but little used in this part
of Europe. It is employed, however, in preference to quinine amid the marshes of
the Danube in Turkey, and in the Eastern Archipelago-being less stimulating, and
therefore better suited to the constitution and circumstances of the native inhabitants
of these parts of the earth. This outlet for the salicine keeps up its price.
I Prepared, as already described, by distilling potato spirit with oil of vitriol and
acetate of potash.  VOL. II.-9*




202              THE ODOURS WER ENJOY.
a peculiar fruity smell, but when mixed with six times its
bulk of spirit of wine, it acquires the peculiar pleasant odour
and flavour of the jargonelle pear! Whether the pear, when
ripe, really contains any of this ether, is not known. It is
Largely manufactured, however, chiefly for the use of the confectioners. Among other purposes, they employ it to flavour
pear-drops, which are merely barley-sugar flavoured with an
infinitesimal quantity of this ether.
6. Apple oil, again, is a compound of the same potato or
amylic ether, with an acid known to chemists by the name of
the valerianic. It is easily prepared, by substituting the
bi-chromate of potash for the acetate of potash employed in
the manufacture of pear-oil. The pure ether'becomes the
commercial apple-oil when it: is dissolved in five or six times
its bulk of alcohol. It has then a most agreeable flavour of
apples, and is employed largely by the confectioners.
c. Grape oil and cognac oil are also compounds of the
amylic or potato ether with acids. They are used for giving the desired cognac flavour to British-made and other inferior brandies: what acids they contain is not yet known
to chemists.
It will strike the reader as not unworthy of remark, that
the same potato-spirit which, because of its offensive smell
and taste, is carefully removed by the rectifier from the ardent spirits he distils, should, under the hands of the chemist, become possessed of the most agreeable and coveted fragrance!
d. Pine-apple oil, again, is common wine-ether combined
with butyric acid, and then dissolved in alcohol. It has the
pleasant flavour of the pine apple, and is employed in England to flavour an acidulated drink or lemonade called pineapple ale.  In Germany it is used to flavour bad rums.
The butyric acid contained in this compound ether is the
substance which gives its peculiar, agreeable odour to fresh




ARTIFICIAL SWEET-SMELLING ETHERS.              203
butter. One mode of preparing the ether is to make butter
into a soap, and to distil this soap with alcohol and sulphuric
acid.*
This ether cannot be safely employed in perfumery for
handkerchief use. When frequently inhaled, it produces a
disagreeable irritation of the air-tubes of the lungs, which,
when prolonged, is followed by intense headache. It is well
adapted, however, for many of the purposes of the manufacturing perfumer, and as a flavouring material to the confectioner it is invaluable.
e. Essence of melons is a compound of wine ether with
the coccinic acid, an acid which exists in cocoanut oil. It
may be prepared in the same way as the pine-apple oil, substituting only, for the butter soap, a soap made from cocoanut oil.
f. Essence of quinces is wine ether combined with pelargonic acid. When dissolved in alcohol it possesses, in
the highest degree, the agreeable odour of the oil which is
extracted from the peel of the quince.  It is most easily obtained by distilling oil of rue with diluted nitric acid (aquafortis).
g. Hunga'rian wine-oil is wine ether in combination
with a peculiar acid called the cenanthic acid. This compound exists in all grape wines, and, when extracted, is employed for flavouring an artificial cognac which can scarcely
be distinguished from the genuine. For this purpose it was
very lately on sale in Breslau, at the price of sixty-nine dollars a pound! It was prepared in Hungary-whence its
name-and was distilled from  wine husks.  It has recently
been examined by Schwartz, who, besides making  out its
* Another mode is, to mix sugar or starch with powdered chalk and a little curd
of milk in water, and set it aside. The curd gradually causes the sugar to change,
first into lactic acid, and then into butyric acid, which combines with the lime of the
chalk. This butyrate of lime, distilled with alcohol and sulphuric acid, gives the pineapple oil.




204                THE ODOIURS WE ENJOY.
composition and chemical relations, has also suggested a
cheap process by which it may hereafter be abundantly
prepared.
h. Other artificial fragrances.-The above  are  only
samples, so to speak, of the almost endless variety of artificial compound ethers, possessed of sweet smells, which are
either already manufactured, or are capable of being so,
easily and cheaply for use as perfumes.
There are, for example, many other acids which are
capable of uniting with each of the three simple ethers I
have mentioned, and of forming with them compounds possessed of agreeable odours. We know already that the formic
and hippuric acids* each yield, when united with the wine
and wood spirit ethers, very agreeable perfumes which are
still nameless; and the number of similar compounds which
may be formed with other acids is almost inexhaustible.
Then, besides the three simple ethers prepared from
wine, wood, and potato spirits, there are many other simple
ethers, not so commonly known as these, each of which, with
the same host of acids, forms compounds of a more or less
odoriferous character. ThusCaprylic ether, or oxide of capryle, yields with acetic
acid a compound of a most intense and pleasant smell. Those
which it forms with other acids are still scarcely known, but
many of them  are remarkable for their aromatic odour.  To
the drinkers of whisky it may be interesting to know that
the peculiar flavour of this liquor is believed to be due to the
presence of a compound of this caprylic ether.4t AgainPropylic ether, or oxide of propyle, when combined with
* The formic acid is the acid of ants, but it can also be formed artificially. The
hippuric acid is extracted from the drainings of stables.
t Caprylic ether is prepared from one of the acid substances contained in butter.
The peculiar turpentine manufactured in some parts of Germany from the Scotch fir
(Pinus sy8l'estris), very closely approaches the oil of whiskL in smell This, however, is merely a variety of turpentine, and not an ether.




THE BOUQUET OF WINES-.-                205
butyric acid, yields a pure odour of ananas (pine apple) superior to that which the same acid gives when combined with
wine ether. And many other sweet smells, still unknown,
will no doubt become familiar to us when the compounds of
this singular substance are further investigated.*
60. THE BOUQUET OF WINEs. —Anong the odours we enjoy is to be reckoned the bouquet of our favourite wines.
This bouquet is owing mainly to the presence of one or
more volatile ethereal oils, similar to those I have above
described.
Generally speaking, the peculiar character of a wine is
dependent upon at least two volatile compounds possessed of
odours more or less distinct. One of these is common to
all good grape wines, the other is characteristic of the kind
of wine, sometimes even of the sample we are examining.
As in a well-made eau-de-Cologne, the excellence of a bouquet, or the value it imparts to the wine which possesses it,
depends very much upon the way and degree in which the
odours of these several compounds harmonise and flow into
each other.
When a vinous liquor of any kind is submitted to distillation, it yields, besides common wine-alcohol, a portion of a
peculiar ether, to which the name of oenanthict ether has
been given.  It is the same as the Hungarian  wine-oil
already described, and consists of common wine-ether united
to a peculiar acid, the cenanthic. This ether, when pure,
possesses the characteristic odour of grape wine in so very
high a degree as to be almost intoxicating. It gives what
may be called the fundamental or generic flavour to all
grape wines.
* Propylic ether, or oxide of propyle, is prepared from another fatty acid-the
propionic; and I have called it a singular substance because, while this oxide of propyle yields-delightful odours, another compound of the same propyle yields repulsive
smells, like those of boiled crabs, herring brine, and stinking fish.
t From OLevo, wine; and Ayros, a flower.




'206             THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
But if the residue of the wine-that which remains after
the alcohol and cenanthic ether have been distilled off-be
mixed with quicklime and again distilled, a volatile odoriferous substance passes over, which possesses in a high degree
the peculiar bouquet of the wine we are  examining(WINCKLER).* Every variety of wine, when treated in this
way, yields its own peculiar and characteristic fragrant
principle. This specific bouquet, in combination with the
general vinous odour of the cenanthic ether, common to
all wines, produces the full effect on the senses of smell
and taste for which each particular wine is distinguished
and esteemed.  The rapidity with which the bouquet of a
wine is lost, depends partly upon the greater or less volatility of the peculiar odoriferous substances it contains, and
partly on the ease with which they oxidise, or otherwise
change, when exposed to the air.
Little is known as yet with regard to the true chemical
nature of these specific odoriferous substances.  They are
said by Winckler to possess basic or alkaline properties, to
contain nitrogen, and to exist in the wines in combination
with peculiar volatile acids. They are always associated
with the cenanthic ether above described, but are not ethers
themselves. When they have been more fully examined,
they may probably make us acquainted with another large
family of agreeable odours. And the questions will then
naturally arise —Can we prepare these substances by arti.
ficial processes?-Can we teach the wine manufacturer to
flavour at will one pipe with the bouquet of Lafitte, and
another with that of Johannisberg?-and so on.
I need scarcely observe that the practice of flavouring
brandies and beers, so as to give them an esteemed bouquet,
has been long known and extensively practised. I have already mentioned certain compound ethers-the Hungarian
* Chemical Gazette, January 1853, p. 36.




ARTIFICIAL FLAVOURING OF WINES.          207
wine-oil, and the pine-apple oil for ex-    Fig. 85.
ample-which are employed to give the
flavour of cognac or of rum to inferior
spirits, and the use of juniper in the
manufacture of gin is known to every
one. A less familiar flavourer is the
sweet flag, the calamzus of the Song of
Solomon (fig. 85).   This imparts at
once an aromatic taste and an agreeable bouquet odour to the liquid in
which it is infused. It is used by the
rectifiers to improve the flavour of gin,
and is largely employed to give a peculiar taste and fragrance to certain varieties of beer.  It abounds in the rivers
of Norfolk, and from  this locality the
London market used to be principally g
supplied. As much as ~40 is sometimes obtained for the year's growth of Aearu8 eela4musu-The
a single acre of the river-side land, on scale, 1 inch to 10 inches
which it naturally grows.
III. ANIMAL ODOURS.-M-ost species of animals emit
from their skin an odour peculiar to themselves, by which
other animals, keen of scent, can recognise and trace them.
The blood and flesh of animals also possess a peculiar smell,
and only long habit prevents us from distinguishing in this
way the flesh of the ox, the sheep, and the pig. The parts
of animals have rarely so powerful an odour as to cause
them on that account to be either rejected or selected for
economical purposes. It is different with the secretions of
animal bodies. Some of these are offensively disagreeable
to the sense of smell, while others are sought after and




208              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
valued as agreeable perfumes.  Among the latter, musk
civet, and ambergris are the most important.
Fig. 86.             10. Musk is a substance
which is found secreted in
a small bag, attached to the
under part of the body of a
ruminating animal of the
size of a roebuck (fig. 86),
-  which inhabits the mountains of China, Thibet, Tonquin, Tartary: and Siberia.
It is obtained only from
the male animal.  When
fresh, it is in the state of a
i]loshus mnoschcates-Musk Deer.
soft, salve - like, reddishbrown mass.  It possesses a peculiar, penetrating, long-continuing odour, and a bitter, astringent, aromatic, slightly
saline taste. By keeping, it dries, becomes blackish-brown,
and assumes the form of little rounded grains, which give a
brown streak upon paper, and are easily rubbed to powder.
It is one of the most powerful, most penetrating, and most
lasting of odoriferous substances. It attaches itself, and
gives a durable scent to every thing in its neighbourhood.
Different qualities of musk are met with in the market, and
from its high price it is very liable to adulteration. When
pure, it dissolves in water to the extent of three-fourths of
the whole.
The chemical nature of musk is not thoroughly understood. It contains several less valuable ingredients, the
general properties and origin of which are known; but the
chemical characters and composition of that ingredient
which emits the valuable odour have not yet been rigorously
investigated. As is the case with the special bouquet of
wine, it appears to consist of a volatile acid united to a




MUSK.                      209
volatile alkali, which are separated from each other by
distillation with lime-(WINcKLER). Imperfect as our knowr
ledge of musk at present is, however, observations already
made render it probable that, before many years have elapsed,
we shall be able to produce it by art.
So persistent and apparently indestructible is the odorous prin6iple of musk, that when taken internally, as it
frequently is in cases of spasms, it passes through the pores
of the skin, and impregnates the perspiration with a strong
smell of musk. When kept in capsules of wax, however, or
in contact with lime, with milk of sulphur, with sulphurate
of gold, or with syrup of almonds, musk loses it smell.
But in all these cases the smell is restored by moistening it
with liquid ammonia (hartshorn).
The flesh of the crocodile is said to smell of musk, and
the same odour is sometimes emitted by plants. Thus our
common beet has a musky smell, and the musk-plant of our
gardens possesses it more distinctly.  But the Delphinium
glcaciale, a plant which grows on the Himalayas at the height
of 17,000 feet, has so strong and disagreeable a smell of
musk, that the natives believe the musk deer, which is found
on the mountain slopes, to derive its smell from eating this
plant.  Another Delphinium, the D. brunonianum, which
grows on the western slopes of the Himalayas, has a similar
smell of musk, though less disagreeable -(HOOKER).  The
nature of the musky-smelling substances contained in these
plants is not yet known.
About six thousand ounces of musk are imported into
this country every year, besides that which comes from
China and Russia-(PooLE). Each natural pod or sac
weighs only six drachms, less than half of which consists of
musk. It is somewhat remarkable that while this scent is
so much esteemed in England and other countries, it is extensively disliked in Italy, and makes many persons ill.




210                 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
20. CIVET.-The substance known in commerce by the
name of civet, is secreted by two animals of the genus ViFig. 8T.                  verra,  (V.  zi6etha
and V. civetta), one
of which is a native
of  Asia,  and  the
other of Africa.  It
is of a pale yellow or
brownish colour, has
usually the consistence of honey, and
1i7verra civetta —Civet Cat.
possesses a somewhat acrid taste. Its smell resembles that of musk. When
undiluted, this smell is so powerful as to be offensive to
many; but when mixed with a large quantity of butter, or
other diluting substance, it becomes agreeably aromatic, fragrant, and delicate.* It is used only as a perfume, and
chiefly to mingle with, and improve the odour of, less costly
scents.  Lavender and other scented waters are made more
agreeable by a skilful addition of civet, in  minute  proportions.
Over Northern Africa, between the Red Sea and Abyssinia, the  civet cat, called by the  Arabs kedis, is highly
valued. Numbers of them are kept in wicker cages for
the pursose of collecting the civet they secrete. It is used
by the women for the purpose of powdering the upper parts
of their body, their necks, &c. Its strong odour overpowers
the disagreeable effluvium which often escapes from their
dusky skins in that arid climate. t
* It throws some light upon the diversity of taste which prevails in regard to
scents, that the same substance may be agreeable in a diluted, which is offensive in a
concentrated state. The volatile oils of neroli, thyme, and patchouli are in themselves unpleasant, but when diluted with a thousand times their bulk of oil or spirit,
their fragrance is delightful. So the odoriferous ethers require to be diluted with six
times their weight of alcohol.
t WERNE'S African Wanderings (Travellers' Library), pp. 1ST, 260.




AMBERGRIS AND ITS USES.               211
Castoreum, yielded by the beaver, is a natural secretion,
similar in its origin and its properties to musk and civet.
Like these substances, it has, when fresh, a powerful penetrating odour, and a bitter acrid taste. The odour, however,
is fetid and disagreeable: it is only used in medicine, therefore, and never as a perfume.
Hyraceum is a similar substance obtained from the mountain badger (Hyrax capensis). It resembles castoreum in
smell, and is sometimes used medicinally in its stead.
30. AMBERGRIS is an odoriferous substance which is found
floating on the sea near the Molucca Islands, in other parts
of the Indian Ocean, and off the coast of South America.
It is believed to be rejected by the spermaceti whale (Physeter macrocephalus), in which it has sometimes been found.
Fig. 88.
Physeter macrocephalus-Spermaceti Whale.
When fresh, ambergris is solid, greyish, streaked or
marbled, and somewhat soft.  It has a strong agreeable
odour, resembling that of musk, and a fatty taste. It con



212               THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
sists, to the amount of six-sevenths of the whole (eightyfive per cent), of a fragrant substance, soluble in alcohol,
to which the name of ambreine has been given, To this
principal ingredient its use as a perfume is owing.
Ambergris is rarely employed alone. The essence of
ambergris of the perfumer is an alcoholic tincture of the
substance, to which the oils of roses, cloves, &c., are added,
accdrding to fancy.  What is called tincture of civet is
formed by macerating half an ounce of civet with a quarter of
an ounce of ambergris in a quart of rectified spirit. Either
of these tinctures, added in minute quantity to lavender
water, to tooth-powder, hair-powder, toilet soaps, &c., communicates to them the peculiar odour of ambergris.
In fixity and permanence of scent the animal odours are
unrivalled. A handkerchief scented with ambergris retains the
odour even after it has been washed: musk and civet are
scarcely less permanent. To this property these substances
owe their chief use in perfumery. They impart to volatile
handkerchief-scents a smell which continues after the less
fixed ingredients have disappeared. A favourite mixed perfume of this kind, the extrait d'ambre of the Parisian perfumes, is compounded ofEsprit de rose triple,.     pint
Extract of ambergris,...      "
Essence of musk,.....      "
Extract of vanilla,.. 2 ounces.
When well perfumed with this, a handkerchief, though
washed, retains an odour still.
The high price which ambergris, like musk and civet,
brings in the market, leads to frequent adulterations, both
in this country and in those from which it is imported. The
chemistry of this substance is not yet so well understood as
to justify us in hoping soon to produce its odoriferous ingredient by artificial processes. Yet the observation, that dried




INSECT ODOURS.                 213
cow-dung smells of ambergris-(REDWOOD)-and that even
nightsoil, under certain forms of treatment, assumes a powerful odour of this substance-(HOnIBERG)*-suggest lines of
research, by following which a mode of manufacturing ambergris may hereafter be discovered.
40. INSECT oDoURs.-Among animal odours of an agreeable kind, those given off by certain insects are deserving of
mention. To entomologists, many strong-smelling insects
are known, though some of these, of course, are far from
being agreeable to our senses.
The Ceramnbyx moschata (fig 89),      Fig. 89.
a coleopterous insect, derives its spe-  ~..
cific name from the musky odour it 
emits. Most of the ants of Europe
give off, when crushed, a well-known       1\ 
penetrating odour of formic acid:
those of Bahia in South America,
which are very troublesome and de-   Cerambyw moschata.
structive, give off when squeezed a    Half natural size.
strong smell of lemons-(W~ETHERELL). The Gyrinus natator of Linnaeus has so strong an odour, that, when several
of the insects are collected together, they may be scented
at a distance of five or six hundred paces-(RAESEL). It is
to the eating of these insects that Mr. Lloyd t is inclined to
ascribe the remarkable odour emitted by the grayling (ThymaZlus vulgaris), which by different writers has been likened to that of thyme or of honey.
I do not multiply examples of this kind, as nothing is
yet known as to the chemical nature of the odoriferous substances which insects emit; nor have any of them as yet
been employed for purposes of luxury or economy.
Many reflections are suggested by the facts I have
* lemoirs of the French Academy, 1211.
t Scandincavian Adenttres, L 128.




214              THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
brought together in the present chapter.  Want of space
forbids me to indulge in more than one or two.
First. One circumstance which presses very strongly
upon our attention, is the extremely minute state of diffusion
in which the odoriferous substances of animal origin still
make themselves perceptible to our senses. A fragment of
musk not only gives off a strong smell when it is first exposed to the air, but it continues to do so for an almost indefinite period of time. Yet the odour must be caused by
particles of matter which are continuously escaping from the
musk, so long as it continues exposed to the air. How
inconceivably small in weight, how infinitely minute in size,
the molecules must be of which this constantly-flowing stream
of matter consists!
And to vegetable perfumes the same observations almost
equally apply. A morsel of camphor will for days fill a
large room with its scent without suffering any material
diminution in weight. A single leaf of melilot will for
years preserve and manifest its sweet odour, and yet the
quantity of coumarin it contains would probably be inappreciable by the most delicate balance.  We know in this
country how a stalk of mignonette, placed in an open window, will scent the air that enters, through the whole of a
long summer's day. But in hot climates, especially during
the morning and evening hours, this diffusiveness of perfumes is still more striking.' The odour of the balsamyielding Humeriads has been perceived at a distance of
three miles from the shores of South America-a species
of Tetracera sends its perfume as far from the island
of Cuba-and the aroma of the Spice Islands is wafted out
to sea." %
The quantity of ethereal oil which gives its peculiar
aroma to grape wine has been estimated at one-forty*MRs. SOMERVILLE' PAysiaoa Geogra/phy, It. 122.




DELICACY OF THE ORGANS OF SMELL.         215
thousandth only of the bulk of the wine, and that which
gives the aroma to roasted coffee, at one-fifty-thousandth of
its weight; but the ozone which exists in the atmosphere is
distinctly perceptible to the smell when mixed with five
hundred thousand times its bulk of air.
Second. The nicety of the bodily organs by which we
perceive these extremely diluted perfumes is equally a
subject for admiration. The sense of smell detects and
determines the presence of these infinitesimally minute
molecules. This is remarkable. But it does much more.
It distinguishes between them, pronouncing the impression
it derives from one class to the agreeable, and from another
class the reverse. It then further pronounces upon the
amount and kind of the pleasurable sensation produced by
each, and this through a long series of varieties and degrees.
How delicate the structure of the organs of smell must be!
How suprising that they should continue uninjured and unimpaired, amid so much thoughtless usage, and for so long a
series of years!
Third. This history of the odours we enjoy illustrates
in a remarkable manner, how, out of the most vile materials,
chemistry, by its magical processes, can extract the sweetest
and most desirable substances.  How wonderful this power,
how delightful to possess it, how useful its results! Artificial musk and ambergris! Manufactories of oil of bitter
almonds! Essences of spirma and winter-green prepared in
chemical laboratories! Humble wines successfully flavoured
to compete with the produce of the most costly vintages!
Ethereal fragrances without number, and unknown by name,
added to the list of enjoyable odours! Pleasing scents, in
cheap abundance, of which the wealthiest in ancient times
could form no conception, and which they had no means of
obtaining!
This history presents, in truth, another striking illustra



216             THE ODOURS WE ENJOY.
tion of the way in which modern chemical research leads to
the establishment of new arts and manufactures-to the ad.
dition of new and unknown luxuries to those already within
our reach —to the cheapening of luxurious comforts to all, —
and thus to the refining, and softening, and polishing of the
whole community. It displays, also, to the reader the existence of a new field of practical and economic research
which is almost boundless, shows how valuable chemistry is
in almost every walk of life, and how the studies of the laboratory may be made a source even of money profit in the
most unexpected departments of economic pursuit.




CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
NATURAL  SMELLS.
Difference of opinion as to smells.-Disagreeable mineral smells.-Sulphuretted hy.
drogen; its properties, and production in nature.-Sulphurous acid given off from
volcanoes; its suffocating reputation.-Muriatic acid gas.-Unpleasant vegetable
smells.-Garlic and the onion.-Oil of garlic.-Sulphuret of allyle.-Sulphur an
ingredient of many fetid smells.-Assafetida, a concrete juice.-Oil of assafcetida.
-Extensive use of vegetable substances containing allyle; they satisfy some natural craving; extensive distribution of them in nature.-Horse-radish and mustard also contain allyle.-The stinking goosefoot.-The peculiar strong-smelling
compound contained in this plant exists also in putrid fish; economical use of it
in the cuisine.-Carrion plants.-The saussurea and the stapelias.-Smells often
disagreeable only because of the things or memories associated with them.-Dis.
agreeable animal odours; the goat, the badger, and the skunk.-Effects of minute
doses of sulphur and tellurium.-Stenches as weapons of defence.-Insect smells.
-The putrefaction of animal bodies; conditions which promote it; substances
given off; their unwholesome character.-Burying-vaults and graveyards.-The
droppings of animals; peculiar substances and smells given off by these.
THE smells we dislike  are  probably quite  as numerous  as
the odours we enjoy. Between the two, however, there is a
wide debatable ground, in regard to which the utmost diversity of opinion prevails. What is fragrance to one person is
sometimes  abomination to another.   Plutarch  tells  us that
a Spartan lady paid a visit to Berenice the wife of Dejotarus   but that one of them   smelled  so  much of sweet ointVOL. II.-1O




218             rHE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
ment, and the other of butter,* that neither of them could
endure the other; and it is so still, even among the most
cultivated and refined. For although cultivation may very
much improve this taste, and though individual constitution
modifies in a certain degree the effect which odoriferous
substances produce upon the organs of smell, yet early habit
determines for the most part the judgments we form as to
the agreeable and the disagreeable.
Still, as there are certain odours which nearly all persons
enjoy, so there are certain smells which almost every one
dislikes. These are distinctly indicated by the old English
word stinks. Of these acknowledged bad smells some are
produced naturally, while others are the result of artificial
processes. In the present chapter I shall consider only the
bad smells which occur in nature. Of these some are of
mineral, some of vegetable, and some of animal origin.
I. MINERAL SMELLs.-Of disagreeable mineral smells,
the most common are sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphurous
acid. The former gives its disagreeable smell and taste to
sulphureous mineral waters, like those of Harrogate; the
latter is given off from the mouths of active volcanoes, and
from cracks and fumaroles in volcanic countries. Muriatic
acid is also occasionally discharged by active volcanoes.
10. Stlpyhuretted  Hydrogen.-When common sulphur
and iron-filings are melted together in a red-hot crucible,
they combine chemically, and form a black sulphuret of
iron.  If this black substance be put into a flask or retort,
along with diluted sulphuric acid (oil of vitirol), a gas is given
off, generally without the application of heat. This gas consists of sulphur and hydrogen, and is therefore called sulphur* The use of butter came to the Greeks from Thrace and Phrygia, and to the
Romans from Germany. They used it only in medicine and as an ointment in their
baths. —BEcxmsr, Art. Butter




SULPHURETTED HYDROGEN.               216 
etted hydrogen. This gas may be collected over water in the
usual way, (fig. 90). It has no colour, but is distinguished
by a sulphury taste, and a strong fetid sulphureous smell
Fig. 90.
resembling that of rotten eggs.  It is about one-fifth heavier
than common air, burns with a blue flame and a smell of
sulphur, and is very poisonous when breathed. A single
gallon of it, mixed with 1200 of air, will render it poisonous
to birds, and one in a hundred will kill a dog. A very small
proportion of it, therefore, mingled with the air we breathe,
will render it injurious to human health. Water dissolves
two and a half times its bulk of this gas, and acquires at the
same time its smell and taste.
This gas is often produced naturally in the interior of the
earth, and, rising upwards through the rocks, is absorbed by
springs, and gives them the unpleasant smell familiar to us
in many mineral waters. It is the sulphuretted hydrogen
they contain which causes these waters to blacken when
mixed with those of other springs which contain iron.
From marshy and stagnant places also, where vegetable
matter is undergoing decay in the presence of water containing gypsum (sulphate of lime), this gas is often given off;
and its smell may in most cases be perceived in moist soils,
where gypsum lies in contact with decaying roots and leaves.
In volcanic countries, it frequently issues from the earth in




220            THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
larger quantities.  From fissures and openings in the solfaP
taras of Italy, for example, as in that of Puzzuoli, it rushes
out, mixed with steam and other gases, and diffuses its fetid
odour sometimes to great'distances.  In such localities the
smell of this substance becomes a serious annoyance and
source of dislike.
The iron pyrites of our coal mines, when thrown up in
heaps in the open air, undergoes decomposition through the
action of the moisture of the atmosphere. One of the result,
of this decomposition is the evolution of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, sometimes in sufficient quantity to be both
offensive and unwholesome to the immediate neighbourhood.
This gas consists, as I have said, of sulphur and hydrogen only, in the proportions, in a hundred parts, ofHydrogen,                      5.9
Sulphur,.94.1
100
So that a comparatively small proportion of hydrogen causes
sulphur to assume the gaseous form, and to exhibit the
fetid odour and remarkably poisonous properties possessed
by this gas.
2~. Sulphurous Acid. —When sulphur is kindled in the
air, it burns with a pale blue flame, and is converted into a
heavy acid vapour or gas, which is distinguished by a peculiar suffocating smell.  This is well known as the smell of
burning sulphur. It is formed by the union of the sulphur
with its own weight of the oxygen of the atmosphere, and
is called by chemists sulphurous acid gas. It is two and a
fifth times heavier than common air; and when inhaled, it
first provokes cough, and if continued, causes suffocation.
This gas is given off from the mouth of active volcanoes,
from vents and fissures in the earth in volcanic countries,
and from the solfataras which often exist where volcanic
action is going on. It is not less disliked for its smell than




MURIATIC ACID GAS.                 221
sulphuretted hydrogen is, and it is even more suffocating
when breathed.
The universal dislike of this gas is indicated by the
place so generally assigned to it, in figurative descriptions,
of a future place of torment. Thus, in the Book of Revelations, we have " the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death; " and in Milton's description, it is a place
" Where peace
And rest-can never dwell; hope never comes,
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sultphutr, unconsumed."
30. lMur'iatic Acid Gas. —When oil of vitriol (sulphuric
acid) is poured upon common salt, white vapours are given
off, which provoke cough, are very suffocating, and affect the
sense of smell in an exceedingly unpleasant manner. These
are vapours of muriatic acid, or spirit of salt.  They are absorbed by water with great rapidity; and when conducted
by a bent tube into a bottle of water (fig. 91) till the latter
is saturated, they form  the strongly corrosive acid liquid
usually known by the name of spirit of salt.
Vapours of this gas are sometimes given off from  the
mouths of active volcanoes;
but they rarely prove an annoyance to the neighbouring
population.  The two most
common and best known evil
smells of mineral origin, therefore, are those of the sulphuretted hydrogen, and the sulphurous acid gases. Of these,
the former is by far the most
widely diffused, and the most
frequently observed, and is,,




'222            rHE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
productive of the most general annoyance. The sulphurous
acid gas is naturally produced only in the neighbourhood of
volcanoes, or where sulphur, by some natural means, is made
to burn in the air.
II. VEGETABLE SMELLS.-Of the smells we dislike, a
much greater number are of vegetable than of mineral
origin; and of these, some are given off by living plants,
which produce and contain essential oils, to which their
smells are owing. Among these, I advert more particularly
to the garlic tribe, the assafoetida plant, and the stinking
goosefoot, both because they all emit smells which, in a
concentrated form, are generally considered very unpleasant,
and because the chemistry of the evil-smelling substances
they contain is at present better understood than that of any
other known substances of the same kind and origin.
1~. Gagrlic and the Onion.-A familiar plant in many
of our moist woods and shady meadows is the common ramps,
or ramsons (Allizun ursinum). When in flower, this plant
diffuses its disagreeable garlic odour through the air, and
imparts its unpleasant flavour to the milk of the cows that
feed upon it. When distilled with water in a retort, a
heavy volatile oil passes over and collects beneath the water,
Fig. 92.          which condenses in the receiver.  The common onion,
the chive, the chalot, the
leek, the common garlic, and
other species of this strongsmelling tribe of plants, yield
the same oil when distilled
with water.
This oil is of a brownish1lium sativuin-The I Allium cepa-The yellow colour, is heavier than
Cultivated Garlic. [ Common Onion.
Scale 1 inch to a foot.  water, and possesses the pe



GARLIC AND THE ONION.               223
culiar smell of the class of plants which yields it, but in a
highly pungent and concentrated form.  It is their strongsmelling principle or ingredient; and the strength of its
odour may be judged of from the fact that, powerfully
smelling as garlic is, from thirty to forty pounds of it are
required to yield one ounce of the oil.*
We have seen that a large class of the volatile perfumes
which are extracted from plants-such as the oils of roses,
lemons, &c. —consist of the two elementary substances,
carbon and hydrogen only.  In this fetid oil of garlic there
also exists a volatile substance consisting of carbon and hydrogen only, to which, from the generic name (alliurn) of the
plants in which it is found, the name of Allyle has been
given. This substance, however, instead of an agreeable,
has a very unpleasant smell. It combines with sulphur also,
and forms with it a volatile oil possessed of an intensely
fetid odour.  This compound is called by chemists sulpZuret of allyle; and it is this substance which exists in garlic,
and gives both to garlic and the onion their peculiar smell.
The chive, the chalot, the leek, the rocambole and the onion
(Allium leptophZyllum), which is eaten by the hill people of
India, all derive their smell from the same sulphur.containing oil of garlic. The relative mildness of these several
vegetable productions, as well as that of different varieties
of the common onion, depends upon the proportions of garlic
oil they severally contain. And the bad smell of the breath
after eating any of these plants is caused by the constant
presence of a small quantity of this oil among the air we
exhale from our lungs.
This strong-smelling compound, by the intensity and
persistence of its odour, reminds us of the animal perfumes
— musk, civet and ambergris-described in the preceding
chapter. Like musk, also, it exudes through the pores of
* A hundredweight of garlic will give three or four ounces of oil.




224              THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
the skin of the garlic-eater, giving its smell to the perspira
tion; while, like the narcotic principles of opium,+ it passes,
probably unchanged, into the milk of the animals which
swallow it. And both the intensity and adhesiveness of
its odour are shown by the well-known fact that a knife which
has been used to cut an onion retains for a long time, and communicates to other substances, the smell and taste of this oil.
It is not unworthy, also, of the attention of the reader,
that, as the most fetid mineral smells I have described are
compounds of sulphur, so this fetid vegetable oil of garlic is
also a compound of sulphur (sulphzret of allyle).  We shall
have occasion to remark a similar connection of sulphur
with other evil smells both natural and artificial.
2~. Assafcetida is the concrete juice of the Ferula assafyetida. It is collected by cutting the stalk of the plant
across immediately above the root-as represented in the
Fig. 93.          woodcut (fig. 93) - leaving
the root in the ground, and
scraping off the sap as it flows
upwards, and dries on the cut
surface. It possesses an odour
similar to that of garlic, but
still stronger, more fetid, and
generally much more disagreeable to Europeans.  On the
-;   T l  borders of Asia, however, the
concrete juice is not consider
ed unpleasant.  On the con/  iS     trary, it is extensively collected, sold, and used as a condiFerulac assafewtida-The Assafcetidaplant. ment for food.
a, Root, with the crown cut off, to alIow the gum to exude; b, Crown, with root-    When this resinous sub
leaves; *, Flowering stem.
Scale, 1 inch to a foot and a half.   stance is distilled with water
* See Tam NARCOTIoS WE INDULGE IN.




OIL OF ASSAF(ETIDA.               225
it also yields a volatile oil in small quantity.  On cooling,
this oil becomes solid, and gives off, in a concentrated form,
the fetid odour of the natural drug.  Its smell has a certain
resemblance to that of garlic, but it is, if possible, still more
offensive; and it is remarkable that, in composition also, it
resembles the oil of garlic.'It contains the same peculiar
strong-smelling body allyle, already spoken of, and also in
combination with sulphur. The only difference in the composition of the two oils seems to be, that the oil of assafoetida
contains a larger proportion of sulphur than the oil of garlic.
Three circumstances are interesting in conection with
these compound oils and the condiments in which they occur.
First, That vegetable productions so unlike to each other
as the onion, the garlic, and the assafoetida plants are, and
growing in climates so different, owe their smell and taste
to the presence of the same peculiar compound (allyle).
Second, That the fetid quality of the oils they severally
contain is connected with the presence of sulphur in them as
an essential part of their chemical constitution; and that the
more fetid of the two-the oil of assafoetida-contains the
largest proportion of sulphur.
Ihirgd, That without any knowledge of these close chemical relations among the plants in question, different races of
men, in different parts of the world, have long selected and
largely used them as condiments to their food. The Englishman, to a certain extent, relishes his onion, and the
Frenchman mildly flavours his most savoury dishes with a
touch of the garlic or chalot. But in Portugal and Spain
the onion and the garlic are the relishes of common and
everyday life. This taste the Peninsula has probably acquired from Northern Africa. Over the whole of the latter
region-from the shores of the Mediterranean to the sources
of the Nile-garlic and the onion are most esteemed seasoners of the universal food; Arab, Moorish, and Ethiopian
VOL. II.-10*




226             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
tribes equally delight in them; * and this taste is of very
remote origin. The Israelites, during their sojourn in the
wilderness, murmured, saying, "we remember the cucumbers and the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic."
Among the ancient Egyptians themselves, the onion formed
an object of worship; and the modern Egyptians assign it
a place in their paradise.  To the present day, the onion of
the Nile borders possesses a peculiar excellence and flavour.
The Eastern Asiatics appear to require more powerful condiments. With them the assafoetida takes the place both of
the milder onion, and of the stronger garlic.
Strange that the peculiar taste for these compounds of
sulphur and allyle should so extensively prevail, and that
vegetable productions, so unlike in external appearance,
should have been selected for the purpose of gratifying it!
As in the case of the beverages and the narcotics, men
seem to have been led to this selection by a kind of human
instinct, guiding them blindly, as it were, to plants which
were capable of yielding to the body the same chemical
compounds.
And to facilitate, as it were, the guidings of this instinct
-to afford the means of gratifying the natural cravingthese garlic-smelling compounds appear to be much more
extensively diffused throughout the vegetable kingdom than
physiologists are yet aware of. Several species of Petiveria,
which are common in the West Indies, in Brazil, and on the
eastern slopes of the Andes, are possessed of a strong garlic
odour.  Such is the case with the Petiveria alliacea, the
guinea-hen weed of the West Indies; with the P. tetrandra;
with the Seguiera alliacea) the root, wood and leaves of which
have a powerful odour of garlic or assafoetida, and are employ-.ed to form medicated baths in Brazil; and with a species of
* Garlic and Salt, placed under the tongue, are considered by the Arab as a cure
for thirst and fever.




HORSE-RADISH AND  MUSTARD.            227
Petiveria called Ajo del montM, which forms one of the
giant ornaments of the Bolivian forests on the eastern slopes
of the Cordilleras.
Future research will probably show that these compounds
of allyle exercise a peculiar physiological action upon the
system, by which certain of its natural cravings are allayed,
and its general comfort promoted. This is rendered more
probable by the remarkable circumstance that horse-radish
and mustard —the use of which as condiments so extensively prevails-owe their peculiar properties to the presence of compounds of the same substance-allyle.
30. Horse-radish and M2Vustard.-When the root of the
common horse-radish is distilled with water, it yields a
volatile oil, which possesses the pungent smell and taste of
the natural root in a highly concentrated state.  This smell
is not disliked, I believe, by most people; but I mention the
oil in this place, because it contains the same compound
body, allyle, which exists in the oils of garlic and assafretida.
In the horse-radish, however, it is combined not only with
sulphur, but also with a second substance known to chemists
by the name of cyanogen. To the presence of this cyanogen.
the difference of properties possessed by the horse-radish
are to be ascribed. The smell and taste of the oil it yields
are very strong and pungent, but it has little of the fetid
character which distinguishes those of garlic and assafcetida.
Mustard owes its peculiar penetrating odour, burning
taste, and blistering quality, to the presence of the same volatile oil which is found in horse-radish. It exists also in
scurvy grass (Cochlearia oficinalis), in the roots of Alliaria
oficinalis, and probably in our common cress, rape, radish,
and similar pungent tribes of plants. To the presence of this
oil they most likely owe their peculiar pungent virtue; and,
as in the case of those which possess the garlic smell, it is
probably an instinctive consciousness of their salutary in



228             THE SMELLS UWE DISLIKE.
fluenece upon the system that has led to- the extended use of
them all in so many parts of the earth.
40. The Stinking Goosefoot (Chenopodium  olidun, fig.
94) is another plant which has been long known for its disFig. 94.     agreeable smell.  In botanical works,
this smell is compared to that of putrid
salt-fish.  The substance to which this
smell is owing, has recently become
quite as interesting to the chemical
physiologist as those which give their
smell to garlic and assaftetida.
If a portion of this plant be distilled along with a solution of common'
soda, a volatile  alkaline  substance
passes over, which has the smell of
stockfish, of boiled crabs, of herring
B y~'~'~;~~-'   brine, or of Findhorn haddocks, which
Stinkingop oosefooti    have been long kept.  To this subScale,  inch to 6 inches. stance chemists have given the somewhat ponderous name of trimethylamine.
One of the interesting circumstances connected with
this vegetable product is, that if herring brine be distilled
in the same way along with soda, the same volatile substance
passes over in still greater abundance than from the stinking goosefoot. In a living and growing plant, therefore,
and in the substance of dead and decaying fish, one and the
same chemical compound is naturally produced, and imparts
to each the same well-known penetrating and offensive odour
for which it is everywhere remarkable.
The history of this substance (trimethylctmine) presents
also an interesting illustration of the way in which chemistry
throws light on natural phenomena. It was formed and obtained in the laboratory by special chemical processes, and
its peculiar properties ascertained before it was extracted




THE  STINKING  GOOSEFOOT.                          229
either from the evil-smelling plant, or from the decaying
fish.   It  was the  smell of the  artificial  compound  which
suggested first that it might possibly be the cause of the
repulsive odour of the living plant, and afterwards of that
of the dead animal. Subsequent research showed the correctness of these conjectures, by actually extracting it from
both by the processes I have described. As is the case with
some of the natural vegetable perfumes, therefore, we can
now  prepare  by art the  stinking  constituent of the  goosefoot, should its production ever be likely to lead to profit.*
The interest which attaches to the disagreeable-smelling
compounds of this class is very different from that which
distinguishes  the  compounds  of  allyle.   The  latter  have
been sought for and used most extensively; the former have
* Trirnethylamine is not the only substance known to be possessed of this fishy
odour. Another volatile alkaline compound, called propylamnine, is in smell scarcely
distinguishable from trimethylamino. The two substances consist also of the same
elements united together in the same proportions,-that is to say, they are isormeric
(see above, p. 478). Their chemical relations, however, and their chemical constitution, are very unlike. The grouping of the six atoms of carbon (C), nine of hydrogen (H), and one' of nitrogen (N), of which the two compounds consist, is thus represented respectively —
Trimothylamine.          Propylainine.
C2  IH3                      H
C2  13   NC H H-3                  C6-  H7
The sum being, C6  H9   N                C6 H9   N
The meaning of this mode of rationally representing the composition of the two
compounds, is thisC2  H3 represents a substance called methyl.
C6  II7    P" ropyl.
113  N or H  N      represents     amrmonia.
H)
Now, if for one of the atoms of hydrogen (H) in ammonia, we substitute one of
propyl, we produce propylamine, represented as above; or, if for each of the three
atoms of hydrogen we substitute one of methyl, we have trimethylamine, also as
above represented. Such substitutions we can actually make in our laboratories; and
thus we are enabled to form a rational idea of the way in which compound bodies
may contain the same elements in the same proportions, and yet differ very much
from each other in properties.




230             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
been generally avoided; no instinct or experience of their
good effects upon the system has hitherto led any tribe of
men to seek after or indulge in the use of them.
I may suggest to the cook, however, as a possible use to
which these fishy-smelling compounds may hereafter be put
in the cuisine-the flavouring of imitation fish-cakes, crab,
lobster, cray-fish, and oyster-pates, fish-sauces, such as the
anchovy, &c. &c. Such preparations as these, by the application of a little skill, may pass off at table, and be made
to please the palate as well as genuine salt-water productions, though containing nothing that ever lived in the sea!
50. Carsion Plants.-As the  goosefoot smells like
putrid fish, so some plants smell like putrid flesh. The
flowers of the bladder-headed saussurea have the smell of
putrid meat: and the stapelias, because of their putrid and
disagreeable odour, are distinguished by the name of carrionflowers. The fermented juice of the Mexican agave also,
which forms the pulque so popular in Central A2merica,* is
remarkable for its odour of putrid meat.
The chemical compound (or compounds) to which this
carrion smell is owing, are still unknown. It is produced as
a natural secretion, so to speak, in the living stapelias-as
the result of fermentation in the juice of the agave-and as
a consequence of putrefaction in dead and decaying flesh.
It may either be the same substance which gives the smell
in all these cases, or it may be caused by different substances
of the same chemical nature-all belonging most probably
to the same class of volatile alkaline compounds as the trimethylamine of the goosefoot and the stock-fish.
It is interesting to trace close chemical coincidences
like these between vegetable and animal productions as
regards even things subordinate and disagreeable. They
* See the LIquoRs WE FERMENT.




CHEMICAL COINCIDENCES.              231
are at least more unexpected, and apparently less necessary,
than those we have already had occasion to remark between
the entire substance of the animal body, and the staple
forms of vegetable food by which it is supported.*
We have seen in this and the preceding chapter how
tastes differ in regard to sweet odours. The history of the
Mexican pulque illustrates how the disagreeableness of a
smell may also be a mere matter of taste. Some relish a
slight taint in butcher meat, or a game flavour in wild
animals, because it indicates, and is usually accompanied by,
a greater tenderness of the flesh.  And so, notwithstanding
its fetid odour, the Mexican loves his native liquor, and
rejoices in it above every other drink. We seem to love or
detest the putrid taint, not because of any positively painful
effect it produces upon our organs of sense, but because of
the associations with which it is connected. Let the odour
in early life remind the smeller of an agreeably acid, thirstquenching and exhilarating liquor, and it will ever after
come to his nostrils as an agreeable perfume.  Let it first
reach his sense of smell, and become familiar to him, as the
repulsive emanation from a dead and decaying animal body,
and it will always remind him thereafter of disagreeable
death, of hated worms, and of the dread dissolution his own
frame must eventually undergo. It will never be to him
otherwise than as a noisome stench. So much are the indications of our senses dependent upon the circumstances in
which, when consciousness first began to dawn upon us, we
happened to have been placed.
III. ANIMAL SMELLS.-Unpleasant odo'urs natural to
animals are familiar to the inhabitants of almost every part
of the globe.  The he-goat, the badger, and the polecat in
* See the BREAD WE EAT, and the BEEW WE Coor.




232             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
this country, the skunk in North America, the beautifully
striped viverrve of the South American plains, and the great
ant-eater from the same country, now to be seen in the
zoological gardens, are each characterised by peculiar and
unpleasant smells. Some of them, as they pass along, even
sensibly infect the air with their pestilential odour.
In the case of the goat it is probably the perspiration
from the skin in which the bad smelling substance resides.
In the skunk it is lodged in a peculiar receptacle, from
which the animal has the power
Fig. 95.
of ejecting it at will-probably
as a means of self-defence.  The
intensity and durability of the
odour of the skunk remind us
of the same properties in the
more agreeable musk and civet,
which are also of animal origin.
The purpose of defence supposed
to be served by the smell of the
aehitie Amerkuanak.  skunk, would seem to imply that
The Skunk.
it is naturally offensive to the
senses, altogether independent of early association.
Many other animals emit unpleasant odours from their
skin, especially in the rutting season; but of the chemical
nature or composition of the substances to which all these
animal stinks belong, we are as yet entirely ignorant.  One
known chemical fact in regard to the smells themselves,
however, is sufficiently remarkable. This is, that the entire
effluvia given off by an animal is often affected not only by
the general nature of the whole food that it eats, but by the
introduction of most minute quantities of foreign substances
into the stomach. Thus the swallowing of a little pellet
of finely powdered sulphur frequently gives a decided and
disagreeable smell to the whole skin,- and for many days




INFLUENCE OF THE FOOD.               233
after. And what is still more remarkable, a single grain of
a compound of the metal tellurium administered to a healthy
man, will make his neighbourhood perfectly intolerable for
weeks, and sometimes even for months, after he has swallowed it.
Tellurium  is still a comparatively rare substance, and
we know little as yet of the combinations it is capable of
producing with organic substances. So far, however, it appears probable that they are of a still more fetid and disgusting character than those produced by sulphur.  With
the compound allyle-already spoken of as the peculiar
strong-smelling principle of garlic, assafcetida, and mustard
— tellurium will probably form a compound body more intolerably offensive still than the oils of garlic or assafoetida.
And if we cannot use such compounds as means of sensual
gratification, it may not be impossible to employ them as
weapons of offence or defence.  Imitating the natural habit
of the skunk in this respect, we might far surpass it in the
intensity and offensiveness of our artificial stinks.  Squirted
from the walls of a besieged city, projected into the interior
of a fortified building, or diffused through the hold of a ship
of war, the Greek fire would be nothing to them; and as
for the stink-pots of the Chinese, they must be mere bagatelles to the stenches we can prepare.*
As there are insects which give off agreeable odours, so
many are known which emit disagreeable smells.  That of
the common bug tribe (cimicidce) is probably more offensive,
because of the unpleasant sensations which the smell recalls.
The same is the case also with the tree bug (pentatomct),
and with the flying bug, which is one of the insect pests of
the Ganges about Benares. The last of these is a large
hemipterous insect of the genus derecteryx, which insinuates
* See the succeeding Chapter, p. 532.




234             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
itself between the skin and the clothes. It diffuses a dreadful odour, which is increased by any attempt to touch or tG
remove it; but the natural dislike for its smell is no doubt
increased by the other annoyances which the insect occasions.
In regard to the chemistry of insect stinks, nothing
whatever is known.
IV. SMELLS PRODUCED BY DECAYING  SUBSTANCES.The most numerous class of disagreeable smells is that
which is produced by the decay or decomposition of animal
and vegetable substances. Our dislike of these smells arises
partly no doubt from their being associated in our minds
with unpleasant sights and ideas, and partly from their
being found by experience to be injurious to human health.
10. The Putrefaction of Animal Bodies. —The general
nature and odour of the ill-smelling substances produced
during the putrefaction of animal bodies are determined by
the sulphur and phosphorus which are contained in them.
During their decay the sulphur combines with the constituents of the animal matter, and forms fetid compounds
similar to those already described as occurring in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms.  The phosphorus also enters
into combinations scarcely less unpleasant and injurious.
And with both of these classes of compound bodies are associated others peculiar to animal forms of matter, which
have not yet been separately examined. All these unite in
producing those mixed smells which distinguish so repul.
sively the natural decay of animal substances in the open
air.
Of the presence of sulphur in such cases, a familiar example is presented by a rotten egg. When such an egg is
broken, the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is at once per.
oeived, and a silver spoon put into it becomes black im



PUTREFYING BODIES.                 235
mediately from the action of sulphur. As the decay
proceeds, other smells gradually become sensible, and these
mingling with that of the sulphuretted hydrogen, occasion
that growing offensiveness which the rotting egg is known to
exhibit.
In warm climates, decomposition of this kind proceeds
more rapidly, and the strong-smelling substances are produced both sooner and in greater abundance. The intensity
of the odours emitted, and the distances to which they are
diffused through the air in hot countries, may be inferred
from the extremely short period of time required to bring
the vulture and the condor even from great distances. They
scent afar off the decaying carcass, where the human organs
refuse to give any indications of its presence.
Air, moisture, and a certain degree of warmth are necessary to the decay of animal bodies.  If any of these three
conditions be wanting, it either proceeds more slowly, or
ceases altogether. Thus, in cool dry vaults, dug in an absorbent soil, and through which a current of dry air passes,
human bodies sometimes become dry before they have had
time to decay, and gradually shrivel up into frightful mummies.*  So in the dry air of some hot climates, as in the
Pampas of South America, and on the borders of the African
deserts, the flesh of animals can be dried and preserved for
any length of time, without exhibiting symptoms of decay,
or any manifest evil odour.
But where moisture continues present-even though
warmth and air be in a great measure excluded-decay still
slowly takes place, and substances of evil odour and malign
influence continue for a long period to be produced and
given off. The true chemical nature and exact composition
* The reader who has spent a day at Bonn on the Rhine, will probably be reminded by this passage of the mummies in the church on the Kreuzberg, which
strangers seldom fail to visit.




236              THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
of many of the volatile and gaseous substances, produced
under these circumstances, is still unknown; but both theory
and experience prove that they are injurious to human health.
They are so, even when, from their extreme state of dilution, the organs of smell are. naturally insensible to their
presence, or when, by habit, they have become so. Hence
the custom of placing grave-yards in the neighbourhood of
our dwellings, or of requiring people to sit for so many
hours a-week over putrid family vaults, or heaps of mouldering human dust-is as contrary to the dictates of science
and enlightened common sense, as it is to the often-repeated
suggestions of sanitary experience. That the senses detect
no danger, proves that the senses are not to be relied upon
— not that even serious danger is absent.
2~. Thze Drop'pings of Animals, both while recent, and
during the decay they undergo in the presence of air and
moisture, are the source of some of the most unpleasant
smells with which we become familiar in common life.
These animal excretions emit certain strong-smelling substances which are common to them all, but each variety also
gives off smells peculiar to itself.
a. When in a state of fermentation, for example, all
evolve ammonia;* but it escapes in especial abundance from
horse-dung in hot stables, and from nightsoil in ash-pits and
necessaries during hot weather. All also produce and give
off the noxious sulphuretted hydrogen already described;
but where nightsoil ferments in close places, such as cesspools and common drains, this sulphureous gas sometimes
accumulates in sufficient quantity to strike down instantly
the workman who is incautious enough to place his mouth
within its reach.t Compounds of phosphorus likewise escape
Ammonia is the substance which gives its smell to common hartshorn and
smelling-salts.
t The best and most ready antidote, when sulphuretted hydrogen has been in,




THE DROPPINGS OF ANIMALS.                       237
from all, and volatile alkaline compounds, which have not
hitherto been particularly examined.
b. When recent or fresh, on the other hand, each variety
emits its own peculiar odour. The droppings of the cow
and the horse differ most distinctly in smell, both from each
other and from nightsoil. Goat's dung has a smell, which
it imparts to plants manured with it, so as to give a perceptible flavour even to the tobacco leaf. Pig's dung is to
most people nearly intolerable, and even animals dislike it.
It not only gives its flavour to tobacco, but, when properly
applied, it drives away the wireworm from the carrot and
the onion. The reader will not be surprised to learn that
the chemical nature and composition of the compound bodies
from which these noisome smells proceed, should still be in
a  great measure  unknown.*   However  interesting, in.a
physiological and  sanitary  point of view, it would  be  to
possess a complete knowledge of all the substances which
animal droppings contain-of the mode of their production
- and of the nature of their several actions on the animal
economy-we must be  content to  wait while it slowly and
gradually collects. The inquiry is of too repulsive a nature
to be undertaken by any chemist whose love of knowledge,
or desire to advance a favourite branch of the science, is not
of a very ardent kind.
There are certain known differences, however, in the comhaled, is chlorine gas, prepared by wetting a thin towel with vinegar, sprinkling chloride of lime between its folds, and causing the patient to breathe through them.
* Among the peculiar organic compounds contained in fresh nightsoil, is a crystalline slightly alkaline substance, which has been named exccretine, and an acid
called the emcretolic acid. They are extracted from fresh faeces by alcohol, but little
is yet known of them. Excretine is not contained in the urine, nor is it ascertained
if it is present in the contents of the small intestines. The droppings of herbivorous
animals contain no excretine. Those of the carnivorous mammalia contain a sub.
stance resembling it, along with butyric acid, which is not present in nightsoil.
Those of the crocodile contain cholesterine, and no urea; those of the boa, uric acid
and no cholesterine-(MaroET).




238             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
position of the solid droppings of different animals, which
must affect the nature of the smells they severally emit.
Thus man discharges through his kidneys a large proportion
of the phosphorus contained in the food he eats; while the
cow, the horse, and the sheep, emit none of it in this way.
All the phosphorus which these animals eat, therefore, is rejected in their solid droppings; and inasmuch as the compounds of phosphorus, which are formed in decaying animal
and vegetable substances, are generally distinguished by peculiar and offensive smells, it is easy to understand that the
droppings of these animals, when they heat and ferment,
must emit some-more or less nauseous, and probably injurious-odours, which are not to be recognised in similarly
fermenting nightsoil.




CHAPTER X X V I I.
THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
SMELLS PRODUCED BY CHEMICAL ART.
Smells produced by chemical art.-Seleniuretted hydrogen.-Phosphuretted hydrogen.-Mercaptan.-Kakodlyle.-Alkarsin.-Cyanide of Kakodyle.-Compounds of
tellurium.-Interesting chemical relation between sweet odours and stinks.Acrolein.-Offensive substances produced by destructive distillation.-Smells
emitted by manufactories.-The sulphuric acid, soap, candle, vinegar, and glass
makers.-Lead and copper smelters.-Such smells may and ought to be prevented.
V. SMELLS PRODUCED  BY CHEMICAL ART.-In the preceding chapter, I have mentioned incidentally, that, though
many natural smells are very offensive, yet that we can already produce others by art which are still more so. Indeed,
were any useful purpose to be served by them, we could, by
familar chemical processes, add stenches almost inconceivably
disgusting to those which have hitherto been prepared. A
reference to a few only of those which are now well known in
our laboratories, will satisfy the reader as to the resources of
the chemist in the production of stenches.
1~. Seleniuretted  -Hydrogen.-We  have seen that sulphur is a substance which forms many combinations distinguished by their disagreeable odours; and of these I




240             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
have described sulphuretted hydrogen as one which both
occurs in nature, and can be easily produced by chemical
art.
Selenium is an elementary body which, though less abundant in nature than sulphur, resembles it very much in
sensible and chemical properties. Like sulphur, it also
combines with hydrogen, and forms a poisonous gas-the
seleniuretted hydrogen. But this gas greatly exceeds the
sulphuretted hydrogen, both in its evil smell, and in its
noxious qualities. A single bubble of it allowed to escape
into the air of a room, produces on those who breathe it all
the usual symptoms of a severe cold and affection of the
throat, and these symptoms do not pass off for several days.
The singular virulence of this substance illustrates in a very
striking manner the injurious influence which may be exercised over the health of the people by the presence of very
minute portions of foreign bodies ini the air we breathe.
2~. Phosphuretted Hydrogen is a gas in which phosphorus
talkes the place of the sulphur and selenium contained in the
two gases above mentioned. It is easily prepared in the laboratory, and is possessed of a peculiarly fetid smell. It is
one of the compounds of phosphorus also, which is naturally
produced, along with other disagreeable substances, during
the decay of animal bodies, and contributes to the repulsive
character of the smells which decaying animal matter gives
off.
The two metals, arsenic and tellurium, also combine with
hydrogen, and form gaseous compounds-the arsenietted and
telluretted hydrogens. These gases are of so fetid a kind
that chemists rarely venture to prepare them; and when they
do so, it is only after taking careful precautions against their
escape into the air of the room in which the experiments are
made.
It is a common character, also, of all the five gases I




MERCAPTAN.                       241
have named, that they combine with other compound bodies,
and especially with organic* compounds, producing new substances far more fetid than themselves, and possessed of
stenches which cannot be described in words. To this class
belong some of the following compounds
30. VIercaptan.-Among  organic substances of much
importance in modern chemistry is a class of bodies to which
the name of compound radicals is given.  These bodies consist of two or more simple substances united together, and
are therefore compound bodies; and yet behave, in many respects, as if they were themselves simple.t To this class of
bodies belong those which I have had occasion to mention
under the names of
ETHYLE, as existing in wine ether.
METIYLE,    "       wood ether.
AMYLE,       "      potato ether.
ALLYLE,      "      garlic and mustard oils, &c.
Among other properties which these compound radicals
possess is that of combining with sulphur, and of forming
with it new combinations of an extremely fetid character.
Of this the sulphureous oils of garlic and assaftetida are
natural examples.
When ethyle is combined artificially with sulphur, it
forms what is called  sulphuret of ethyle, and when this
again is combined with sulphuretted hydrogen, it forms
nzercaptan. This latter substance is a colourless volatile
liquid, possessed of a most offensive, penetrating, and concentrated odour of onions, which adheres obstinately to the
hair and clothes. It is, in fact, an artificial oil of garlic,
* By organic is meant such as are derived from the animal or Vegetable kingdoms.
1 That is, like the simple substances-hydrogen, chlorine, the metals, &c.-they
unite with oxygen, sulphur, and other bodies, without being themselves decomposed,
and form with them new compounds, possessed of aeid.or basic properties.
VOL. II.-11




242            THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
differing from the true oil of garlic, however, both in composition and in the special character of its smell.
Now, the important points to be borne in mind here,
are —
First, That all the compound radicals are capable of
combining with sulphur and sulphuretted hydrogen, and of
thus forming substances analogous to this mercaptan.
Second, That the number of such organic radicals already
known is very great. It is consequently in our power to
form many mercaptans, all possessed of very offensive smells,
but each distinguished by a shade of offensiveness peculiar
to itself. The reader will by'this example, therefore, see
that in the compounds of sulphur alone the chemist has at
his command a very large number of exceedingly foul
smells.
4~. la/codyle.-But arsenic may take the place of sulphur in all these fetid compounds, and produce new volatile
substances of which the smell is absolutely insufferable, and
which, besides, are deadly poisons. Kakodyle is the name
given by chemists to the compound which arsenic forms with
the radical methyle. When this volatile substance is exposed to the air it takes fire. As it burns the arsenic contained in it combines with oxygen, and forms white arsenic.
This diffuses itself through the air, and when drawn in with
the breath acts as a deadly poison.
50. Alkac'rsin.-When white arsenic is distilled with
acetate of potash, a liquid comes over which has been long
known under the name of liquor of Cadet. It is volatile, possesses a peculiar garlic-like fearfully offensive, insupportable,
long-enduring smell, and its vapours act as a deadly poison.
This liquor of Cadet is the substance kakodyle, above
named, in combination with oxygen. It is known to chemists
by the name of Alkarsin.
Because of their abominable smells, and dangerously




CYANIDE OF KAKODYLE.                 243
poisonous qualities, this class of arsenical compounds has
been comparatively little studied.  Several others, however,
possessed of similar smells, are already known.*  There is
reason, therefore, to believe that most of the other compound
radicals are capable,like methyle, of uniting with arsenic to
form kakodyles, and these again with oxygen to form alkar
sins-all fetid to smell and poisonous to breathe, but each of
them offensive in a form and degree peculiar to itself. Arsenic will furnish us, in fact, with as many varieties of fatal
kakodyles and alkarsins, as sulphur with purely fetid mercaptans.
60. Cyanide of Kakodyle. -Even at this point, our
chemical resources are not exhausted.  Cyanogen is a compound gas which unites with hydrogen to form the deadly
poison prussic acid. This cyanogen combines also with
kakodyle, and forms what is called cyanide of kakodyle.
Besides the fetid odour and fatal properties of kakodyle,
this compound possesses a deadly quality peculiar to itself.
When exposed to the atmosphere, it rises in the form of
vapour. This vapour, by the contact of air and moisture, is
immediately decomposed. The metal arsenic, with the oxygen of the moisture,f forms fumes of poisonous white arsenic,
while, at the same time, the cyanogen unites with its hydrogen to form prussic acid. Thus through the air are diffused,
at the same instant, vapours of the two most deadly poisons
with which we are acquainted. Mercaptan and oil of garlic
expel us by their insufferable stench.  The kakodyles and
their cyanides arrest our flight by almost as suddenly depriving us of life.
In the preceding chapter I have alluded to the use of
unbearable stenches as weapons of defence.  The substances
* Analz der Chim. & Pharm., lxviii. p. 127; SILLIMAN'S Journal, xv. p. 118.
t The reader will recollect that water, or watery moisture, consists of oxygen
and hydrogen.




244              THE SMELLS.WE DISLIKE.
I there alluded to were simply disgusting smells, not acting
upon the system  as inevitable poisons.  These kakodyles
and their cyanides might certainly be employed still more
efficiently in warlike operations; but how  far the use of
vulgar poisons in honourable warfare is consistent with the
refinements of modern civilisation, is open to much doubt.
There may not be much real difference between causing
death by a bullet, and by the fumes of deadly poison; and
yet, to condemn a man "to die like a dog," does array death
to him in more fearful colours.
Among the deadly chemical combinations which have
recently been spoken of as ingredients' in the proposed asphyziating shells, the kakodyles and their compounds have
held a prominent place.  Whether the proposers of such
asphyxiating projectiles have considered this metaphysical
distinction between different modes of compassing death, or
whether it has weighed at all with those whose office it is to
decide as to their adoption, we have no means of knowing.
According to the received form of retribution, however, in
all such cases, the chemist who first suggested the use of
such poisons to manufacturers of ammunition, is destined to
perish by his own new weapon of destruction.*
70. Compounds of Tellurium.-I have already spoken
of the metal tellurium as capable of producing compounds
possessed of a most offensive odour.' Almost the only experience we have as yet, however, of such compounds, is
from the effects of certain odourless preparations of tellurium
administered, by way of experiment, to persons in good
health. Within the body of the patient it forms compounds
* One of the most recent announcements on this subject in the newspapers of the
present month (September 1854), is as follows: " The Committee of Ordnance havo
had their attention drawn to a new projectile. It is a shell charged with a liquid
which, when released by the concussion of the ball, becomes a sheet of liquid fire,
consuming all within its influence, the smoke emitted also destroying human life."
The properties of the liquid here desoribed are those of kakodyle.




COMPOUNDS OF TELLURIUM.             245
-as sulphur not unfrequently does —which impart to his
breath, to the perspiration from his skin, and to the gases
produced in the alimentary canal, a disgusting fetor, which
makes him a kind of horror to every one he approaches;
and this lasts sometimes for weeks, though the dose of
tellurium administered may not exceed a quarter of a
grain.
Such compounds it is no doubt within the power of chemistry to produce by artificial processes, though few experiments have yet been made on the subject. These compounds
belong to the class of pure stenches, and are not supposed to
be poisonous as those of arsenic are.
Phosphorus also combines with organic radicals, and
forms compounds more offensive even than the phosphuretted hydrogen already described. But these are as yet quite
as little known as the analogous compounds of tellurium.
A curious general relation exists between the class of
stenches to which those of the mercaptans and kakodyles
belong, and one of the most esteemed groups of volatile
perfuming bodies.  This relation is both interesting and
worthy of being remembered.
I have shown, in a preceding chapter, that a very large
class of the odours we enjoy consists of simple ethers combined with organic acids. Now, these simple ethers are all
combinations of one of the compound radicals already spoken
of with oxygen. ThusETWYLE with oxygen forms wine ether.
METEYLE with oxygen forms wood ether.
And these ethers, when combined with organic acids, form
perfumes-the wine ether, for example, forming with butyric
acid the pure apple oil, and with pelargonic acid the essence
of quinces.*
t See THE ODOURS WE ENJOY




246              THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
On the other hand, the same
ETIYLE with sulphur forms a sulphuret of ethyle, and
METHYLE with arsenic forms kakodyle.
Both possessed of evil smells themselves, but, when corn
bined with acids containing sulphur or arsenic,-forming combinations which are insupportably fetid.
The same compound radicals, as they are called, therefore, when united with oxygen, may produce pleasant impressions, and when united with arsenic or sulphur, most
unpleasant and disgusting impressions on the sense of smell.
So singular are the properties of matter, and so singularly
are we constituted in reference to these properties.
8~. Acrolein.-When oil sugar (glycerine) is distilled in
a retort over a quick fire, a liquid passes over, to which the
name of acrolein has been given.  This substance is volatile,
possesses a strong penetrating peculiar odour, affecting almost
immediately the nose and the eyes. Its vapour inflames the
eyes, and if much breathed, and in a concentrated form,
causes swooning, but without being poisonous.
This substance represents another large class of artificial
bodies possessed of evil odours, which are produced by the
destructive distillation, as it is called, of vegetable and animal substances.  Coal tar, wood tar, coal and wood naphthas, the oils obtained by the distillation of horns, hoofs,
fats, &c., are all examples of the varied and unpleasantsmelling products which are to be obtained by the process of
dry or destructive distillation. They are all mixtures of
several different substances, but the smells they severally
possess are owing to the presence in each of them of one or
more disagreeable compound bodies, of which it is unnecessary in this place to speak indetail.
It is unnecessary, indeed, to dwell longer on artificial
substances which affect the sense of smell in an unpleasant




SMELLS FROM OUR MANUFACTORIES.           247
manner.  Enough has been stated to satisfy the reader that
the chemist can indeed prepare these bodies in far greater
numbers than they are yet known to occur in nature, and
with smells if possible still more insufferable.
VI. SMELLS PRODUCED BY OUR MANUFACTORIES.-In this
great manufacturing country some of these artificial smells
materially affect, at times, the comforts of common life.
They have justly, therefore, been regarded as nuisances, and
have given rise to disputes and contentions which not unfrequently occupy the attention of our courts of law.
From our manufactories of oil-of-vitriol (sulphuric acid)
fumes of sulphurous acid, and even of sulphuric acid, are
occasionally poured out into the surrounding air.
The makers of common soda (alkali-makers as they are
called) still in some places discharge from their tall chimneys those vapours of muriatic acid which have so often
blasted, not only the yearly crops, but permanent hedgerows
and full-grown plantations.
The smelters of lead and copper vomit from their furnaces fumes of deadly arsenic, of zinc, of sulphurous acid,
and even of lead itself, which sensibly affect both animal
and vegetable life in their neighbourhood.
The soap and candle-makers dissipate into the air the
volatile fetid substances which naturally exist in long-kept
and rancid fats.  As a result of some of these processes,
also, they produce and send forth vapours of the irritating
and unpleasant acrolein, to which reference was made in
a preceding paragraph.The distillation of wood for the manufacture of woodvinegar-or pyroligneous acid, as it is called-is often attended by the emission into the surrounding air of disagreeable and unwholesome fumes.
The manufacturers of glass, even of plate and crystal




248            THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
glass, when their operations are carelessly conducted, discharge from their cones unpleasant-it may be injurioussmells.
There is scarcely a manufactory, indeed, which involves
the immediate application of chemical principles-and this
includes by far the greatest number-which, if carelessly
conducted, may not become a source of real annoyance, or
even of injury to its neighbourhood.  I speak from a very
wide experience, however, when I say that the escape of
injurious substances into the open air, from such works, is
rarely necessary to the prosperity of the several branches of
manufacture. For the comfort of common life, therefore,
the intentional discharge of them into the atmosphere ought
not to be permitted.




CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
THE PREVENTION AND REMOVAL OF SMELLS.
Wide diffusion of evil odours.-Prevention of smells.-Decay prevented by freez.
ing, by drying, by excluding the air, by salting, and by smoking.-Effects of charcoal.-Smell-disguisers or perfumes-Smell-removers or deodorisers.-Charcoal;
cause of its remarkable action.-Dr. Stenlhouse's charcoal respirator; where it is
likely to be useful.-Peat, vegetable soil, and burnt clay.-Smell destroyers or disinfectants.-Nitric oxide, sulphurous acid, muriatic acid, and chlorine gases.The chlorides of lime, iron, and zinc.-Sulphate and pyrolignite of iron.-Iodine
and iodoform.-Quicklime; its unlike action on fermenting and unfermenting
matters.-Summary.
EVIL odours are equally penetrating with sweet smells.
They diffuse themselves through the air, and affect the senses unpleasantly, even when the absolute quantity of matter
present is too minute to be detected by our most refined
methods of chemical analysis. Unlike the sweet odours,
however, they are produced everywhere around us, and are
therefore a universal source of more or less perceptible irritation and annoyance.   To prevent the introduction of evilsmelling substances into the atmosphere which surrounds us,
and when present to remove them, has consequently becn  at
all times an object of desire.   The attainment of this object
VOL. TI.-1J.* "




250             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
has been rendered both more easy and more perfect by the
discoveries of modern chemistry.
I. THE PREVENTION OF SMELLS. -The smells which
usually arise from the decay or decomposition of the bodies
and droppings of animals can often be either arrested or altogether prevented.  Extreme cold, for example, such as is
sufficient to freeze and harden the dead body of an animal,
will preserve it in a state of absolute freshness, even for thousands of years.  In northern winters the freezing of flesh
and fish is the common way of preserving it; and in the ice
cliffs on the banks of the Siberian rivers, the entire body of
an extinct species of elephant has been met with, so little
decayed as to be still greedily devoured by dogs. Even
moderate cold, if accompained by a drying wind, will prevent
decomposition, the former retarding the decay till the latter
removes the moisture which is necessary to its continuance.
Or the total exclusion of air will have the same effect, as is
seen in the preserved meat, now so useful in long voyages
and in remote parts of the earth.
These modes of preventing decay illustrate what has been
said of the agency of heat, air, and moisture (p. 523), in
promoting the putrescent fermentation of animal and vegetable substances.  When we freeze them, we arrest decay by removing the necessary heat; when we dry them,
by removing the necessary moisture; and when we shut
them  up in sealed vessels, by excluding the necessary
air.
But decay can also be prevented by the direct application
of chemical substances. -Such is done when flesh meat is
immersed in sugar, or when it is impregnated with common
salt, or with a mixture of common salt and nitre.  These
substances fill the pores of the flesh, and thus preserve it by
excluding the air. They form also, and especially the two




PRESERVATION OF MEAT.               251
latter substances do, a species of chemical combination with
the fibre of the meat, and with the substances contained in
its natural juices, which are less liable to decay than the
substances themselves, and thus retain the whole in a state
of sweetness for an indefinite period.* Volatile tarry matters, such as creosote and others, which are contained in the
smoke from peat and coal, in wood vinegar, and in the spirit
which is distilled from coal or wood tars, act in a similar
way.  They combine with the fibre of flesh or fish, and retard its decay, until the removal of moisture by evaporation
renders decay both slow and difficult. It is in this way that
the smoking of fish or flesh contributes to a speedy cure,
saving both time and salt, rendering the cure more certain,
and adding at the same time an artificial flavour, which to
many is very grateful.
Substances which thus retard decomposition are called
antiseptics. Besides those I have mentioned, white arsenic,
corrosive sublimate, the chloride of zinc, pyrolignite of iron,
alcohol, camphor, and many essential oils, possess antiseptic virtues.  In common life, however, these substances
are rarely employed, though in museums of natural
history alcohol is much used for bottling up anatomical
and other preparations, and arsenic, corrosive sublimate,
and camphor, for preserving insects and the skins of
amnmals.
Charcoal, when recently burned, has much efficiency in
preventing the offensiveness of animal decay from  becoming
sensible to the smell. Sprinkled in the state of powder over
the parts of dead animals, it preserves them sweet for a length
of time. Placed in pieces beneath the wings of a fowl, it
keeps away much longer than usual any appearance of taint.
Or if strewed over substances already tainted, or mixed with
* See TEm BEEF WE CooK, p. 124.




252             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
liquids which have acquired the unpleasant smell of decaying
organic matter, it removes the evil odour, and makes them
sweet again. It is for this reason that pieces of fresh charcoal are now and then introduced into our common waterfilters.
In all these cases, charcoal appears to act rather as a
smell-remover than as a decay and smell preventer. In what
way it acts as a remover of smells will be explained in a
future part of the present chapter.
Quicklime also possesses the property of retarding, and
to a certain extent preventing, the decay of animal and vegetable substances. Its action, however, as we commonly use
it, is of a complicated kind, and will be explained when we
come to treat of the smell-destroyers.
II. THE DISGUISING OF SMELLs.-Where evil-smelling
decay of any kind commences, or where volatile substances
which disagreeably affect the organ of smell, escape into the
air from any source, we naturally desire to rid ourselves of
the unpleasant sensation. This we generally wish, and always ought if possible to do, by removing the substance to
which the noisome smell is owing. In the great majority
of cases, however, we merely overpower or disguise it. We
are content to mingle with the smell we dislike some odour
we can enjoy, and to leave floating in the air around us the
evil and the good together, to produce unheeded their natural effects upon the system.
Sweet odours are thus the natural disguisers of evil
smells. They are the only resource of rude and dirty times
against the offensive emanations from decaying animal and
vegetable substances, from undrained and untidy dwellings,
from  unclean clothes, from ill-washed skins, and from  illused stomachs.  The scented handkerchief in these circumstances takes the place of the sponge and the shower



REMOVAL OF SMELLS.                253
bath; the pastile hides the want of ventilation; the attar
of roses seems to render the scavenger unnecessary, and a
sprinkling of musk sets all other stinks and smells at defiance.  The "sixty stinks of Cologne" may thus be at once
the parent and grand consumer of its artificial rivers of
scented water. The fiercest demand for the luxury of civilised perfumes may exist where the disregard of healthy
cleanliness is the greatest. Even the burning of incense at
the altar may find a merely rational use in disguising the
dank and unwholesome smells which damp floors and walls
engender, and in hiding from the senses of the worshipper
the noxious effluvia which slowly-decaying bodies in hidden
vaults are continually giving off.
However much, therefore, the employment of fragrant
essences may add to the comfort of the cleanly and refined,
they may only promote disease and discomfort among the
ignorant and barbarous, by concealing the deadly malaria,
or overpowering the noisome stench.
III. THE REMOVAL OF SMELLS.-The absolute removal
from  the air-at least from any limited portion of it-of
the greater number of the evil smells I have described, is,
however, by no means a difficult task: the substances by
which this is effected are known in modern sanitary language
by the name of deodorisers.
10. Charcoal.-Of these deodorisers, or smell-removers,
charcoal, in its various forms, is one of the cheapest, most
abundant, and most efficacious. I have already spoken of
this substance among the preventers of smells as being an
apparent retarder of putrefaction. That it is so, however,
is doubtful. Many regard it, on the contrary, as a hastener
of decay; but as a remover of smells, its action and virtue
are undoubted. Mixed with fermenting night-soil, or with
the contents of our common sewers, it sweetens them almost




254             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
immediately, and it produces a like effect upon almost every
variety of decaying animal and vegetable matter.  Spread
to a depth of two or three inches over a festering grave-yard,
or even over a decaying dead body, it is said to prevent any
evil odours from rising into the air, or becoming sensible to
the smell.
Animal charcoal —such as is produced by the charring
of animal substances-peat charcoal, and the black powder
obtained by charring together a mixture of earth and vegetable matter, are more efficient in this removal of smells than
common wood-charcoal, however finely it may be powdered.
It is this power of absorbing evil odours which has recently
recommended peat charcoal so strongly to the sanitarian
for removing the smells of grave-yards, cesspools, drains,
and other places where filth has been permitted to accumulate,r and has induced the farmer in many places to employ
it in absorbing the valuable liquids which escape from his
stables and fold-yards.
This remarkable action of charcoal is the result of three
properties, the influence of each of which it is important to
distinguish. These area. Its remarkable porosity.  In consequence of this, it
absorbs gaseous substances in large quantity, and condenses
them in its pores. A cubic inch of light wood-charcoal will
absorb nearly 100 cubic inches of gaseous ammonia, between
50 ane 60 of sulphuretted hydrogen, nearly 10 of oxygen,
and lesser proportions of other gases. This property is for
the most part physical, and is possessed in a considerable degree by other porous substances.
b. The special affinity which charcoal exhibits for certain
strong-smelling and colouring substances. So powerful is this
affinity, that if a table-spoonful of finely-powdered animal
charcoal —or twice as much of newly-burned wood-charcoal
-be shaken up with a pint of stinking ditch-water, and the




THE CHARCOAL RESPIRATOR.                  255
mixture filtered, the water will pass through bright, clear,
and with little of either taste or smell. If, instead of dirty
water, we take porter or port wine, smell, taste, and colour
will in like manner disappear. This property is almost
purely chemical.
c. The oxidising influence it appears to exercise upon
the substances it absorbs. These substances, whether gaseous or solid, whether strongly smelling or strongly colouring, as soon as they are laid hold of by the charcoal, begin
to unite with oxygen, to lose their characteristic properties,
and to change into new chemical compounds. Ammonia, for
example, changes into nitric acid, sulphuretted hydrogen and
sulphurous acid into sulphuric acid, and so on. This action
is purely chemical. But the charcoal does not produce, it
only induces it. It condenses these gases within its pores,
and when brought in contact in this condensed state, they
act upon each other so as to produce nitric or sulphuric
acids.* In like manner, solid substances change, and the
smell-removing influence of charcoal ceases when its pores
become filled with the new and fully oxidised compound
thus produced.
I have said that it is doubtful if charcoal, though it
keep fresh meat sweet, really does preserve it from decay.
It is in consequence of the oxidising influence just described
that many regard it as in reality hastening the decay of
* Thus, N being nitrogen, H hydrogen, and 0 oxygenN. H.O.                         N. H..O.
1 of ammonia     1 3 -           1 of nitricacid    1 - 5
unites with            to form      " and
8 of oxygen,     - - 8)          3of water,      - 8 8
Sum,    1 8 8                  Sum,    1 3 8
and S representing sulphurS. II. O. o. H. O.
1 of sulph. hydrogen 1 1 -)      1 of sulphuric acid  1 - 8
unites with. to form     and
4 of oxygen,     - - 4           I of water,     - 1 1
Sum,    1 1 4                  Sum,     1 14*




256.            THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
inimal bodies.  This may well be, but decisive experiments
are still wanting.
Dr. Stenhouse has recently availed himself of the absorbent property of charcoal in the construction of a respirator,
which, as a remover of noxious vapours and unwholesome
smells from the air we breathe, promises to become a sanitary instrument of great value. This respirator (figs. 96
and 97) consists essentially of a hollow case made of fine
Fig. 96.                       Fig. 97.
flexible wire-gauze.  Internally it is about half an inch wide,
and of sufficient length and breath, when folded over the
lower part of the face, to cover closely either the mouth
alone or both the mouth and the lower part of the nose.
The hollow space is filled with coarsely powdered charcoal,
and the instrument, like the common metallic respirator, is
fitted to the face, and fastened over the head by attachments
of ribbon. Through this powdered charcoal the breathing
is effected. All the air that enters the lungs must pass
through this charcoal sieve, and in so passing is deprived of
the noxious vapours or gases it may contain. Whether, as
in the case of cesspools, laboratories, hospitals, dissectingrooms, and the holds of ships, these vapours be perceptible
and offensive to the smell; or whether, like the miasms and
malaria which marshes and festering ponds exhale, they be




USES OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.          257
imperceptible to the senses; still the charcoal, it is alleged,
will arrest them, and thus secure the wearer of the respirator from their irritating and unwholesome influences. After
a while the charcoal powder becomes saturated, or too old
to act with efficiency; but an ounce of powdered wood-charcoal renews it, or the old charcoal heated to redness in a
close vessel, and the instrument is itself again.
To a certain extent there is no doubt that this charcoal
respirator will produce the effects anticipated from it, and
its little cost and easy construction are great recommendations to it. It has already found its way into hospitals, sickrooms, chemical manufactories, and many laboratories. It is
also one of those cheap applications of scientific discovery
to which the least regarded of our labouring population, the
humble gravedigger, the despised sewer-cleaner, and the
Irish drudge in our filthiest factories, may owe hereafter
hours of happy health and painless sleep. And should its
powers -in arresting unperceived malaria be established by
experience, how important will it become to the traveller in
unwholesome marshy regions, like those along the foot of
the Himalayas, those which skirt the lower course of the
Niger and the Mississippi, or such as spread over south
European flats and valleys, like the Pontine and other Italian marshes, and the Dobrudscha towards the mouth of the
Danube. May it not even prove a safeguard and health-preserver in many of those inhabited parts of the world where
rich crops are dearly bought at the expense of rarely absent
fevers, aguish fears and tremblings, debilitated frames, and
short, unhappy lives?
20. Peat, Vegetable Soil, and Burned Clay.- Peat, if
dry and in powder, acts also as an absorber of smells.  It is
likewise of an acid nature, which enables it to combine with
and thus to retain many of the stinking substances it has
absorbed. Earth rich in vegetable matter acts in a similar




258            THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
manner, and even some varieties of clay purify the water that
filters through them. The porous mass obtained by burning
together clay and vegetable matter under cover has also, as
I have already remarked, a powerfully absorbent property;
and the coal cinders we throw into our ash-pits, by their
porousness retain a portion of the effluvia which escape from
the other offal with which they are mixed, and thus lessen
their offensiveness.
It is a valuable property of charcoal, cinders, peat, earth
and clay, burned or unburned —when saturated with ill-smelling substances, such as those I have mentioned-that, when
conveyed to the land,they fertilise the soil among which they
are mixed, and gradually yield, as valuable nourishment to
growing plants, the disagreeable forms of decaying matter
which they had previously absorbed or taken up.
IV. THE DESTRUCTION OF SMELLS. -Substances that
absorb and remove evil-smelling bodies do not necessarily
destroy their smells, or take away any poisonous quality they
may possess. Thus water absorbs sulphuretted hydrogen,
but acquires, at the same time, its offensive smell and its
poisonous property.  Heat the impregnated water, and the
gas escapes again into the air with all its original qualities.
Bodies which act, as water does in this case, remove, but do
not change, the smelling substance.
But if into water or air which smells of sulphuretted
hydrogen a little chlorine gas be introduced, the smell of
rotten eggs will disappear almost instantaneously.  The sul.
phuretted hydrogen is decomposed and destroyed. It no
longer exists, and consequently both its smell and poisonous
influences are gone.
Water, as regards sulphuretted hydrogen, is a smell-remover or deodoriser.  Chlorine acts upon the same substance
as a smell-and-poison destroyer, or disinfectant




USE OF SULPHUROUS ACID.              259
This distinction is not without its practical importance.
Water, soil, and other absorbents, may remove and retain
noxious substances so long as cold or wet weather continues;
but let heat and drought return, and forthwith from water
and soil they steam up again more or less unchanged. Hence
those reeking miasms which spread mortal fever and chattering ague over entire provinces.  The disinfectant decomposes and destroys, the evil compound, so that no change of
circumstances can bring it into activity again.
All disinfectants act chemically. They either decompose
or they combine with the noxious substances and produce
new compounds, which, if not always void of smell, are
comparatively harmless in their action upon the human
body. I shall mention those which are at once most efficacious and most easily accessible.
10. Nitric  Oxide Gas is produced when the common
aquafortis of the shops is poured over pieces of copper in a
glass or earthenware vessel. As it rises into the air it combines with oxygen, and forms red fumes of a strongly acid
nature (nitrous acid), which diffuse themselves through the
atmosphere.  These fumes are capable, it is believed, of
destroying nearly all the noxious and offensive matters,
whether of mineral or organic origin, with which the air is
likely to be contaminated.  The objections to their use are,
that they provoke cough, and cannot be breathed with safety;
that they corrode nearly all metallic substances with which
they come in contact; and that their chemical action upon
the noxious bodies they are expected to remove is neither
well understood, nor, where the fumes are in a very diluted
state, by any means certain.
2~. Sullphurous Acid Gas is produced when sulphur is
burned in the air.  It is one of the offensive substances I
have described among mineral smells. In large quantity, it
is both noxious and offensive to breathe, but as a disinfectant




260             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
it may often be used with advantage. Hence the vely com.
mon practice of fumigating with burning sulphur.
The first effect of this gas, when diffused through the
air, is to overpower all other smells, and thus to make them
imperceptible: it acts as a smell-disguiser.  Its next effect
is chemically to decompose or destroy such offensive substances as the sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogens of
which mention has been so frequently made; and as it is of
a strongly acid nature, it as speedily combines with alkaline
vapours-such as those which contain ammonia, or the evilsmelling body which gives its odour to stinking fish (p. 517)
and removes their smells. It exercises also a special action
upon many organic substances.  This may be seen by holding a burning sulphur match beneath a red rose, which it
generally whitens, and by the change of colour it produces
upon many other fiowers. It is also seen in the common use
of the fumes of burning sulphur for bleaching silk and woollen goods, and for whitening the straw employed for ladies'
bonnets. It is believed, therefore, to be capable also of
destroying any noxious substances of organic origin which
may happen to be present in the air with which it mingles.
On the whole, sulphurous acid has much to recommend
it. It is also cheap and universally accessible. The objections to the use of the gas are, that it is itself unpleasant
and repulsive-that when employed for disinfecting purposes,
the inhabitants of a house must be excluded till the operation is concluded and the apartments fully ventilated-that
it corrodes metallic surfaces, and leaves behind it for some
time traces of its own disagreeable smell.
3~.  Muriatic Acid Gas is produced when the oil of
vitriol of the shops (sulphuric acid) is poured upon common
salt.  It unites with the moisture of the air the moment it
is disengaged, and forms white, strongly acid fumes, which
provoke cough and cannot be breathed. These acid vapours




CHLORINE, A SMELL-DESTROYER.           261
will undoubtedly act upon and destroy many kinds of strongsmelling and noxious gases and vapours which may be present in the air. The objections to its use, however, are
the same as those against the use of nitric oxide, and of
nearly equal strength.
40. Chlorine Gas is obtained when the common spirit of
salt (muriatic acid) of the shops is poured upon finely-powdered black oxide of manganese; or when this powdered
oxide is mixed with the common salt before pouring oil of
vitriol upon it, as in the preparation of muriatic acid gas,
above described.
Chlorine is a heavy, greenish coloured, suffocating, and
strongly-smelling gas.  In a dilute state, its smell is now
familiar to most persons as that given off by the common
chloride of lime of the shops.
This gas decomposes sulphuretted hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, ammonia, and nearly all the other gaseous
compounds and evil-smelling vapours which escape from decomposing animal and vegetable matters.  It acts, indeed,
upon all organic substances almost without exception. Hence
its extensive use for bleaching cotton, linen, fatty bodies,
and a host of other vegetable productions used in the arts.
Chlorine has been long employed as a remover and destroyer of unpleasant smells. It is probably the most generally efficient for this purpose of any gaseous substance with
which we are acquainted.  And besides its efficiency, it is
further recommended by being easily and cheaply prepared;
by producing its good effects even when diluted with much
air; and by being breathable, when so diluted, without injurious effects. It can thus be used within a building without
displacing its inhabitants, and with little inconvenience even
in the chambers of delicate invalids.  In this dilute state,
also, its use is free from alhnost every other objection.  For
though -it does corrode metallic substances, its.evil effects in




262             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
this way are much less sensible than those of any of the
other gases already mentioned.
The use of these gaseous substances is restricted almost
entirely to the removal from the air of evil-smelling and
noxious substances which are already mixed with it. But a
service often demanded of disinfectants, and one not less
important for sanitary objects, is, to prevent the emission
of these substances into the air altogether-to arrest, confine,
and fix them  down among the festering substances which
produce them.  This service can only be rendered by bodies
which are in the solid or liquid state, and can therefore be
mixed or spread over the decaying matters from which the
hurtful emanations proceed.
A satisfactory disinfectant of this kind must also possess
at least two well-marked chemical properties. These are
distinctly pointed out by the general chemical characters
of the evil-smelling substances to be acted upon.
These substances, as they arise from decaying vegetable
and animal bodies, are, for the most part, of two chemical
kinds. They are either alkaline substances, like ammonia
and trimethylamine (p. 517), or they are acid substances,
like the sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogens.  An
effective disinfectant must be able either to decompose or to
combine with both of these classes of compound bodies.
And economically, its value will be further increased, if,
while it effects these chemical purposes, it at the same time
produces a new substance which is not offensive in any way;
and still more if it produces one that is positively useful.
50. Chloride of Limze possesses the chemical qualities of
an efficient disinfectant in a high degree. It consists of lime
and chlorine: of these, the lime combines with all the acid
bodies represented by the sulphuretted hydrogen, while the
chlorine either combines with or decomposes the alkaline
compounds represented by ammonia. It is therefore gener



CHLORIDES OF IRON AND ZINC.            263
ally and deservedly esteemed as one of the best, most efficient, and most manageable of our solid disinfectants.
Spread in the solid form upon any fermenting mass, it destroys the noxious bodies as they are formed. Dissolved in
water, and sprinkled over bad-smelling chambers, or mixed
with more or less fluid collections of putrid matter, it brings
sweetness everywhere. Fetid odours and poisonous qualities
alike disappear before it. Only its comparatively high price
prevents its being employed for sweetening our common
sewers, garbage-heaps, and cesspools.
The results of its action have the further advantage, that
they are not offensive either to sight or smell; but they do
not possess the same fertilising richness as the mixed heaps
obtained by the use of powdered charcoal. Its chlorine decomposes ammonia, and hence fermenting heaps treated with
chloride of lime will be poorer in this ingredient so valuable
to vegetation.
60. The Chlorides of Iron and Zinc, especially when
made somewhat acid, are, chemically speaking, almost equally
efficacious. They have the disadvantage, however, that they
run to liquid (deliquesce) rapidly, when exposed to the air,
and cannot well be preserved in the solid form. Hence they
are generally dissolved in water, and used in the liquid
state.
It is an objection to the liquid chloride of iron that it
causes a brown stain wherever it is spilt, and makes the
fermenting substances to which it is applied of a black
colour. The zinc liquid is itself colourless, colours nothing
when it is spilled, and when poured upon the foulest decay~
ing substances, only covers them with a white cream. These
properties cause it to be preferred to the iron liquid, where
economy is not an object, the chloride of zinc being the more
costly of the two.
The solution of chloride of zinc forms what we frequent..




264             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
ly see advertised under the name of " Burnet's Disinfecting Fluid." It has the property of not only deodorising and
disinfecting, but of actually preventing decay, especially in
vegetable substances.  Hence; like corrosive sublimate and
pyrolignite of iron, it has been extensively used for saturating timber, especially such as is to be used in circumstances
in which timber is liable to rot.
7~. Sulphate of Iron, or common green vitriol, is equal
in efficacy to the chloride of iron, but, except that it does
not run to a liquid, is liable to the same objections. It is
much used in parts of Switzerland and other countries, for
removing the smell and fixing the volatile ingredients of
fermenting dung-heaps' and liquid-manure tanks.
80. Pyrolignite of Iron, prepared by dissolving iron in
impure wood-vinegar, is equal in immediate efficiency to
either of the preparations of iron above mentioned. To
some, however, the smell which this solution occasionally
possesses is an additional objection to the use of it.
9~. Iodine, and one of its compounds known to chemists
by the name of iodoform, have recently been recommended
as smell-removers and disinfectants; but however efficient,
their expense must always exclude them from anything like
extensive use.
100. Quicklime, though so abundantly used during the
cleansings to which the cholera-visitations have given rise,
is less efficacious either as a remover or a destroyer of smells
than any of the substances above mentioned. It is usually
employed in the state of newly-slaked lime.  In this state
its action on animal and vegetable substances is twofold.
a. If the substance be fresh, it retards and partially prevents its decay.  This is its effect upon flesh, blood, recent
animal droppings, nightsoil, urine, &c. And as decay afterwards slowly comes on, it modifies the nature of the chemical
substances produced, so that ammoniacal and other strong



ACTION OF QUICKLIME.               265
smelling compounds do not arise from them, or at least not
so sensibly as would otherwise have been the case. Tofresh
animal matters, therefore, quicklime, as a preventer of smells,
is a very proper addition.
6. But if the substance have already begun to ferment,
the lime acts very differently. It is strongly alkaline, and
therefore while it combines with the acid substances which
the fermented matter may contain, it sets free the ammonia
and other volatile strong-smelling alkaline compounds which
may have been formed in it. Thus its first effect, when laid
upon fermenting animal and vegetable refuse, is to increase
the quantity of odoriferous matter which exhales, and consequently the intensity of the smell.  Its next effect-is to
retard further decomposition, to induce, as charcoal does,
the decaying matter to form nitric and sulphuric acids, and
thus so to change the chemical nature of what does afterwards rise into the air, as to make it both less disagreeable
to the smell, and less injurious to the health.
Spread in a layer over a foul heap, therefore, it disengages
a great amount of strong-smelling volatile matter; but this
being once carried off by the wind, the covered heap remains
comparatively quiescent. The lime arrests and unites with
the sulphur and phosphorus as they approach the surface of
the heap, and disposes the substances containing nitrogen to
change into nitric acid, and combine with itself, instead of
dissipating themselves into the air in the form of ammonia
and other volatile alkalis. With the exception of the first
loss it occasions when laid on fermented matter, therefore,
lime retains in the decaying heap the greater part of what
makes it of value to the farmer.
It is in close and confined places, where the wind has not
ready access to sweep away what is at first evolved, and to
masses of putrid semi-fluid matter, such as collections of
nightsoil, that the application of quicklime may prove most
VoL. II.-12




266             THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE.
unpleasant.  When used in such circumstances, it should be
strewed on lightly, or after the heap has been spread over
with straw, peat, sawdust, or other similar substance; and
the mass should, if possible, be entirely covered over with
it, and left afterwards undisturbed.
On the whole, when the air oniy is to be sweetened and
rendered wholesome, the safest, cheapest, and most effectual
destroyers of smells, are chlorine gas and chloride of lime.
A simple way of applying this gas for individual use is to
moisten a linen cloth with vinegar, and sprinkle over it
finely-powdered chloride of lime. Air breathed through
this will enter the mouth charged with a minute quantity
of chlorine, which will effectually destroy any noxious vapours and miasms that escape from diseased bodies, or from
decaying animal and vegetable substances. These prepared
layers of cloth may be introduced in place of the charcoal
into Dr. Stenhouse's respirator, and worn over the mouth.
The healthy man so protected may without fear visit the
chambers of the sick, and the sanitary officer without risk
venture into the most dangerous receptacles of filth. Breathing in by the mouth, and breathing out by the nose, the air
in his lungs would be always pure and wholesome.
Where water-closets, cesspools, or heaps of fermenting
matter are to be freed from smell, chloride of lime is probably still the best agent. But chloride of zinc and sulphate
of iron are both perfectly efficient, and both to be bought in
the shops. Any of the three, therefore, may be used indif.
ferently, according to the taste and convenience of the user,
But when large operations are to be carried on, as in the
sanitary cleansing of towns, charcoal powder, the smotherburned mixture of clay and vegetable matter, and quicklime,
are the cheapest and most available. The two former are
excellent and unexceptionable; the latter has the disadvantage, that from substances already fermenting it drives out




RECAPITULATION.                 267
for a while more powerful odours than they naturally emit,
and requires, therefore, to be used with care and caution.
In their chemical influence upon the after decay of the substances to which they are applied, charcoal and quicklime,
as I have said, resemble each other very much.
For the sake of clearness, I may briefly recapitulate the
several classes of substances I have endeavoured to classify
and distinguish in the present chapter. These are
10. IDecay-Preventers, or Antiseptics, including common
salt, saltpetre, white arsenic, corrosive sublimate, the chlorides of zinc and iron, pyrolignite of iron, sugar, creosote,
alcohol, camphor, the essential oils, and in certain cases
quicklime.  Only a few of these are adapted for sanitary
use.
2~. Smell-Disguisers, or Perfunies.-To this class belong
the greater part of the substances already described among
the odours we enjoy.
3~. Smell-Removers, or /Deodorisers. — Among these,
charcoal, peat, fresh and charred, clay burned, unburned, or
smother-burned along with vegetable matter, and other porous substances,, are the most important.
40. Smell-Destroyers, or )Disinfectants, which not only
absorb and remove evil smells, but decompose and change,
and thus altogether remove the substances which produce
them.  To this class belong nitric oxide, muriatic acid,
sulphurous acid, chlorine, the chlorides of lime, zinc, and
iron, the sulphate and pyrolignite of iron, iodine, iodoform,
and quicklime.
To disinfect, a substance must chemically change the
noxious compound and produce a harmless one. All chemical change does not involve the latter result, as some poisonous vapours may b' chemically changed, and remain poisonous still.  Such is the case with those of kakodyle and the




268                      NOTES.
cyanide of kakodyle, described in a previous chapter (p. 532).
But all the disinfectants described and recommended in the
preceding pages, are really poison-destructive as regards all
natural evil smells and miasms with which we are yet acquainted.
NOTES TO ODOURS AND SMELLS.
1~. Chap. XXV. —In my concluding remarks upon sweet
odours (p. 502), I have drawn the attention of the reader to the
inconceivably minute quantities of odoriferous matter which
make themselves sensible in the air. I have since found, in Dr.
CARPENTER'S Comparative Physiology, that " a grain of musk
has been kept freely exposed to the air of a room, of which the
door and windows were constantly open, for a period of ten
years; during all which time the air, though constantly changed,
was completely impregnated with the odour of musk; and yet at
the end of that time the particle was found not to have sensibly
diminished in weight I " Can anything illustrate more strikingly
the very trifling quantities of foreign matter in the air by which
sensible effects, whether for good or for evil, may be produced
upon us?
2~. Chap. XXVII.-Since this chapter was published, i
has been announced that the substance propylamine, mentioned
in p. 517 (note), as having the smell of stinking fish, has been
found in the flowers of Cratcegus oxyacantha (common hawthorn),
Crataegus monogyna;. also in those of Pyrus communis (the peartree), and Sorbus aucuparia. The odour of these flowers has
often been thought to resemble that of decaying fish.




NOTES.                      269
3~. In page 531 I have said that other cKakodyles might be
formed besides the one there described; and this has in fact already been discovered-the combination of arsenic with Ethyle.
Like the compound already known, it has a peculiarly insufferable smell, and takes fire in the air. It offers us another material
for asphyxiating shells.




CHAPTER XXIX.
WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
What is it to breathe?-Structure of the lungs.-Quantity of air inhaled.-Breathing
by the skin.-Structure of the skin.-Effect of breathing on the composition of
the air.-It increases the proportion of moisture and carbonic acid, and diminishes
that of oxygen.-To what extent it does so.-Quantity of carbonic acid given off
from the lungs and the skin.-Purpose for which manll breathes.-The oxygen absorbed helps to form the substance of the muscular and other tissues. —I converts
the waste material of the body into urea and other soluble substances preparatory
to its removal.-It converts the fat and starch of the food into carbonic acid and
water.-Acts in a similar way upon alcohol.-Why the carbonic acid from the
lungs varies in quantity.-Physiological effect of these chemical changes.-They
are the chief source of animal heat.-Minor sources of this heat.-Careful provision for the constant disengagement of this heat.-Purposes served in external
nature by the breathing of animals.
I. WHAT IS IT TO BREATHE?
1~. To breathe, in the usual acceptation of the term, is
to draw in atmospheric air through the mouth and nose into
the lungs, and after a brief interval to throw it out again.
The lungs into which the air is thus drawn, consist of
two rounded oblong, somewhat flattened, masses of very
cellular substance, situated in the cavity of the chest, and
communicating with the atmosphere through the wind-pipe,
or trachea. The general form of the human lung is represented in the annexed figure.




STRUCTURE OF TRE LUNGS.                271
The air or wind pipe (a b fig. 98), as it descends from
the throat, branches off into large (bronchial) tubes (c c);
and these  again and again              Fig. 98
into  smaller, still smaller,
and finally into- hairlike vessels (d).  Through these the
air penetrates into the remotest parts of the cellular substance.  Around each visible
extremity  nearly  eighteen
thousand cells are clustered 
(17,790, ROUCHOUX), each of
which is connected through
these minute tubes with the          ofi I
external air.  The cells vary  
in size; they have a diameter
of from  one-seventieth to one
two-hundredth, or, on an ave- 
rage, of about one-hundredth
of an inch.  The total num-' 
ber of them  is reckoned at            Human Lung.
a the larynx; b windpipe; c c c bronsix hundred millions! Their  chial tubes or air passages; e lung.
walls are very thin; they are mere air-vesicles.
The lungs, as this structure implies, are very elastic,
and consequently the volume of air they contain very variable. The average quantity which, by an effort, the lungs
of an adult'can be made to inhale, is from five to seven pints;
and the quantity they draw in at an ordinary, natural, but
full inspiration, may be as much as two pints and a half; an
ordinary tranquil respiration, made without effort, takes in
only about one pint.
At the easy average of eighteen inspirations a minute,
this makes the bulk  of air drawn  in and thrown  out
again to amount —in common life-to about eighteen pints




272       WHAT WE BREATHB AND BREATHE FOR.
a minute, a thousand pints an hour, or three thousand gal
lons a-day. Some estimate it as high as four thousand gal.
Fig. 99.                Ions a-day for an average man in average
circumstances,  and
as high as five thousand seven hundred
_     <.gallons a-day for an
athletic man undera   umgoing  severe  exertion.
20. But this lungwork   forms  only
part of the operation
Surface of the Cuticle greatly magnified, showing  of  breathing;  we
the pores and hairs.the                    through
Fig. 100.                   breathe also through
the skin.  The cuticle or
outer skin of most animals
e        e
-7. _      ~ l    "~:i is perforated by numerous:~ &~, 7i~   /1///pores  (fig. 99).   These
/::;1.s t  pores are the  outlets of
r;minute    spiral   vessels
which  penetrate  through
the skin into the cellular' -~~~~~' ~ i ~   substance   beneath  (fig.
1 10 g,).   In  the  human
/? cuticle, the pores are more'~/'t' of theb
numerous in  some parts
of the body than in others,
11i/~      but the outer skin  of a
full-grown man is sprinVertical section of the, skin, gretmagnied.  kled over with about seven
a the cuticle, outer, or scarf skin; b d the millions of them, while the
true skin; c censory papille; e sweat glands and
their ducts, the outlets at the surface being the united length of the spiral
pores; fhairs; g cellular substance.




BREATHING ALTERS THE AIR.            273
vessels connected with them is reckoned at twenty-eight
miles! Through these vessels we pour out constantly the
solid and fluid substances which form our visible perspiration.  But through them  also air enters and escapes continually, in a healthy state of the body, as it does from the
air-vessels of the lungs. And though the total quantity of
this kind of work done by the skin is very much less than
that which is performed by the lungs, yet it is both material
in amount, and of essential importance to the general health
of the body.
The air we draw into our lungs is thrown out again after
a brief interval. That which enters by the skin probably
remains longer. What change does this air undergo during
its short visit to the interior of the body?
Three distinct and sensible chemical alterations are produced by the breathing animal upon the air which enters and
surrounds it.
First. If the breath of an animal, as it escapes from the
mouth, be received in a dry cool vessel, or upon a clean mirror, the surface of either will be rendered dim by a thin
coating of moisture. In like manner, if the naked hand or
arm be enclosed in a clean dry glass vessel, a deposit of dew
will gradually be formed upon its inner surface. Both from
the lungs, therefore, and from the skin, watery vapour is
continually, though insensibly, given off into the surrounding
atmosphere. As it comes out, the air contains more moisture than when it went into the body.  This is the first
change.
Second. It is a property of carbonic acid gas that, when
passed through lime-water, it speedily renders the liquid
milky (p. 8).
Now, if we put a quantity of lime-water into a close
bottle, and draw common atmospheric air through it, as in
the annexed figure (fig. 101), we shall see that for a long
VOL. I.-1 2*




274      WHAT WE BREATHE AND' BREATHE FOR.
time the water will remain bright and transparent. A,
very large volume of air must be drawn through before the
Fig. 101.    clearness of the water sensibly diminishes,
and still more before it becomes perceptibly
milky.  This shows that though carbonic
acid is present in the air, it is so only in
very small proportions.
But if, instead of drawing atmospheric
air through the lime-water, we blow through
it the air which comes from the lungs, as in
figure 102, we shall see the bright clearness
Fig. 102.   of the liquor disappear almost immediately. In a very few minutes it will have
become opaque and milky.  The air, as
it comes from  the lungs, contains, therefore, more carbonic acid than as it went
in.  This is the second change.
In like manner, if any part of the
naked body be surrounded for a while
by a close vessel, and  the air within
the vessel be subsequently examined, a larger proportion
of carbonic acid will be found in it than is usually present in
an equal bulk of the surrounding atmosphere. Thus, from
our lungs and from our skin we are continually, though insensibly, breathing out carbonic acid, and adding to the proportion of this gas which naturally exists in the air in which
we live.
Third. If either the air which comes from our lungs, or
that in which a naked limb has been for some time closely
confined, be chemically examined, it will be found to contain
a smaller per-centage of oxygen than is present in common atmospheric air. The lungs and skin, therefore, are continually
drinking in oxygen from the air. This is the third change.
Thus the three chemical alterations which atmospheric




MOISTURE INHALED.                275
air undergoes through the agency of the breathing animal
are -that it is rendered moister than before - that the
proportion of carbonic acid is increased-and that the percentage of oxygen is diminished.
3~. To what extent do these changes take place'? Can
we estimate it in numbers?
a. The quantity of water which is thrown out into the
air from the lungs of a healthy man is very variable.  It is
modified by climate, by individual constitution and state of
health, by the amount of exercise taken, by the quality of
the food, by the quantity of liquid consumed, and by a
variety of other circumstances. Generally speaking, however, the quantity given off from the lungs and skin together
is equal to about one-third of the weight of the whole food,
solid and liquid, which is taken into the stomach.
Now  the skin alone of a full-grown man exhales in
twenty-four hours, and in ordinary. circumstances, from one
and a half to two pounds of water in the state of insensible
perspiration. The difference between this weight and that
of one-third of the whole food, solid and liquid, represents
the quantity of water daily discharged from the lungs. It
is not far from the truth to say that, for every pound and
a half discharged from the skin, about one pound is given off
from the lungs.
b. We have already seen that the air we breathe contains,
in its natural state and at ordinary elevations, about two
gallons of carbonic acid gas in every five thousand of air,
(p. 9).  This is its condition  as it enters the lungs.
As it returns it contains on an average three and a half
gallons in every hundred! In cases of disease the proportion of carbonic acid sometimes mounts up to as much as
seven gallons in a hundred. The quantity of this gas dis.
charged from the lungs, therefore, in twenty-four hours, must
be very considerable.




276      WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
Like that of watery vapour, this quantity varies with
many circumstances. Size, age, sex, food, climate, constitution, health, exercise, all modify it. In a full-grown man
the weight of carbonic acid given off varies from one to
three pounds in twenty-four hours.
This gas contains in every hundred pounds twenty-eight
pounds of carbon (pure charcoal) and seventy-two pounds of
oxygen. Hence the weight of carbon which escapes in this
form from the lungs of a full-grown man varies from five to
fifteen ounces in the twenty-four hours.
The quantity given off from the skin varies from a thirtieth to a ninetieth of that which escapes from the lungs.
In man it probably averages about one-sixtieth. This is
equal to fifty or sixty grains of carbon in the twenty-four
hours.  Bodily exercise greatly increases this quantity, as
it does that of watery vapour.  The human skin, when a
person is in motion, perspires three times as much as when
he is at rest. The skin of a horse, when put to the trot,
gives off one hundred and seventy times as much as when
it is at rest-(GERLACH).
c. The proportion of oxygen gas which atmospheric air
contains is very nearly twenty-one gallons in every hundred.
After it has visited the human lungs, however, this proportion is reduced to sixteen or eighteen in a hundred, and
sometimes lower.  The lungs extract from one-seventh to
one-fifth of its oxygen. The absolute weight of the oxygen
thus taken up in a day also varies with many circumstances.
It is generally equal to about one-fourth of the weight of
the whole food, solid and liquid, which an animal consumes.
But whatever increases the quantity of carbonic acid given
off, generally increases, and nearly in an equal degree, that
of the oxygen absorbed.
As regards this absorption of oxygen gas, the skin acts
somewhat differently from the lungs. Both absorb oxygen,




FOR WHAT END DOES MAN BREATHE?           277
as both give -off carbonic acid.  But while the bulk of
oxygen taken in by the lungs somewhat exceeds that of the
carbonic acid given off, the opposite is the case with the skin.
It gives off a considerably larger bulk of carbonic acid than
it drinks in of oxygen gas.
Such is this most vital process of respiration, considered
in itself; and such is the chemical influence in kind and
quantity which a full-grown man by his breathing insensibly
exercises over the composition of the atmosphere which surrounds him.
But for what end does man breathe?  What good follows to himself, or what useful purpose is served in external
nature, by the changes which his breathing produces upon
the air in which he lives?  These questions we must consider in their order.
II. FORI WHAT GOOD TO HIMSELF DOES MAN BREATHE?
To obtain a clear answer to this question we must
examine the function of respiration more closely.
The oxygen which enters into the circulation of the body
through the lung-surface is equal in weight, as we have seen,
to one-fourth of all the solids and liquids introduced into
the stomach.  It considerably exceeds in weight that of the
dry solid food taken alone. This oxygen is the main source
of the good which man derives from breathing. This good
is partly direct and chemical, and partly indirect and physiological. If we follow the oxygen in its course through
the body, we shall see how it benefits the breather both chemically and physiologically.
0. The direct and chemtical good includes several different operations, which, for the sake of clearness, it is necessary to distinguish.
First. The oxygen enters the cells of the lungs, and is




278      WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
absorbed by the minute vessels which spread over the cell
walls. Within these vessels it combines directly with certain constituents of the flowing blood, and proceeds with it
in its ceaseless current through the arteries and veins.
The first purpose or duty of the blood is to build up the
substance of the body,-to form or enlarge the muscles, the
skin, the cartilages, &c. I have stated elsewhere that the
gluten of the vegetable food is very similar in properties and
composition to the fibre of the animal muscle, and to the
skin of the body.  Still, chemical investigation has shown
that it requires to be combined with a certain proportion of
oxygen before it can actually be, or is fitted to be, built into
the substance of the body. This oxygen is supplied by the
lungs, and is worked up as above described.
The first good function, therefore, which the oxygen abstracted from the air discharges within the breathing animal
is, that it helps to build up the solid substance of the muscles, cartilages, and skin. It forms part of the material of
which they are necessarily composed; and it is in this sense
that oxygen, as I have elsewhere expressed it, is a real food
-that we actually live to a certain extent upon, and are fed
by, the air which surrounds us.
But only part of the oxygen taken in is used thus directly, and for restorative purposes. The greater proportion
of it is employed for very opposite, though equal necessary
and useful ends. ThusSecond. The body thus built up is not a permanent
structure. It is constantly undergoing repair and renewal.
The functions which the several parts of the body perform
wear it away, as the tools we use in our daily operations are
worn away by the uses to which we put them. The muscles,
and liver, and brain, and bones, all waste, and the substance
rubbed off, so to speak, is removed from the body, and replaced by new matter from the food.




OXYGEN REMOVES WASTE TISSUES.           279
But before it can be removed, this waste matter must
again be combined with oxygen. When united with the
proper proportions of oxygen, the muscle is changed into
new compounds, which are soluble in water, and are carried
by the fluid excretions through the kidneys and skin. Such
are urea and uric acid-so called, because they are the characteristic ingredients of animal urine.  These are only
oxidised* forms of the muscle and waste tissues, which are
constantly being washed out of the animal body by the
fluids which escape fromn it.
In the tissues, also, sulphur and phosphorus exist as
necessary constituents.  These are not contained in the urea
and uric acid above mentioned; but they combine with
oxygen separately, and form sulphuric and phosphoric acids,
which readily dissolve and escape with the other oxidised
forms of waste matter which are rejected by the body.
Thus the second good service which the oxygen taken in
by the lungs renders to the living animal, is to combine with
the waste matter of' its several parts. By so combining, the
oxygen renders soluble, and therefore easy to be removed,
what would injure the animal's health if allowed long to remain within it.
Third. A third chemical service rendered by the
oxygen is no less important to the existence and comfort of
the animal.
If a fat animal be stinted in its food, or be wholly deprived of nourishment for some days, its weight will rapidly
diminish. It continues to breathe, and in its breath to
throw off carbonic acid and watery vapour. Water escapes
through the skin and the kidneys, and with it urea and the
other usual constituents of the fluid excretions. The animal
* When a body combines with oxygen, it is said to become oxidised, and the act
of so combining is called oaridation.




280      WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
in giving off the materials of its solid substance, and, at the
same time, taking little food to replace them, must necessarily lose in weight.
If we examine the condition of the animal after this
period of starvation, we find that the loss of weight and
substance is most remarkable in the fat of the body.  This
has diminished in far greater proportion than any of its
other constituent portions. If, again, we inquire what has
become of this fat, we find scarcely a trace of it in the solid
or liquid excretions. It has been breathed away through
the lungs and the skin. Breathing was necessary to the existence of life, and carbonic acid gas and watery vapour
were necessarily given off with the breath. While the usual
supplies of food were withheld, therefore, the ingredients of
this gas and vapour were necessarily taken from the sub.
stance of the-animal. It fed, so to speak, upon itself for the
time. The fat which had disappeared had been used up for
this purpose.
It is easy to understand how this took place.
Water consists of one of hydrogen (H) and one of oxygen
(o) united to form one of water (I 0).
Carbonic acid consists of one of carbon (c) and two of
oxygen (2 o) united to form one of carbonic acid (1 a).
Now, human fat consists of carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, very nearly in the proportions represented by0.   H.    0.
87   86    5
and it is transformed into carbonic acid and water in the
following manner.
The oxygen of the air is absorbed by the lungs and the
skin, and is taken up by the blood in the way already described.  This oxygen, as it circulates through the body,
unites with the carbon and hydrogen of the fat, and, after




HOW  THE FAT IS BREATHED AWAY.                 281
causing it to pass through various chemical transformations,
finally changes it into carbonic acid and water. ThusH. H.  O.
loffat,...     87  86   5
with
105 of oxygen,..... -   -  105
Make a sum of,....     86 110
This is equal to0.  H.  0.
87 of carbonic acid,. 87  -   74
and
86 of water,...-   86  86
Making the same sum of,.. 87  36 110
Thus, through the instrumentality of the oxygen taken
in from  the air, one of animal fat may be converted into
thirty-seven of carbonic acid and thirty-six of water, and in
this form breathed away through the lungs.
But if, instead of starving the animal, we give it abundance of fat in its food, then  the fat of its own body will
suffer no diminution.   The oxygen taken in will transform
the fat of the food into carbonic acid and water, and these
will be breathed out from the lungs as before.
Or if, instead of fat, we give it food containing much
starch or sugar, a similar result will follow. Instead of
breathing away its own substance, the animal will throw off
this starch and sugar in the forms of carbonic acid and
water. It is enabled to do this as the final result of the following transformation:0.   H.  O.
1 of starch or sugar,...      12  12  12
With 24 of oxygen,.     -    -   24
Make a sum of..      12  12  86




282      WHAT VWE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
0.  i.   o.
But 12 of carbonic acid,..  12  -   24
And 12 of water,.            -   12  12
Also make the sum of..   12  12  86
So that, with the aid of twenty-four of oxygen, one of starch
is finally changed, within the body of the animal, into twelve
of carbonic acid and twelve of water, which are in whole
or in part given off from the lungs.
Thus the third good purpose served by the oxygen which
the vessels of the lungs absorb, is to convert the fat, starch,
sugar, gum, and similar constituents of the food,-and, in
the absence of these, the fat of the animal's own body,into the carbonic acid and water which are given off from
the lungs.
Among the constituents of the food above alludud to, as
similar to starch in being converted into carbonic acid and
water by the oxygen inhaled, are ardent spirits or alcohol.
When taken into the stomach, alcohol speedily passes into
the circulation, and thus rapidly supplies the materials for the
production of carbonic acid to be given off by the lungs.
Hence one reason for its usefulness in sustaining the strength
in certain cases of slow digestion, or of great bodily weakness and exhaustion. It consists of four of carbon, six of
hydrogen, and two of oxygen, and during its circulation
through the body, it finally changes, like starch and sugar,
into carbonic acid and water. Thus0. H.  0.
1 of alcohol,....    4  -6  2
meets with 12 of oxygen,... -   -  12
Sum,...  4  6  14
These unite and form0.    IL  0.
4 of carbonic acid,...  4  -   8
and 6 of water,....      6  6
Sum as before,..  4  6  14




CARBONIC ACID EXHALED.                283
In the stomach of the healthy man, therefore, ardent
spirits serve the same purpose as starch or sugar; but because of their liquid form and other properties, they act
more quickly. Hence both the good and the bad effects they
are known to produce.
I have stated in a previous part of this chapter that the
absolute quantity of carbonic acid given off from the lungs
is variable, and that the kind of food we at different times
make use of is one of the causes of such variation.   Even
when the absolute quantity of oxygen drawn in from the air
is the same, the quantity of carbonic acid returned to it may
differ as much as three-tenths, or nearly one-third of the
whole. Thus supposing the food-substance with which the
oxygen combines in the body to be at one time starch, at
another fat, and at another alcohol, then a fixed quantity
(say' a hundred) of oxygen will produce —
From starch,... 50 of carbonic acid.
From fat,.... 35 of carbonic acid.
From alcohol,. 36 of carbonic acid.
These quantities are so related to the quantity-of oxygen
inhaled, that were starch and sugar alone introduced into
the stomach, the bulkl of carbonic acid given off would
exactly equal that of the oxygen taken in by the lungs.
Where fat or alcohol are swallowed along with them, the
bulk of the carbonic acid will diminish very nearly as the
numbers above given.
The three immediate and direct chemical purposes, therefore, for which the breathing animal takes in oxygen through
its lungs and skin, are to produce the substance of the solid
tissues of its body from the gluten of its food-to convert the
* That this may not puzzle the unlearned reader, it is proper to state that the
numbers above used do not represent bulkcs or volumes, but equivalent weights.




284      WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
waste parts of these tissues into urea, phosphoric acid, &c.
that they may be more easily removed-and to change the
starch and sugar of the food into the carbonic acid and
water which escape from the lungs and skin.
20. V77e indirect and physiological good.-But these
chemical operations are attended by an indirect physiological effect which is essential to the existence of life.
From what has been stated above, it does not appear
that any good purpose is served by the constant production
in the blood-vessels and discharge from the lungs of carbonic acid gas and watery vapour.  We can see the good
which the oxygen does to the animal in forming the material
of its tissues, and in subsequently removing the waste matter of these tissues as they wear away; but in the simple
formation of carbonic acid and water we see none.
The good in this case arises, not from the mere chemical change itself, but from a certain physical circumstance
that accompanies it.
It is known that animals differ in the amount of sensible
warmth which they naturally exhibit. Some, like fishes and
insects, have a temperature very little higher than that of
the medium in which they live. They are cold-blooded.
Others, like man, and most quadrupeds, are considerably
warmer than the air which surrounds them.  They are
warm-blooded.  The internal heat of a healthy man, for
example, in temperate climates, is about 98~ F.  In hot
climates, and when he is attacked by fever, it rises to 100~
F., and upwards. The horse has an internal heat of 1010
F.. amphibious animals of about 101~0, ruminating animals
of 104~ F., and birds of 1060 F., while in reptiles the mean
heat falls to about 80~ F.
But an animal, the body of which is always warmer than
the air or other medium in which it lives, must have a
source of heat within itself independent of external nature.




WARM AND COLD BLOODED ANIMALS.           285
And when we consider how much heat must be continually radiating from the surface of a warm animal into the
cooler air, how much is expended in converting into vapour
the water which continually escapes from its skin in the form
of insensible perspiration, and from its lungs in invisible
steam-how much in warming up the food and air which
enter cold into its stomach and lungs, and are discharged
again at a temperature nearly equal to that of the body
itself-and that this escape of heat is incessant, and in a
degree uniform,-all these circumstances compel us to the
conclusion that this internal source of heat must be both
large and constant.
Now, the main physiological difference between the warm
and the cold-blooded animals is, that the former breathe,
while the latter do not. It is natural, therefore, to connect
together the distinctive character of breathing with the
equally distinctive character of greater warmth; to suppose
that the incessant breathing so necessary to life is the source
of the equally incessant supply of heat from within, so necessary also to the continuance of life.
And this connection is placed beyond all doubt when we
attend to the physical circumstances by which the change of
starch and fat into carbonic acid and water are accompanied
in the external air. If we burn either of these substances
in the air or in pure oxygen gas, they disappear, and are entirely transformed into carbonic acid and water.  This is
what takes place also within the body.
But in the air this change is accompanied by a disengagement of heat and light —or, if it take place very slowly,
of heat alone, without any visible light. Within the body
it must be the same.  Heat must be given off continuously
as the starch, sugar, and fat of the food are changed within
the body into carbonic acid and water. In this we have the
continuous natural source of animal heat.  Without this




286     WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
supply of heat the body would soon become cold and stiff
The formation of carbonic acid and water, therefore, continually goes on; and when the food ceases to supply the materials, the- body of the animal itself is burned away, so to
speak, that the heat may still be kept up.
The good purpose served by the production of carbonic
acid and water within the body is now apparent: it keeps the
body warm.
But the other functions performed by oxygen within the
breathing animal are also minor sources of heat.
It is received as universally true, that whenever a body
unites chemically with oxygen gas, some heat is given off, or
becomes sensible. Now, we have seena. That the oxygen absorbed by the blood-vessels unites
in part with the gluten of the food to produce the proper
chemical substance of the tissues. By this chemical change,
therefore, a certain amount of heat must be imparted to the
body of the animal.
b. That, again, to render the waste matter of the tissues
easily removable, oxygen combines with it. The phosphorus
becomes phosphoric acid, and the sulphur sulphuric acid.
The nitrogen and carbon assume the forms of urea and uric
acid, and so on. Every part of the substance of the body, in
the course of removal, combines with more oxygen, and
at every new change causes the disengagement of more heat.
Generally speaking, indeed, we may say that all the
leading chemical changes that take place within the body are
processes of oxidation.  Each of them sets free its quota
of heat; but that particular process which yields the carbonic acid and water that escape from the lungs and skin, is
the main source of warmth to the breathing animal.  All
the other sources, so far as we know, may for a limited time
be stopped without serious inconvenience to the animal; but
stop this one for a single minute, and the heart ceases to beat.




A'CTION OF THE HEART.                 28'7
In this urgent necessity for the continuous formation of
carbonic acid and water within the body of the breathing
animal, we find the explanation of two remarkable circumstances, in which, were man concerned, we should say that
an anxious solicitude was manifest on the part of the contriver and adjuster.
The first is the wonderful provision that is made within
the animal for bringing the whole blood into frequent communication with the oxygen of the atmosphere. This is
seen in the structure and connection of the lungs and the
heart.
The structure of the human lungs has been already described (p. 558), and it has been stated that they contain
about 600 millions of cells, varying in diameter from the
two-hundredth to the seventieth of an inch.   The internal
surfaces of all these cells form together an area of about one
Fig. 103.,                       v
Pulmonary veins
Pulmonary veins
Right auricle                ---   Left auricle
Valve
Mitral valve
Lower ven cava.
Right ventricle                    Left ventricle
Section of the Human Heart




288        WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
hundred and sixty square yards of thin cell wall!  Over
the whole of this surface minute blood-vessels branch out,
so as almost entirely to cover it. And along these tiny vessels the blood is continually flowing, and as it flows, drinking in through their pores the oxygen of the inspired air.
Then the heart is contrived and constructed to keep up
this flow.  The structure of the heart is shown in fig. 103.
Returning from the extremities to the cavities here shown
in the right side of the heart, the blood is thence drawn into
Fig. 104.
",,:..**"",.. BSubclavian
artory
Venacava Vs
\cujII  f /~       venacava
Right auricle 
e   aC
Interior of the Lungs, showing their connection with the Heart and tho
Large Blood-Vessels.




MOTION OF THE BLOOD.                     289
the lungs. Returning from the lungs to those on the left
side, it is driven thence along the arteries, which convey it
again to the most distant parts of the body.
The mutual adjustment and structural relations of the
heart and lungs to each other will be better understood
by a glance at figure 104.
This shows the situation of the heart between the two
lobes -of the lungs.   The double arrow  in the upper vena
cava, and the single arrow in the lower vena cava, show
how the blood is conveyed through these two channels into
the -right auricle of the heart, and the arrow ascending from
the right ventricle how the blood flows from it towards the
lungs. The unshaded branching vessels which connect the
lungs with the unseen left auricle carry back the blood from
the lungs to the heart, while the ascending arrow between
the upper vena cava and the right ventricle shows the
course of the aorta through which the blood from  the heart
proceeds on its new journey towards the extremities.*
The weight of the entire blood of a full-grown man
varies from twenty to thirty pounds.   Of this the lungs, in
a state of health, contain about half a pound.   The heart
beats on an average sixty or seventy times a minute. Every
beat sends forward two ounces of the fluid. It rushes on at
the rate of one hundred and fifty feet a minute, and the
whole blood passes through the lungs every two minutes and
a half, or twenty times an hour. In periods of great exertion, the rapidity with which the blood flows is much in* The blood in circulating, comes from the extremities,1. To the venm cavre.                8. To the left ventricle.
2. To the right auricle.             9. To the aorta.
3. To the right ventricle.          10. To the arteries.
4. To the pulmonary artery.         11. To the capillary or hair-like ves5. To the lungs.                        eels.
6. To the pulmonary veins.          12. To the veins which lead it all back
7. To the left auricle.                 to the venm cave.
Through nearly the whole of these stages its coulrse may be traced by the aid of
the woodcuts in the text.
VOL. II.-13




290      WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
creased, so that the whole of it sometimes circulates in less
than a single minute!
How anxiously, if I may so speak, the oxidation of the
blood is thus provided for-first, by the large surface over
which it is made to spread within the lungs; second, by the
complicated machinery of the heart, which keeps it in motion; and third, by the extraordinary rapidity, and consequent frequency with which- it is compelled to flow over the
wide lung-surface.
The second circumstance accounted for, is the large proportion of starch, sugar, or fat, which exists in nearly all the
varieties of vegetable food on which we live.  These, and
especially the starch and sugar, are not required, as gluten
is, directly to build up the substance of the body.  They
are converted into carbonic acid and water in order that the
heat of the animal may be kept up.  They form in every
kind of vegetable food, therefore, which in any part of the
world forms " the staff of human life," by far the largest
portion of its weight.  If it is carefully provided that
oxygen shall never be wanting in the blood, equal care has
been taken that the vegetable feeder shall always convey
into its stomach those substances with which the oxygen can
most usefully combine.
In the food of flesh-eating animals, fat serves the same
purpose as starch does in that of the vegetable feeders; and
in the relish for fat flesh which such animals display, we see
a new provision for securing its introduction into theii
stomachs.
It is necessary to add to what has been said on this
point, that though starch and sugar and fat are the substances which are generally converted into the carbonic acid
we give off from our lungs, yet that we can live and breathe,
though with less comfort, for an indefinite period without
them.  It is a further provision for the maintenance of




BREATHING OF PLANTS.              291
human life, that in case of emergency the gluten of the
plant and the fibre of the animal flesh can be converted
within the body into carbonic acid and water, and in this
form be discharged in our breath. Hence the strength-supporting virtues of the dried flesh, containing probably little
fat, on which the bold riders of the, Pampas are for the most
part sustained.
It is interesting, as giving support to the view above explained as to the source of animal heat, that in certain cases
a sensible warmth is produced in plants by a similar chemical change. The leaves of plants in general give off oxygen
gas in sunlight, and absorb carbonic acid gas.  But to this
law the leaves of flowers present an exception.  They give
off carbonic acid and absorb oxygen, as the lungs of animals do, and the flowers alone of all the parts of a living
plant are sensibly warmer than the air which surrounds them.
In most cases they are only one or one and a half degrees
warmer than the air, but in rare instances they become sensibly warm to the touch.  This is the case with plants of
the Arum family, in one of which-the Arurnz cordifolium
-the flower has been observed to have a heat of 1210 F.,
while that of the air was only 660 F. As in the animal, it
is to the union of the oxygen absorbed from the air with
some starch-like ingredient in the sap of the flower leaf, that
the production of this warmth is to be ascribed.  This is
proved by the fact that the greater the quantity of oxygen
bsorbed by the flower leaf, the higher the temperature it
eaches-(GARREAU.)
III. WHAT PURPOSE IN EXTERNAL NATURE IS SERVED
BY THE BREATHING OF ANIMALS.  Our consideration of this
point need only be very brief.
The animal is not an independent part of the work or
system of nature. Oxygen is not diffused through the at



292      WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR.
mosphere in nicely-adjusted proportions, solely that warm.
blooded animals may breathe it; nor are the nicely-adjusted
functions of life maintained within these animals solely for
their own benefit. They breathe not less for the support of
the vegetable kingdom than for their own.
We have already seen that the air which surrounds us
contains about two five-thousandths of its bulk of carbonic
acid gas, and that all the green leaves which flourish on the
face of the earth are ceaselessly, during daylight, sucking in
from the air this thinly-diffused gas. In a very few years,
working as they do now, existing plants would absorb the
whole, were no new supplies poured into the atmosphere to
make good the rapid loss. The breathing of animals is one
of the main sources from which such supplies come.  The
carbonic acid they pour continuously from their lungs and
skin, while life lasts, takes the place of that which plants as
unweariedly extract from it. And thus while the circle of
natural operations within the animal is complete in itself,
and in every move it makes the animal seems to work only
for its own good, it is all the while unconsciously laboring
for the benefit of an entir, ly different order of existences
external to itself.  On its restless activity, it is true, its own
life depends, but this life itself is only part of a larger circle of operations in which material things obediently revolve
in the fulfilment of a greater purpose.
Thus the breathing of man has an internal and an external
and: within, it oxidises and warms the body, and renews
and purifies its parts; without, it contributes to the maintenance of the general system of animated nature. To man,
as a mere living animal, the former end is the most immediately interesting and important; to man, as a philosophic
observer of nature, the latter is not only the grander of the
two, but the most morally and intellectually beautiful.




CHAPTER XXX.
WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
What we digest.-Staple elements of food, whether animal or vegetable.-How we
digest.-What takes place in the mouth.-The saliva; quantity discharged into
the mouth; its composition and functions-Properties of ptyalin.-The saliva is
alkaline; always on the watch for the entrance of food into the stomach.-Structure of the alimentary canal.-The stomach and its appendages.-What takes place
in the stomach.-The starch, fat, and gluten, are brought into a liquid state.-Dissolving action of the pepsin.-Absorption from the stomach itself.-What takes
place below the stomach.-Introduction of liquids from the gall-bladder and pancreas.-Supposed action of the bile.-Properties and uses of the pancreatic juice.Intestinal juice or mucus.-The universal solvent.-Absorption by the lacteals.Changes of the chyle in the lacteals —Mesenteric glands.-Absorption by the veins.
-Digestion in the large intestines.-Acidity in the ccecum.-Final discharge of
the food from the intestines.-Why we digest-it is to form blood.-Purposes
served by the blood.-Composition of the whole man, and of his blood.-Bodily
functions discharged through the aid of the blood.-Bodily waste and motion connected.-Special provisions for digestion in carnivorous and herbivorous races.Digestion in the sheep.-Purpose of digestion the same in all animals.
WHUAT we digest, how  we digest, why we  digest-how wide
and interesting a field is embraced by these three topics!
I. WHAT WE DIGEST.-This topic has already been  sufficiently dwelt upon  in  considering  the  bread  we eat and
the beef we cook. Whether we sustain ourselves by means
of vegetable or of animal food, we introduce nearly the same
substances into the stomach. These different forms of food
consist respectively



294       WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
The bread-of gluten, starch or fat, and saline matter.
The beef-of fibrin, fat, and saline matter.
And, as we have seen, gluten and fibrin on the one hand,
and starch and fat on the other, serve similar purposes, and
may take the place of each other almost indifferently in a
nutritious food.  These, therefore, along with the saline
matters contained in both animal and vegetable food, are the
main substances we digest.  It is true that vegetable food
contains insoluble woody fibre in considerable proportion.
In the bran of the bread we eat, and in the green vegetables
and potatoes we consume, it is present in notable quantity;
and it forms a very large part of the hay and other dried
vegetable food with which cattle are fed. This woody fibre,
however, passes through the animal, for the most part, useless and undigested.  The digestive organs extract, from
among the useless materials which the food may contain, the
three- staple forms of matter above described. We have
only to follow these substances into the body, therefore, and
see what becomes of them.
II. How WE DIGEST.-The process of digestion involves
three successive series of operations, mechanical and chemical.  The first of these takes place in the mouth, the second
in the stomach, and the third in the intestines.
10. What takes place in the mouth.-We have already
seen that in ripe fruits and other kinds of vegetable food prepared by nature for immediate eating, the solid nutritious
matter they contain is very minutely divided, and is intermixed with a large proportion of water. We have seen,
also, that the first object of the cook, in a great number of
our ordinary culinary operations, is to bring the raw food
into the same minutely divided and highly diluted condition.
But all the food we eat is not so prepared, either by nature
or by art. The first operation we perform upon it, therefore,




WHAT TAKES PLACE IN THE MOUTH.            295
is to grind it, if necessary, by means of the teeth, and to
dilute and season it by means of the warm, fluid, saltcontaining saliva. It is then swallowed, and allowed to descend to the stomach.
This operation appears to be altogether mechanical; and
yet the chemical history of the saliva, which takes so great
a part in the operation, and the relations of this saliva to
the food, are both interesting and important. The saliva is
secreted in glands which open into the interior of the mouth
(fig. 105), and which, in some animals, are of large size.
The quantity of liquid which these glands discharge into the
mouth, and thence into the stomach, is very variable. In
the case of the full-grown man it is sometimes as low as
eight and sometimes as high as twenty-one ounces in the
twenty-four hours.
The saliva consists for the most part of water, and therefore, as I have said, its first function is to dilute the food.
But this water holds in solution about one per cent. of saline
matter; so that, to a certain extent, it may be said also to
season the food. In the twenty-one ounces sometimes swallowed in a day, there are about eighty grains of this saline
matter. The seasoning this gives to the food not only renders it more grateful to the palate, but prepares it also for
the after changes it is to undergo in the stomach, and the
uses it is to serve in the body.
That this saline matter, though small in quantity, really
does produce some beneficial effect upon the food, is rendered
more probable by the influence generally ascribed to another
substance which is contained in the saliva in still smaller
quantity.  This substance is a peculiar organic compound,
to which, from its occurring only in the saliva, the name of
ptyalin is given. Like the diastase described in a previous
chapter, ptyalin possesses the property of changing the
starch of the food into sugar. This property it exhibits,




296         WHAT, HOWV  AND WHY WE DIGEST.
according to some, when used alone-according to others
only when mixed with the saline constituents of the saliva.
It forms less than one five-hundredth part of the whole weight
of the saliva. Not more, therefore, than from fifteen to
twenty grains of it are swallowed by a healthy man in the
twenty-four hours; yet this small quantity is really of much
consequence to the easy and comfortable digestion of the
food. Hence it is that experience has recommended to all
good livers a careful mastication of their food, that all parts
of it may be thoroughly mixed with the saliva, and thus
subjected to its chemical action.
Two other facts regarding the saliva are of much interest
as wonders of the human frame, independent altogether of
their intimate relation to the process of digestion.  One of
these is, that the saliva has generally an alkaline- character
— that this alcalinity is greater during and immediately
after eating, and gradually lessens, till after long fasting the
saliva becomes acid-that it is greater, also, after substances
have been eaten which are difficult of digestion-and that,
when the saliva discharged into the mouth is spat out instead
of being swallowed, acidity and heartburn often ensue.(WRIGHT). these circumstances argue not only a close connection between the process of digestion and the alkaline
character of the saliva, lut an immediate watchfulness, as
it were, over the immediate wants of a particular bodily
organ.
The other fact is, that as soon as food is swallowed, the
saliva begins to flow more copiously than before. This is
the case even if the food be swallowed without chewing. Or
if food be introduced by an artifical opening into the stomach,
without passing through the mouth at all, the saliva will
forthwith begin to discharge itself into the mouth, with its
* Substances are alkaline which have the taste of pearl-ash or common soda, or
which restore the colour of vegetable blues that have been reddened by an acid.




FL.VW OF THE SALIVA.               297
alkaline character, and hasten down the throat to assist in
the digestion. It appears strictly correct to say that the
saliva is constantly on the watch to be useful, when we
recollect how the mouth will often " water " at the mere mention of savoury articles of diet.
When chewed and duly thinned with saliva, the food is
rolled into a ball by the tongue, and is swallowed or forced
down the gullet or ceso- Fig. 105
phagus on its way to the
stomach.  The annexed                      \
fig., 105, shows the gul-                   \
let cut open, and its po-       i
sition behind the trachea 
or windpipe.
This figure shows al-                       Uvula
so the position of the                          Tongue
two  salivary  sacs  or'
glands which lie beneath                        S I  -   alivary gland
the tongue, and from   /ii          ----        Hyidbone
which the saliva flows
into  the mouth  when' —-----...Larynx
food is introduced into
Thyroid glaii
2~. What takes placein  the stomach.-The..Trahe
stomach, into which the
OEUophagus.
food descends through
the gullet, is an oblong rounded bag, capable, when moderately distended, of containing two or three pints. The annexed fig., 106, shows the form of the human stomach, and
of the neighbouring organs which are concerned in the process of digestion. It exhibits, also, their relative positions
and their comparative sizes. The parts, as here shown, are
a little distorted, from the necessity of turning up the liver
VOL. II. —13




298         WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
in order that the gall-bladder, the pancreas, and the upper
part of the intestines might be more distinctly seen.
Fig. 106.
\    /      /
Gall bladder  S__pleen
Cdoon
Large intestines -...
---   Small intestines
~~~~Ccecau~~m 7~....Colon
Appendra of _-"        /
cBcum           /
Rectum
Small intestines
The food after it reaches the stomach is mixed up with
more water if it has not been already sufficiently diluted.
It is intermingled, at the same time, with certain liquids
which flow out of minute openings on the inner surfacethe mucous membrane, as it is called-of the stomach. And
after these admixtures, it is digested for an indefinite period,
at a constant temperature of about 98~ F.




CHANGES IN THE STOMACH.                  299
But during this digestion it undergoes certain chemical
changes.  Thus —
First, The starch, through the continued agency of the
saliva, and especially of the ptyalin it contains, is gradually
converted for the most part into sugar. It then dissolves,
and is ready to be conveyed towards its further destination.*
Second, The fat, without undergoing any known chemical change, is subdivided into exceedingly minute globules,
and is intermingled intimately with the other half-fluid portions of the food.  With these it forms in this way a kind
of emulsion, and is then also ready' to pass on.
Third, The gluten  and fibrin, which  are solid when
swallowed are also reduced in the stomach to the fluid form.
But this is effected by means of a new agency.
Within the mucous membrane'which lines the interior
of the stomach, many little cavities or hollows are situated.
From  these, through  little  mouths or openings into the
stomach, a liquid flows which is known by the name of the
gastric juice. This liquid contains saline matter, a quantity
of free acid, which renders it slightly sour, and a peculiar
organic substance to which the name of pepsin has been
given. This last substance is present in the gastric juice
only in minute proportion. Like the ptyalin of the saliva,
however, it exercises a powerful and important action upon
the food. While the ptyalin changes the starch, first into
sugar, and afterwards partially into lactic acid, the pepsin,
with the aid of the free acid, reduces the fibrin of flesh to
the liquid state. The curd of milk and the white of egg
are also readily changed by the gastric juice into soluble
forms. Upon gelatinous substances it exercises a specially
* The saliva of some animals appears to be much more powerfully solvent than
that of man: thus the saliva with which the boa constrictor covers the body of its
victim is said to promote a very rapid decomposition. The muscular flesh is rendered gelatinously soft under its action, so that the animal is able to force entire limbs
of its slain victim through its swelling throat.-(See HUMBOLDT, Views of Nature.




300        WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
dissolving action; and upon the gluten of wheat, though a
little more slow, its final effect is the same. Of this gastric
juice as much as 60 or 80 ounces are supposed to be poured
into the stomach of a well-fed grown man every twenty-four
hours.
Thus, by the conjoined chemical agency of the saliva and
the gastric juice —aided by the uniform warmth of the
stomach-the fat, the starch, and the gluten of the food, are
all brought into a half-fluid state. The saline matter of
the food is in part changed and dissolved by the same agencies.
The whole forms a greyish, gruel-like, slightly acid foodpulp, which has been called chyme.
This chyme now flows through the narrow outlet from
the stomach —the pylorus (see fig. 106)-into the upper part
of the small intestines, which, from its length of twelve
inches, has been called the duodenum.
All the food, however, which enters the stomach does
not thus linger in the stomach itself, or thus pass downwards
through the pylorus.
What we swallow in the' liquid state-our gruels and
gravy-soups, for example-requires no dissolution or breaking down in the stomach. They pass on, therefore, with little delay, and for the most part descend through the pylorus
into the duodenum in a comparatively short period of time.
And again, from the moment that our solid food begins
to dissolve in the stomach, it begins also to be absorbed
through the sides of the stomach itself. Minute blood-vessels spread over the whole internal surface of the stomach,
drink in liquid parts of the food through their thin walls,
and carry them away to be mingled with the general blood.
Thus, a variable proportion of -the food never reaches the
pylorus, nor descends into the duodenum. Thus, also, the
process of nourishment begins almost as soon as the food is
introduced into the stomach. The strength is kept up by




THE BILE AND PANCRE ATIC JUICE.         301
one part of it, while the rest is undergoing the necessary
processes of chemical preparation.
30. What takes place after it leaves the stomach.-A
glance at the woodcut (fig. 106) shows a small vessel or
tube proceeding from the gall-bladder, and entering the
duodenum  a little below the pylorus, or outlet of the
stomach. Another vessel, not seen in the figure, comes in
from the pancreas or sweetbread. The former pours bile
into the intestine; the latter, a thin saliva-like liquid, called
the pancreatic juice. At the same time, from the surface
of the intestine itself, a peculiar half-liquid slimy mucus.exudes, which is called the intestinal juice (succus entericus).
With these three liquids the food-pulp or chyme almost immediately mixes as it passes onward from the stomach.
When so mixed it loses its acid character, and becomes
milky in appearance. It is now changed into chyle.
The first chemical effect of the bile is to remove the
acidity of the food-pulp. Its subsequent action is not well
understood, but its presence is known to be necessary to
healthy and nutritious digestion. It restrains the tendency
of the food to fermentation, and to that form of decay, or decomposition, which is indicated by flatulence and the occurrence of diarrhoea. It also provokes the surface of the intestines to discharge more copiously the intestinal juice,
and it tends to keep the bowels in movement.  But the
chemistry of all this is not yet explained.
The pancreatic juice resembles the saliva very much in
appearance. Like the saliva, also, it contains saline matter,
and a peculiar organic compound, which however is different
from  the ptyalin of saliva.  In common with ptyalin, this
compound body possesses the property of converting starch
into sugar, and thus continues in the bowels the transformation of the starch which the ptyalin had begun in the
stomach. It exercises a peculiar action, however, upon the




302        WHAT, HOW, AND WHY W E DIGEST.
fat of the food, reducing it to a more minute state of division
than before, converting it into a more perfect emulsion, and
giving to the chyle its characteristic milky appearance. Its
special duty is believed to be to promote the digestion of
oily and fatty food.
The intestinal juice aids the action of the fluid of the
pancreas. It has the property of changing starch into sugar,
and at least assists in emulsifying the fat.
This latter action is inferred from the fact, that the solution of the whole food is much more complete and rapid
when it is mixed with all these fluids together, than when
treated with one of them only. They promote the chemical
action of each other, so that the mixture of the saliva, the
gastric juice, the intestinal juice, the bile, and the pancreatic
fluid, forms a kind of "universal solvent," by which all that
the food contains of a nutritious quality is melted together,
as it were, and fitted to enter the absorbent vessels.
And now the chyle being formed, a new variety of absorption begins. While within the stomach, the fatty and
glutinous portions of the food were still too little reduced to
admit of their being taken up in suitable quantity by the absorbent vessels. The liquid matters which entered into
them, therefore, had more of the watery, half-transparent
appearance, which is indicated by the word lymph. But
the moment the food-pulp passes the outlet of the bile, it
becomes milky, and the absorbing apparatus drinks in: this
milky liquid, and fills with it the vessels called lacteals, or
milk-bearers. Throughout the whole of the smaller intestines,
the same operation goes on. The intestinal juice is continually poured out and mixed with the food as it descends.
It is more and more digested and exhausted of its nutritious
matter, and lacteals continue to convey from it, at every
point in its descent, fresh supplies of the milky chyle.
On its way through the lacteals, the chyle undergoes




THE LACTEALS AND THEIR GLANDS.          303
further chemical changes. To promote these changes it is
detained here and there by being obliged to pass through
several knots or glands, where many of the lacteals meet
together and intermingle their contents. Finally, all the
lacteals terminate in the thoracic duct-a vessel which in
man is about as large as a goose-quill-and by this duct the
chyle is conveyed into the jugular vein (fig. 106). Thence
it is forced forward to the lungs, where it assumes a red
colour, and contributes continually to the formation of new
blood.
Fig. 107.
d             So
LaoteaU
T.' % _I/~  i    upon
<i     iatestae
A e=
The following fig., 107, shows how the lacteals are dis.
tributed upon the intestines,-how they subsequently collect




304        WH-AT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
together in glands or knots, as they pass along the mesen
tery or membrane to which the intestines are attached,and how they finally terminate in the thoracic duct.
But besides this absorption of the milky fluid, called
chyle, which is conveyed to the blood-vessels by the lacteals
above described, another absorption goes on continuously
from the internal surface of the - intestinal canal. Over the
whole of this surface, as is the case with the interior of the
stomach, a fine network of minute veins is spread, like the
delicate network which lines the air-cells of the lungs.
Through the thin sides of these vessels liquid substances
pass with greater or less ease; and from the fluid contents of the digestive canal, throughout nearly its whole
extent, such liquids do enter into these minute veins, and
mingle with the blood which they contain. In this way
nourishing materials, probably of a different kind from those
which flow along the lacteals, mingle with the rest of the
blood, are conveyed to the heart, and are finally employed
for the support of the living body.
What is the chemical nature of the substances which are
thus taken up by the minute absorbent veins, or what proportion they bear to the quantity of nutritive matter carried
off by the lacteals -in regard to both these points we are
yet in the dark. All that enters the veins in this way is
immediately mixed with the blood, which the, veins are
bringing back from the extremities. Hence it is very difficult to make out satisfactorily what portion of the constituents of this blood is drawn from the food contained in the
intestinal canal. That the quantity, however, is large, and
its nature important to the health of the animal, there is
every reason to believe.
When the food has passed through the small intestines
and reached the coecum (see fig. 106), the nutritious matter
it contains is nearly exhausted in consequence of the differ,




PROCESS OF DIGESTION.              305
ent forms of absorption above described. A change here
takes place, however, in its chemical character. When the
food pulp escaped from the stomach, it was slightly acid.
The admixture of the bile made it alkaline, and it has continued so throughout the whole of the smaller intestines.
But in the coecum it becomes slightly acid again, chiefly from
the presence of free lactic acid.  How this change is brought
about is not clearly understood. The purpose, however,
seems to be, by the agency of this acid to dissolve oat any
remaining gluten which the contents of the bowels, and especially their vegetable contents, may retain, and thus more
completely to exhaust them  of nutritive matter.  This is
rendered more probable by the large size of the ccecum in
-herbivorus animals. The residual food is detained there for
some time, that it may undergo a final digestion before it is
altogether discharged from the bowels.
Such is a sketch of the process-of digestion-of the way
in which it takes place-of the complicated apparatus and
organs which take part in it-and of the chemical agents
which are specially prepared and always ready to assist in
it. One long preliminary cooking process goes on from the
mouth downwards all the way to the colon, and from every
part of this long canal tiny lacteals and absorbing veinlets carry off contributions of cooked food either to the general store
of chyle, which is collected in the thoracic duct, or to the
venous blood which is hurrying back to the heart.  How
effectual all this digestion is in exhausting what we eat of its
nutritive matter, may be judged of from the fact, that a
healthy grown man, fed with ordinary diet, rejects of undigested and of waste or used-up matter, both taken together,
only from four to six ounces daily. And this rejected matter consists of



306         WHAT) HOW) AND WHY WE DIGEST.
Water,.......    83   to   4 oz.
Organic matter,......   0  to 1k
Mineral matter, chiefly phosphates of lime and magnesia, 0* to 0O
Total,...    4 to 6 oz.
Or he discharges one to one-and-a-half ounces of dry solid
matter daily!
III. WHY  WE DIGEST.-This question is, in a certain
restricted sense, already answered by the preceding statements.
We digest our food that we may prepare materials for the
production of blood.
Of what substances, then, does this blood itself consist?
If a hundred pounds of human blood be rendered perfectly dry, by a heat not much exceeding that of boiling
water, it will be reduced in weight to somewhat less than
twenty-two pounds.  It loses about 78~ per cent of water.
This dry matter consists essentially of the same substances as the several varieties of animal and vegetable food
described in the previous chapters.  It contains fat, a little
sugar, a little starch, fibrin, albumen, gelatine, and saline
matter in the following average proportions:Fibrin, albumen, gelatin, &c.,..    93 per cent.
Fat, a little sugar, and a trace of starch,.    2
Saline or mineral macter,...    5
-100
In composition, therefore, it very closely resembles the
muscular parts of lean animals and fish which we eat as
food.  The gluten of our vegetable food is represented in
the animal by the albumen and fibrin.'
The composition of the blood varies slightly with the age,
sex, constitution, state of health, &c. of the individual.  On
the whole, however, it is very nearly represented  by the
average composition above given.  For the immediate formation of blood, therefore, animal food is better adapted than
the more usual varieties of vegetable food.




WHY WE DIGEST.                          307
We digest our food that this blood may be formed from
it.-This answer does not go far enough in explaining the
purpose served by digestion. The blood being formed as
the result of the processes above described, what purpose
does it serve? An explanation of this purpose will give the
true answer to the question, Why we digest?
The blood serves a double purpose. First, it supplies
the materials which are necessary to build up and to promote the growth of the several parts of the body. Second,
it enables the body, without loss of substance, to discharge
the functions on which its life depends.
First,-It builds up and increases the body. To understand this part of its office, it is only necessary to consider
of what substances the body and blood respectively consist.
We have already seen that both animals and plants consist for the most part of water.  The model man of Pro.
fessor Quetelet weighs 154 lb., and he consists ofWater,......    116 lb.
Dry matter,.,...        88*
-154 lb.
And this dry matter consists ofFlesh and fat,  24 lb  Organic matter (combustible),  28 lb.
Bone,.    14       or of   Mineral matter (incombustible), 10
38s)                                      88
The proportion which the fat bears to the dried flesh
varies in different individuals, and in the case of man has
seldom been experimentally determined. In sheep only
moderately fat, it forms one-third of the whole. If we take
it at one-fourth in our model man, then his 154 lb. will consist of* How small a quantity of solid matter is consistent with life in a grown man,
may be judged of from the case which lately occurred in this country of a stepmother
ill-using and starving a boy of ten years of age till he weighed only twenty-five
pounds! He was in appearance merely skin and bone. Supposing him to be only
two-thirds water instead of three-fourths, the solid matter in his living body would
be only about eight pounds!




308               WHAT) HOW) AND WHY WE DIGEST.
Water,...l.....      116 lb
Flesh, skin, and blood, containing'777 lb. of mineral matter,  18
Fat,.......   6
Bone, consisting of  Gel   atin e,                          14
Mineral matter, 9, I1'4'b
— 154 Ib.
But the  blood which  is to  sustain  the substance of the
body is itself included in the above general composition of
the  whole  man.   This blood  weighs, in  the  liquid  state
nearly twenty pounds in a healthy full-grown average man, *
and it consists very nearly ofWater,..5.  lb.
Dry solid matter,....    4
-20 lb.
And this dry solid matter containsFibrin, albumen, &c.,....     4 lb.
Fat and a little sugar,....     0222
Mineral matter, about...      0'111
48383 lb.
Deducting  this from  the  dried  body as a whole, we haveIn the body which is to be sustained.   lb.  In the blood which sustains it.    lb.
Flesh, skin, and gelatine, without  17888   Fibrin, albumen, &.,.   4
mineral matter,
Fat and a little starch,.. 5777       Fat and a little sugar,.   0222
Mineral matter,... 10        Mineral matter,..   0111
833666                                4.333
The flesh, skin, &c., of the body are formed and sustained
by means of the fibrin  and albumen of the blood.   The  fat
and  mineral matter of the  latter  also  directly supply  the
want of these substances in the body. The arteries convey
these different forms of nutritious food to all parts of the
body. There they are taken up by the minuter vessels to
which this labour is intrusted, and by them they are conveyed to the precise points where they happen severally to
be required.
It will strike the reader who compares the absolute
* See CaRPENTER's 1itoman Physiolog.. Fourth Edition, p. 184.




USES OF THE BLOOD.               309
quantity of dry matter contained in the blood with that
which forms the body, how very small a store of food the
animal carries within itself. The blood contains by weight
only one-eighth of the dry matter of the body, so that the
strength of the latter could be sustained only for a very short
period without supplies from other sources.
And yet, though the strength must fail, it is remarkable
how long life will cling to the wasting body. An animal does
not die of starvation till it has lost two-fifths of its weight,
and more than a third of its heat.  The lamp of life continues slowly and faintly to burn.  It expires at last, partly
from the failure of fuel, and partly from stoppage of the circulation by the increasing coldness of the extremities. ButSecond,-The blood enables the body, without loss of
substance, to discharge those functions on which its life depends. And it is in considering how much is implied in
this duty of the blood, that the necessity of constant and
large supplies of food from without becomes most apparent.
While man lives he breathes and moves. What demand
for nutritive matter does the exhibition of these characteristic appearances of life involve?
In the preceding chapter we have seen that the animal
eats a large portion'of food in order that it may combine
with the oxygen taken in by the lungs, and then be breathed
away again in the form of carbonic acid and water. But
before it can so combine with oxygen, it must be digested
and conveyed into the blood. Thus it may be said with
truth, that we digest in order that we may breathe.
And as this breathing is continually going on, the blood
must as constantly supply the materials out of which the
carbonic acid and water may be produced. But that it
may do so without lessening its own substance, new streams
of chyle must be ever flowing into it, and new food digested,
that this chyle may be formed.  Hence the necessity and




310       WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
use of that large quantity of starch or fat which a full-grown
man must daily eat if he is to continue to breathe, and yet
retain the weight of his body undiminished.
Again, the living man moves. Look at him externally,
and he is never wholly at rest. Internally, could we look
at him, he is everywhere and always in motion. Even when
sunk in sleep, there is scarcely an organ of his body which,
if not moving itself, is not the seat of incessant motion.
Now it is believed that every movement of the body-every
stirring of the limb-every change, for example, in the position of my fingers as I write-every involuntary beating
of my heart- every thought that passes through my brain
-is accompanied by a change of matter greater or less in
quantity at the particular spot where the movement takes
place. A portion of the substance of the muscle, of the
bone, of the heart, of the brain, becomes chemically changed
-oxidised probably- unfit, therefore, for the position it
previously occupied as a part of the perfect body. All this
altered or waste matter is continually undergoing removal
through the veins, and its place is as continually supplied by
new matter extracted from the arterial blood.
That all bodily movement is attended by waste of the
bodily substance is a received opinion. But whether such
movement is or is not its true cause, the waste itself is certain. An animal, when fasting, will lose from a fourteenth
to a twelfth of its whole weight in twenty-four hours. This
loss does not fall altogether upon the fat, but extends also
in part to the tissues and general substance of the body. It
is so great that the whole blood is unable altogether to replace it. Scarcely, therefore, is the stomach of an animal
empty, when it begins already to feed upon itself.
But even when an animal is fully fed, so that it can discharge the requisite quantity of carbonic acid from its lungs
without in any way -feeding upon itself, still, as I have said,




WASTE OF TIIE BODY.              311
a waste and renewal of the tissues and substance of the body
everywhere goes on. It matters not whether this waste is a
consequence of the perpetual movement of its parts, or arises
from some other cause. It is known to proceed so rapidly
that the whole body is now believed to be renewed in an
average period of not more than thirty days! Of course
the rapidity of the general change of substance varies with
the individual, his habits, his food, and his employment.
The several parts of the body, also, will probably waste
with different degrees of rapidity. If the amount of movement or labour performed by each part, for example, be the
measure of the degree of waste-then, where much thinking
is done, the brain will be more speedily renewed-where
much bodily toil is undergone, the muscles called into
action by the kind of toil will be oftenest changed and rebuilt-and where listless indolence and inactivity possess
both body and mind, muscles and nerves alike will partake
of a correspondingly slow change of substance.
Thus it may be said again, and with equal truth, that
man digests in order that he may snove; or he digests
that be may repair the constant waste which is ascribed to
the restlessness of the material particles which compose his
ever-moving body. This waste the blood makes up; and
the process of internal cooking must be continually going
on in order that the blood may be able to discharge this
duty without causing any permanent loss of substance to
the body itself.
The questions we proposed to ourselves at the commencement of the present chapter are now answered.
What we digest consists essentially of the starch, fat,
gluten, and mineral matter, which, as we have seen in a
previous chapter, all varieties of nutritious food contain in
greater or less proportion.
As to how we digest, it is through the united agency of the




312        WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
warmth of the body-of a curiously constructed alimentary
canal and its appended organs-and of various chemical substances poured into the food from the sides of this canal, and
from its subsidiary organs.
And the purpose for which we digest is, more immediately, to pour into the thoracic duct and absorbent veins
the materials for the production of blood: but, more remotely, to build up the full-grown living man, and to enable
him to breathe, move, and perform all the functions necessary to life, without sensible or permanent loss of his own
substance.
These three most interesting questions I have answered
with special reference to the constitutional history of man.
Were they asked in reference to other races of animals, the
answers to the first two would be somewhat different. In fact,
the nature of the food-of the thing to be digested-determines the form of the apparatus in which the digestion takes
place, and also, in some degree, the chemical substances by
which it is promoted.  Thus in the carnivorous races,living upon flesh, which is more easily converted into chyle
-the stomach is small, and the alimentary canal comparatively short. But in herbivorous animals the canal is long,
and the stomach large, and sometimes complicated in structure. In such as ruminate or chew the cud, this is particularly the case, as may be seen in the following figure, which
represents the fourfold stomach of the sheep. In the case
of this animal, the food which is cropped or swallowed
hastily passes unchewed into the large first stomach or
paunch. Here it is moistened with a fluid admixture, and
when required, is passed on to the second stomach, and thence
back to the mouth to be masticated.  When chewed it is
swallowed again, and proceeds at once to the third stomach
or many-plies, and thence forward to the fourth stomach or
reed, where the true gastric juice is mixed with it. From




DIGESTION IN OTHERt ANIMALS.           313
this latter it passes, as in man, through the pylorus into the
intestines, which are greatly longer than in man.
Fig. 108.
(Esophagus 
Gardisa
ad Stomach.5   I
X0U2      ~
The reason of all this complication in the digestive apparatus of the ruminating animal, is the difficulty of grinding down, and then of extracting, the whole of the nutritive
matter from the kind of vegetable food on which the animal
lives. Hence the food is longer detained in the alimentary
canal, and is subjected to a more thorough process of subdivision and exhaustion, before it is allowed to escape from
the body.
The chemistry of comparative digestion is indeed rich
in interest and instruction; and, did my space permit,
it were easy to multiply illustrations of the way in which
the instruments and means of digestion are adapted in every
animal to the circumstances in which it is placed, and to the
habits of life in which it is intended to indulge.
VOL. I.- 14




314        WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST.
In all animals, however, the end or purpose of digestion
is the same,-to provide materials for building up its body
to a full size, and afterwards for enabling it to discharge its
various living functions, without permanent loss of its own
weight or substance.




CHAPTER  XXXI.
THE BODY WE CHERISH.
The body and its habits an assemblage of chemical wonders.-Change of the food in
its passage from the mouth to the lacteals.-Globules or corpuscles of the chyle.The blood corpuscles; their form and composition.-Mineral matter within and
without the corpuscles.-The corpuscle is an independent microcosm.-Selecting
power of the parts of the body.-How  the whole system is kept in working
order.-Activity of the vessels which remove waste matter.-Change of the
capacity of the blood for heat in passing through the lungs.-How this affects the
warmth of the body.-Other provisions for comfortable warmth.-Craving for
special kinds of food. —How this is artificially met.-The nature of the water we
drink may modify natural cravings and natural diet.-The potato and water of
Ireland.-Instinctive choice of beverages and condiments.-Case of salt; how
instinct regulates the use of this substance.-Examples in South-western Africa
and in Siberia.-Susceptibility of the body to the action of very minute portions
of matter.-The narcotics, the beverages, the odours, and the miasms.-Infiuence
of light upon the body.-The structure, functions, and special composition of the
grey and white parts of the brain.-The rete mucosum.-The chemistry of all
parts of the body deserving of intelligent and reverential study.
NEARLY all the functions and habits, natural and acquired,
the chemical history of which has formed the subject of the
preceding chapters, have a relation more or less direct with
the welfare and comfort of the body. Besides ministering
to its necessary wants, we nourish and fondly cherish it.
And in attempting to pleasure and pamper, we often injure it.
This arises from our possessing, for the most part, too imperfect a knowledge of its vital wants and  functions.   We




316             THE BODY WE CHERISII.
are too little familiar, also, with the substances we daily use
or occasionally indulge in, or with which, in external nature,
we cannot avoid coming into contact. And with this ignorance of the things themselves, is necessarily associated a
similar ignorance of the effects they are likely to produce
upon the system.
This want of knowledge is by no means surprising, seeing that the whole grown-up man-the body and its habits
together-may be described as an assemblage of chemical
wonders. Besides the main features in his chemical history
which have been already illustrated, there are a thousand
others of a less general kind, the study of which is not only
rich in the discovery of wise contrivances, so to speak, but
is pregnant also with practical. instruction. To some of
these minor points I propose to devote the present chapter.
We have already seen how many curious circumstances
attend the food in its progress from the mouth to the bloodvessels. The teeth grind it fine, and the tongue mixes it
with the saliva. The saliva, on the watch to be useful,
rushes out and makes the mouth water whenever savoury
food is spoken or even thought of. It flows most copiously,
however, while we chew and while we are digesting. In doing so, the saliva not only moistens and seasons the food, but
mixes up with it the substance ptyalin, which converts its
starch into sugar, and is essential to the healthy progress of
digestion   Then from the coats of the stomach exudes the
gastric juice-also most copiously when there is most work
to do.  This fluid brings with it the peculiar substance
pepsin, which renders soluble the gluten and flesh of the
food. When this solution is accomplished, the gastric juice
ceases to flow, and the liquid food moves forward to the
smaller intestines.  Here the sour chyme is mixed with three
fluids which are waiting its approach. A valve opens, and
the bile comes out to meet the food-a juice flows forward




CHMEIISTRY OF INCIPIENT BLOOD.                 317
from the pancreas, like a new saliva-and from the surface
of the intestines, as it passes along, a third liquid issues to
temper and chemically change it,. The chyle, now milky
and alkaline, is taken up by the lacteals. These minute
vessels are distributed along the whole course of the intestines, extracting, at every step in its progress, new portions
or constituents from the food, mixing them altogether as the
vessels meet in the glandular knots, and pouring the mixture
into the one common reservoir-the thoracic duct. And to
insure a thorough extraction of all feeding matter, a new
change takes place when the food descends into the larger
intestines. It becomes acid again, and delivers to the still
busy lacteals new materials with which to give the final tempering to the milky chyle as it flows towards the true bloodvessels.
All this has been explained. But it will amply repay
us if we follow a little further the chemistry of this incipient
blood.
Fig. 109.             Fig. 110.             Fig. 111.
00                                  0
1o)
109. "The human red corpuscle, showing its natural form and appearance when
brought fully into focus, in which case the centre always appears light. Scattered
over the field are seen one or two white corpuscles (b)."
110. " The same seen united into rolls, as of miniature money in appearance."
111. "The blood corpuscles of the elephant, red and white, which are the largest
hitherto discovered among the Mammalia." All magnified 670 times.-(From HtAsSALL'S Microscopic Anatomy).
Seen  under the microscope, the milky contents of the




318             THE BODY WE CHERISH.
thoracic duct have very much the appearance of blood
Numberless rounded discs present themselves, which, by
their peculiar granulated appearance, are recognised as the
colourless corpuscles which characterise the blood (fig. 109b).
As soon as these enter the veins, however, and are thence
driven over the lungs, they become coloured.  By some unknown chemical action of the oxygen which they absorb in
the lungs, they are made to assume a red colour, and are no
longer distinguishable from the true red corpuscles of the
blood.
Digestion may now be said to be completed, and true
blood is formed. This blood is itself a most interesting
study. Under the microscope the blood of man and other
mammiferous animals is seen to consist of minute flattened
disc-like bodies (corpuscles) of a red colour, floating in a
colourless liquid. These bodies vary in size and shape in
different animals. Those of man have an average diameter
of 1-3200th of an inch, and a thickness of 1-12,400th, being
larger than those of any of our domestic animals, (figs. 109
and 110). Those of the elephant are the largest yet known
among mammals, (fig 111).  In oviparous vertebrates they
are oval in form, and in the frog much larger than in man.
When dried, they form, in man, on an average, about 13 per
cent of the whole weight of the newly-drawn blood. In a
moist state they form a little more then half its weight.
They consist of an outer husk or skin enclosing a coloured
fluid, in the centre of which a minute kernel, or nucleus, is
seen, while they are still young. When fully formed, this
nucleus disappears.  The fluid of the corpuscles contains
the colouring matter of the blood (hemnatin), particles of fat,
a colourless substance (globtulin), which belongs to the same
class of chemical compounds as gluten, albumen, and fibrin,
and a portion of saline matter.  Among the most interesting




THE BLOOD AND ITS CORPUSCLES.             319
facts connected with the corpuscles is the relation which this
saline matter bears in kind to that of the whole blood.
We have already seen that the blood contains a consider.
able proportion of saline or mineral matter; so that, when
dry blood is burned, it leaves about 5 per cent of ash. More
than half of this ash (57 per cent) is common salt; the rest
consists of potash, soda, lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, phosphoric acid, and sulphuric acid. Of these substances the
potash, the phosphoric acid, and the iron, are principally
contained in the corpuscles; while the common salt especially
abounds in the colourless liquid or serum in which the corpuscles are seen to float.
Countless absorbent vessels are continually bringing new
liquids, and pouring them into the blood, and almost as
many are continually removing from the blood certain portions of its contents, and yet this relative position of its
saline constituents is continually maintained. The thin husk
which envelopes the corpuscles allows some of these substances to pass abundantly into the interior, while others of
them it in a great measure excludes. This separation is
probably effected with a view to the after-formation of flesh,
since the animal flesh agrees with the corpuscles of its blood
in containing much potash and phosphoric acid, with comparatively little common salt..It is very interesting to observe how, in so important a
fluid as the blood, the several substances it contains thus
eparate themselves into distinct groups with a view to
after uses. Each corpuscle is, in fact, a minute microcosm,
within which changes chemical, and perhaps vital, take place,
independent, in a sense, of all around it. At the same time,
a jealous discriminating power, as it were, guards it around,
by which this substance is admitted, and that one refused
a passage through the pores of its encircling membrane.*
* This lends much countenance to the opinion of John Hunter, still entertained by
physiologists, that parts of the blood really live.




320             THE BODY WE CHERISH.
But, indeed, a discrimination of this kind appears to re
side in all parts of the body. All are endowed with the
power of selecting from the universally nourishing blood the
chemical compounds which are specially required for the
formation of their own substance, or the discharge of their
special functions.  Thus the bones specially select and appropriate phosphate of lime, while the muscles take phosphate of magnesia and phosphate of potash.  The cartilages
build in soda, in preference to potash. The bones and teeth
specially extract fluorine. Silica is almost monopolised by
the hair, skin, and nails of man, and by the horns, hair,
and feathers of animals. Iron abounds chiefly in the colouring matter of the blood (hematin), in the black pigment
of the eye, and in the hair. Sulphur exists largely in the
hair, and phosphorus in the brain. Thus, to each part of
the body certain chemical substances seem to be most specially appropriated, and to each part a peculiar and special power has been given of selecting out of the common
storehouse those materials which suit it best to work
withal.
And what is still more admirable, the formation and renewal of each part of the body serves the definite purpose
of preparing the blood for the production or renewal of the
next part it visits as it flows along. Thus the blood is continually changing as-it proceeds in its course, leaving and
taking up something at every new spot, and by these changes
being always rendered more fit for the next duty it has to
perform —(PAGET).
Nor is it less interesting to observe how every function
of the body is on the alert, as it were, to keep the whole
system in working order.
That the blood may subserve its various uses, its natural
composition, though continually changing, as I have said,
must not be materially altered. It may vary in composition




CHEMICAL CHANGES OF THE BLOOD.          321
within certain small limits; but when changed beyond these
limits, the functions of the whole body begin to be deranged.
Hence such a change is carefully provided against.
If,, for example, much water is poured into the stomach,
the chyle is diluted, and the lacteals convey a thin fluid to
the blood-vessels, and the blood itself becomes more watery
than usual. But instantly to remedy this, the lungs, the
skin, and the kidneys of the healthy man become more active,
the excess of water is carried off, and the blood is thickened
again to its usual condition. And so some kinds of food
tend to increase the quantity of fat in the blood; others
that of albumen; others that of common salt, &e., beyond
the average proportion; but the ever ready removers begin
their more active work before any such excess becomes
sensible in the healthy man, and continue it till the natural
condition is restored.
But the unsleeping activity of the.vessels which remove
from the blood what it ought nowhere to contain in very
sensible proportion, is most remarkably shown by the rapidity with which they carry off those refuse substances which
are derived from the natural Waste of the tissues. The lacteals are continually conveying new materials to the blood,
to rebuild the wasting portions of the body.  Of course the
changed substance of the wasted tissues is poured into the
blood quite as fast. But so diligent are the vessels and
organs whose duty it is to remove this now useless matter,
that mere traces of it only can ever be detected in the blood
of a healthy man. The kidneys, especially, are on the alert
to pick it up, to hurry it away from the blood as rapidly as
it appears, and to discharge it by way of the urine.  The
kidneys are thus the chief cleansers of the vital fluid. In
immediate importance to life they stand next to the lungs.
We may cease for days to carry food into the body without
serious injury to life; but let the removers intermit their
VOL. I'I. 14*




322             TTHE BODY WE CHERISH.
operations for a single day, and the blood would become
loaded with poison, and the animal precipitated into dangerous disease.
I cannot dismiss this study of the blood without adverting to another refinement in its chemical history, which is
intimately connected with the comfortable continuance of
animal life. The sensible and chemical changes which it
undergoes during its passage over the lungs have been sufficiently explained in a preceding chapter. Driven from the
heart to the lungs, it diffuses itself over the' cell-walls, passing through the minute blood-vessels, which, like a delicate
lace work, every where overspread them. It enters these
vessels as dark coloured venous blood. It gives off, as it
flows, carbonic acid and watery vapour, and absorbs oxygen
gas. It leaves them as bright red arterial blood; and the
physiological purpose of this change is, that the warmth of
the body may be kept up.
The production of heat in the blood during this passage
over the lungs is believed to be nearly in proportion to the
quantity of oxygen absorbed; and, as in the burning of
wood or coal outside of the body the heat is produced and
becomes sensible at the spot where the oxygen disappears and
carbonic acid and water are formed, so we should expect it
to be inside of the body-that is to say, that within the
animal the heat should be produced and become sensible in
the lungs, because there the oxygen is taken in and the carbonic acid given off.
But were this the case, the lungs should always be at a
higher temperature than the rest of the body; and being
thus sensibly warmer, much of the heat should be wasted
before the flowing blood could distribute it over the distant
parts of the body.
To prevent these apparently necessary evils, the blood,
as it assumes its bright red colour, is in some unknown way




PRODUCTION OF ANIMAL HEAT.            323
caused to undergo at the same time a remarkable change in
its capacity for heat.
By the specific heat of bodies, or their capacity for heat,
is meant the comparative quantity of heat which is necessary
to raise the sensible temperature of a given weight of any
substance a given number of degrees; and I have elsewhere*
illustrated this by stating that the same quantity of heat
which will make a pound of water warmer by one degree,
will make a pound of quicksilver warmer by thirty degrees.
This means and shows that water requires thirty times as
much heat to warm it up to a certain temperature as quicksilver does.  In other words, the specific heat, or capacity
for heat, of water is thirty times greater than that of quicksilver.
Now, as the blood passes through the lungs its capacity
for heat is somehow increased. It becomes capable of absorbing one-seventh more heat than it already contains,
without increasing in sensible temperature.t The average
warmth of the blood is about 980 Fahr. We do not know
how much heat it quiresac to raise a pound of venous blood
to this degree of warmth; but whatever the quantity may
be, it acquires at once, by passing through the lungs, the
property of absorbing about one-seventh more, without becoming warmer than 980 Fahr. Thus the heat produced in
the lungs by the absorption of the oxygen is immediately
taken up and hidden, as it were, in the blood. The lungs
are not over-heated and inflamed, but the bright red arterial
blood becomes a storehouse of concealed warmth, which it
carries with it to all parts of the body. In its progress towards the extremities, it gradually loses this large capacity
for heat. The warmth previously hid in it gradually becomes
* See Tir WATER WE DRINe, p. 27.
1 If the specific heat of water be called 1000, that of venous blood is 892, and that
of arterial blood 1030, or upwards of one-seventh part more.-CRAWFORD.




324'THE BODY WE CHERISH.
sensible, so that, before it returns to the lungs again, it nas
imparted, by little and little, to the various remote parts of
the body, a large quantity of sensible heat, without itself becoming sensibly colder.
Yet even this beautiful adaptation of the properties of
the blood to the general warmth of the animal is not considered enough to secure its healthy and comfortable temperature against all contingencies.  Should the blood flow
too languidly through the lungs to carry off all the surplus
heat naturally produced there, or should too much heat become sensible in the lungs from any other cause, it is expended in the production of watery vapour, and breathed out
into the air; or should external warmth or bodily exercise
add materially to the natural and necessary heat produced
by the internal changes already described, the water of the
system again takes it up, and, escaping from the body in
vapour, dissipates it through the atmosphere. How abundant the pores or openings are by which an outlet for this
vapour through the skin has been provided, I have already
shown in a preceding chapter.*
So numerous, so interesting, and so provident are the
structural, physical, and chemical arrangements for produ.
cing, for storing up, for economising, and for tempering the
warmth of the human body!
Not less rich in curious chemical phenomena are the
natural cravings of the animal appetite for special kinds of
food. The formation of blood, and the maintenance of the
animal heat, require the introduction into the stomach of
certain chemical forms of matter —gluten, fat, starch, &c.,
in certain proportions.  If for a length of time these proportions be disregarded, first the comfort of the animal suffers,
and, subsequently, its health. Such changes often proceed
slowly, and become sensible only after many years elapse;
* See WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR, P. 560.




IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY OF WATER.           325
but the feeblest derangements make themselves felt at last,
so as seriously to affect the constitutions of whole families
and tribes of men.
It is very striking, therefore, to observe how, by a kind
of natural instinct, the inhabitants of every country have
contrived to mix up and adjust the several kinds of food
within, their reach, so as to attain precisely the same physiological end. The Irishman mixes cabbage with his potatoes,
the Englishman bacon with his beans, or milk and eggs with
his rice, and the Italian rich cheese with his maccaroni.  So
oil or cream is eaten with salad, and butter or oil everywhere
with bread. These, and other methods mentioned in previous
chapters, exhibit so many purely chemical ways of preparing mixtures nearly similar to each other in composition
and nutritive value. In the most rude diet, and in the
luxuries of the most refined table, the main cravings of animal nature are never lost sight of. Besides the first taste
in the mouth, there is an after taste of the digestive organs,
which requires to be satisfied. An indifferent cook may
gratify the first; he is no mean physiological chemist who
can at the same time fully satisfy the second.
Even the water we drink is an important element in a
well-considered and long-adjusted diet. It by no means
follows in all cases, perhaps not even in the majority, that
the purest water is the best for the health of a given family,
or for the population of a given district.  The bright sparkling hard waters, which gush out in frequent springs from
our chalk and other limestone rocks, are relished to drink,
not merely because they are grateful to the eye, but because
there is something exhilarating in the excess of carbonic
acid they contain and- give off as they pass through the
warm mouth and throat; and because the lime they hold
in solution removes acid matters from the stomach, and thus
acts as a grateful medicine to the system. To abandon the




326               THE BODY WE- CHERISH.
use of such a water, and to drink daily in its stead one entirely free from  mineral matter, so far from improving, may
generally injure the individual or local health.
And so the nature of the water of a country may even
have something to do with the choice of a national diet.
The human body, for example, requires a certain proportion
of lime to be contained in or mixed with its food. If the
common diet do not contain a sufficient proportion of this
mineral ingredient, the common water of the country may
supply the deficiency; and thus a national mode-of living
may spring up, the salutary properties of which depend
partly upon the food and partly upon the water. In another
district or country, where the drinking-water is different,
the same solid food, eaten alone, may be unsuited for the
maintenance of health.
Ireland presents us with a case in which this state of
things appears to exist.  The potato has become in a sense
the national food of Ireland.* This root contains larger
proportions of potash and soda, but much less of lime, and
other necessary mineral ingredients, than either wheat or
oats, which are the staples of English and Scottish life.
But the greater part of Ireland is covered with a broad
limestone formation, which inpregnates with lime the springs
and other waters employed for domestic purposes; so that
the mineral contents of what they drink, supply the natural
deficiency in what they eat! In this way it will appear
that the reasons for the adoption of a peculiar national diet
may lie much deeper than political economy can generally
go. It may depend upon refined chemico-physiological and
* In 1854 Ireland grew about 1,000,000 acres of potatoes, and 2,000,000 acres of
oats. But suppose all the oats to be consumed in Ireland, which is far from being
the case, one acre of potatoes gives more food for man than two acres of oats;t so that
the potato is still the prevailing or national food of Ireland.
t See the Author'sElements of Agriculturtal (Ce' mst/ry (nd G( o/ogy, 6th edit., p. 341.




NATIONAL BEVERAGES.               327
chemico-geological relations, the discovery of which we may
be very long indeed in arriving at.
It is the same with artificial beverages as with articles
of ordinary drink and diet. An unthought-of chemical instinct has guided men in the selection of these also. The
ancient Abyssinian and the modern Arabian had their coffee
-the Chinese and Tartars their tea-the South American
aborigines their mate —and the Mexicans their cocoa, ages
before any chemical knowledge existed as to the nature of
the substances contained in them.  What constitutional
cravings common to us all have prompted to such singularly uniform results! Through how vast an amount of unrecorded individual experiences must these results have been
arrived at!
And so with what we call condiments,\ similar instincts
have their play. The wild buffalo frequents the salt-licks
of North-western America; the wild animals in the central
parts of Southern Africa are a sure prey to the hunter who
conceals himself beside a salt spring; and our domestic
cattle run peacefully to the hand that oFPrs them a taste of
this delicious luxury. From time immemorial it bhas been
known that without salt man would miserably perish; and
among horrible punishments, entailing certain death, that
of feeding culprits on saltless food is said to have prevailed
in barbarous times. Maggots and corruption are spoken of
by ancient writers as the distressing symptoms which saltless
food engenders; but no ancient or unchemical modern could
explain how such sufferings arose. Now we know why the
animal craves salt, why it suffers discomfort, and why it
ultimately falls into disease, if salt is for a time withheld.
Upwards of half the saline matter of the blood (57 per cent)
consists of common salt; and as this is partly discharged
every day through the skin and the kidneys, the necessity
of continued supplies of it to the healthy body becomes suf



328                 THE BODY WE CHERISH.
ficiently obvious. The bile also contains soda as a special
and indispensable constituent, and so do all the cartilages
of the body.  Stint the supply of salt, therefore, and neither
will the bile be able properly to assist the digestion, nor the
cartilages to be built up again as fast as they naturally waste.
And yet what shows this craving for salt to arise out of
a refined species of instinct, similar to that which may have
fixed the national food of Ireland, is the fact that neither
man nor animals are every where eager for or even fond of
salt.  Mungo Park describes salt as "the greatest of ali
luxuries in central Africa." "  But the Damaras, in Southwestern Africa, never take salt by any chance; and even
Europeans, travelling in their country, never feel the want
of it.  "Half of this people lives solely on pig-nuts (?),
the most worthless and undigestible of food, and requiring
to be eaten in  excessive quantities to  afford nourishment
enough to support life."-(GALTON).  Their neighbours, the
Namaquas, set no store by salt; the Hottentots of Walfisch
Bay "hardly ever take the trouble to collect it; " and even
the wild " game in the Swakop do not frequent the salt rocks
to lick them, as they do in America." t
In the colds of Siberia, also, as in the heats of Africa,
a similar disregard of salt sometimes prevails. " Most of
the Russians at Berezov eat their food without a particle of
salt, though that condiment can easily be obtained at a tri.
fling cost; a sufficient quantity of it being always kept at
the government magazine, and sold at a moderate price.
* " It would appear strange to a European to see a child suck a piece of rock salt,
as if it were sugar. This, however, I have frequently seen; although in the inland
parts the poorer class of inhabitants are so very rarely indulged with this precious
article, that to say a man eats salt with his victuals, is the same as saying he is a
rich man. I have myself suffered great inconvenience from the scarcity of this
article. The long use of vegetable food creates so painful a longing for salt, that no
words can sufficiently describe it." —MNGo PARK.
t Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. By FRANCes GALOTON,
Esq. P. 183.




ODOURS AND MIASMS.                329
Indeed, were the price of salt even much higher, it could
make no difference to the wealthier class of the inhabitants,
who can so well afford every indulgence, and procure for
their table the most expensive luxuries. But salt is not at
all in use, and hence I am led to the conclusion that their
taste is such as not to require with their food that condiment, which is every where else considered indispensable.
Their soups, vegetables, and even roast meats, are prepared
and eaten without salt." *
The explanation of these cases, so inconsistent with our
general experience, is found in the refined instinct of the
body itself.  When the food we usually eat conveys a sufficiency of salt into the body, it has no occasion for more.
It therefore feels no craving for it, shows no liking to it, and
takes no trouble to obtain it. And doubtless, in the kind
of food and drink consumed in the Damara country, and by
the Russians of Berezov, either more salt than is usual
among us is conveyed into the stomach, or their habits
render less salt necessary to them, or cause less of it to be
daily removed from their bodies.
Nor is the refined delicacy of the instinctive perception
of the living body, in this case, more wonderful than that
marvellously delicate susceptibility to the influence of
minute quantities of matter which we have seen it to be in
so many instances capable of displaying.  The narcotics
which exercise so remarkable a power over us act upon the
system in quantities which are inappreciably small. The'
beverages we prepare exhilarate and strengthen by almost
infinitesimal doses of the active ingredients they contain.
The odours we enjoy come floating to the nostrils in molecules of inconceivable minuteness and tenuity; while neither
by weight nor by measure can we estimate the fatal miasmata
which carry fever and plague wherever they penetrate.
Revelations of Siberia. By a Banished Lady. Vol. Ii. p. 195.




330             THE BODY WE CHERISH.
Equally delicate and mysterious is the relation which
our bodies bear to the passing light.  How our feelings,
and even our appearance, change with every change of the
sky! When the sun shines, the blood flows freely, and the
spirits are light and buoyant. When gloom overspreads the
heavens, dulness and sober thoughts possess the mind. The
energy is greater, the body is actually stronger, in the bright
light of day; while the health is manifestly promoted, digestion hastened, and the colour made to play on the cheek,
when the rays of sunshine are allowed freely to sport
around us.
Want of space forbids me to advert at length to the
solid materials of which the most important organs of the
body consists.  Yet the chemistry of these is every where
equally delicate and refined. How wonderful, for example,
the varying colour of that soft pulpy gelatinous matter
(corpsus papillare) which rests on the mucous net-work (rete
mucosum) between our outer and inner skins (see fig. 100).
Black in the African negro, red in the North American
Indian, yellow in the Asiatic, and white in the European,
it gives the characteristic colour to each race of men.  It is
structurally the same in all, but for wise ends, it differschemically in each, so as to adapt each race for the conditions in which it is destined to live. And so for other wise
ends, no doubt; but among these, to give beauty to the
female countenance, the pure white of the European neck
changes chemically again, and becomes the bright and blushing rose on the blooming maiden's cheek.
And then the brain, the distinctive organ of the human
race, what chemical novelties and peculiarities it exhibits.
Cut across the cerebrum, as shown in the annexed fig., 112,
it is seen to consist of a mass of white or medullary matter,
bordered towards the outer edge by little inlets of a grey
substance. In structure these two parts differ. The grey




COMPOSITION OF THE BLOOD.               331
Fig. 112.
~~~   ~ ~~~   ~Cereb~rum
Cerebellum
In the above illustration, the shaded parts represent the grey or brown
substance of the cerebrum.
matter consists of cells or vesicles grouped together in mass,
without any special arrangement.   The  white  portion,
again, consists of minute fibres, which proceed from  or terminate in the grey matter.  Then, as to function, the grey
matter, though so small in quantity, is supposed to be the
seat of the intellect, and the source of all nervous power.
Softenings, tumors, and abscesses, may exist in the white
part of the brain; a portion of it may even be extracted
without seriously or universally affecting the mental powers;
but compress the grey part ever so little, or otherwise alter
or disturb it, and you at the same time seriously interfere
with the processes of thought, and disturb the intellectual
sanity of the individual.
Then further as to chemical composition, the whole brain
and nervous tissue is distinguished  by containing a large
proportion of one or more peculiar fatty matters, in which
phosphorus is a characteristic ingredient.  And in each important part of the brain and nerves, the proportions of the




332               THE BODY WE CHERISH.
several ingredients differ from  that which prevails in the
other parts-no doubt that each may be better fitted to
perform its proper work. Thus the grey and white parts
of the cerebrum  contain respectively in a hundred partsWhite.     Grey.
Fat,...    20.18       5.96
Water,....    71.05        86.26
Albuminous matter,..     8.76      7.78
100       100
So that the proportion of fat in the white is nearly four
times as great as in the grey part, and that of water less in
a corresponding degree.  And again, the grey matter leaves
a larger per-centage of ash or mineral matter when burned,
and its fatty part contains more phosphorus.*   Similar
differences also prevail in the proportions of these constituents, both organic and mineral, in different portions of
the white matter of the brain itself, and of the numerous
nerves, at different periods of life, and when under the influence of different diseases-so that in this marrow-like
nervous matter chemical adjustments are to be found as
intricate and refined as in any other portions of our bodily
economy.
I could have wished also to advert to the construction
and chemical composition of the parts of the eye, to the
chemical as well as physical adaptation of these several parts
to the optical functions they perform, and to the composition
and use of the tears by which it is occasionally bedewed;
-to  the teeth, coated and often interwoven with a flinty
enamel of an altogether peculiar nature;-to the fluids that
moisten the nostrils and ears, or that flow from the fat cells
of the skin, each fluid chemically adjusted to its special
work; —and to many other topics of a similar kind connected
* The fatty matter of the grey part contains 2.1 per cent., and of the white part
1.66 per cent. of phosphorus.




THE BODY WE CHERISH.               333
with the chemistry of our everyday life.  It is sufficient for
my present purpose, however, to have shown that the molecular mechanism, so to call it, of the body we cherish, is
not less wonderful than its anatomical structure-and that
though a little more profound and difficult to comprehend,
it is not less worthy of being studied by the intelligent, the
cultivated, or the reverential mind.




CHAPTER XXXI1.
THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER,
A RECAPITULATION.
Employment of matter for successive uses; popular ideas regarding.-Shakespeare s
Hamlet.-Human saltpetre.-The circulation of water.-Ascent of vapour in
tropical regions.-Evaporation from the leaves of plants. —Expulsion from the
lungs and skin of animals.-Chemical circulation of water.-Circulation of carbon.
-Quantity of carbon in the atmosphere; how it is continually renewed.-Decay
of shed leaves and bark, and yearly ripening herbage.-Breathing of animals.Relations of air, plant, and animal, as regards this carbon.-Burying of carbon in
the earth; restoration to the air by the burning of coal.-Carbon confined in limestone rocks; how the earth breathes this out again.-Circulation of nitrogen.Gluten of plants. —Forms in which nitrogen exists in plants, in the soil, and in
animals.-Restlessness of matter within the animal body.-Rapid waste of the
tissues; agency of oxygen in this waste.-Production of urea; change of this in
the soil.-General scheme of the circulation of nitrogen; we cannot restrain it.How part of the nitrogen escapes, and revolves in a wider circle.
THAT the same portion of matter may, in the operations of
nature, be employed for various successive purposes, living
and  dead, has long  been  familiar  to  the  popular  mind.
Philosophers of almost every age have speculated on the
changes of matter, and poets have found scope for their imaginations on a subject at once so interesting and so indefinite. It is only from the results of modern scientific in.
vestigation, however, that clear and positive ideas have
been obtained as to the nature, the necessity, and the connection of these natural changes.  We now  know  not only




HUMAN SALTPETRE.                   335
that matter does constantly change, but that it constantly
circulates in a round of unceasing change.  It has been
shown that the transformations it undergoes are necessary
to the existing condition of things; that they take place in
a fixed and predetermined order; and that they are again
and again renewed in an endlessly revolving succession.
There is a degree of rude sublimity in' the curious
reasoning of Hamlet, when he says: "Alexander died;
Alexander was buried. Alexander returneth into dust;
the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that
loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beerbarrel?'Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O that that earth which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw I "'
And yet the matter-of-fact touch of modern knowledge
turns the whole of this into an absurd conceit. The body
of man crumbles into a handful of loose dust, it is true;
but this dust is not earth, of which we can make loam to
stop a gap or flaw withal; and thus, in the incorrectness of
his facts, we forget the merits of the poet.
More might be made by a true poet of the fact related
by Mr. Squier, that the Romish priests at Leon, in Nicaragua, sell the burial-ground around their churches, for the
use of their occupants, for periods of from ten to twentyfive years; " at the end of which time the bones, with the
earth around them, are removed and sold to the manufacturers of nitre."; So that to the unexpected, warlike, and
base use of making " villanous saltpetre," are the best and
most peaceful of the Nicaraguan citizens yearly converted.
The words of Shakespeare and the fact of Squier may
both suggest to us many reflections; but there is nothing
SQUIEsR' Nicaragua, vol. i. p. 384.




336           THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
positive in either of them, beyond the meagre moral, that
what forms part of the living, cherished, almost worshipped
body to-day, may be employed for most unexpected, and
what appear most vile, purposes to-morrow. This limited
truth formed the substance of all the ancients knew, and of
all the moderns could say, until very recently, regarding the
changes and future fate of the animal body after the living
spirit had left it.  But this branch of natural knowledge
has been so wonderfully illustrated by the researches of the
present and passing generations, that we can now follow the
same particle of matter through a long series of successive
visible transformations. To-day we can see it living in the
plant, to-morrow moving in the animal; next floating as a
constituent portion of the thin air, or rippling along as an
ingredient of the clear brook; then resting for a while in
the lifeless soil, waiting till the opportunity arrives for its
commencing a new career.
It will not, I believe, be without interest to my readers,
after perusing the details of the preceding chapters, if I
briefly recapitulate in this place the substance of what has
been already stated in regard to the changes of matter;what is the nature of the transformations it undergoes; by
what agencies they are brought about; and for what important end. I shall begin with the simple, and advance to the
more complicated.
I. THE CIRCULATION OF WATER.-The simplest form
of the circulation of matter is that which is presented by
the watery vapour contained in the atmosphere.  From this
vapour the dews and rains are formed which refresh the
scorched plant and fertilise the earth. The depth of dew
which falls we cannot estimate. On summer evenings it
appears in hazy mists, and collects on leaf and twig in
sparkling pearls; but at early dawn it vanishes again un



CIRCULATION OF WATER.              337
measured-partly sucked in by plant and soil, and partly
dispelled by the youngest sunbeams.  But the yearly rainfall is easily noted. In our island it averages about thirty
inches in depth; and in Western Europe generally, it is
seldom less than twenty inches.  Among our' Cumberland
mountains in some places a fall of two hundred inches a year
is not uncommon; while, among the hills near Calcutta, as
much as five hundred and fifty inches sometimes fall within
six months.
Now, as the whole of the watery vapour in the air, were
it to fall at once in the form of rain, would not cover the
entire surface of the earth to a depth of more than five
inches-(Dr. PRoUT)-how repeated must the rise and fall
of this watery vapour be! To keep the air always duly
moist, and yet to maintain the constant and necessary
descent of dew and rain, the invisible rush of water upwards
must be both great and constant.
The ascent of water in this invisible form is often immediate and obvious, depending solely upon physical causes.
But it is often also indirect; and, being the result of chemical or physiological causes, is less generally perceptible.
Thus10. Water circulates abundantly between earth and air
through the agency of purely physical causes. We see this
when a summer shower, falling upon our paved streets, is
speedily licked up again by the balmy winds, and wafted
towards the region of clouds, ready for a new fall. But, on
the greatest scale, this form of circulation takes place from
the surface of the sea in equatorial regions, heated through
the influence of the sun's rays. Thence streams of vapour
are continually mounting upwards with the currents of ascending air, and with these they travel north and south till
colder climates precipitate them in dew rain, or snow.
Returned to the arctic or temperate seas by many running
VOL. II.-15




338           THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
streams, these precipitated waters are carried back again to
the equator by those great sea-rivers which mysteriously
traverse all oceans, and, when there, are ready to rise again
to repeat the same revolution. How often, since time began,
may the waters which cover the whole earth have thus traversed air and sea, taking part in the endless movements of
inanimate nature!
2~. Again, physiological causes, though in a less degree
than the physical, are still very largely influential in causing
this watery circulation.
Thus the dew and rain which fall, sink in part into the
soil, and are thence drunk in by the roots of growing plants.
-But these plants spread out their green leaves into the dry
air, and from  numberless pores are continually exhaling
watery vapour in an invisible form.  From the leafy surface
of a single acre in crop, it is calculated that from three to
five millions of pounds of water are yearly exhaled in the
form of vapour in our island; while, on an average, not more
than two and a half millions fall in rain.  Whether the
surplus thus given off be derived from dews or springs, it is
plain that this evaporation from the leaves of plants is one
of the more important forms which the circulation of water
assumes.
So animals take into their stomachs another portion of
the same water, and, as a necessary function of life, are
continually returning it into the air from their lungs and
their insensibly reeking hides. About two pounds a day are
thus discharged into the air by a full-grown man, and larger
animals give off more probably in proportion to their size.
Multiply this quantity by the number of animals which
occupy the land surface of the globe, and the sum will show
that this also is a form of watery circulation which, though
less in absolute amount than the others I have mentioned, is
yet of much importance in the economy of nature.




CHEMICAL CIRCULATION.              339
3~. But water circulates also, in consequence of unceasing chemical operations, in a way which, if less obvious to
the uninstructed, is, if possible, more beautiful and more in
teresting than the mere physical methods above described.
We have seen that the main substance of plants-their
woody fibre-consists in large proportion of water. The
same is true of the starch and sugar which we eat as food.
One hundred pounds of each of these three substances consist respectively ofWoody fibre.  Starch and sugar.
Water,.  55             60
Carbon,               444           40
100           100
Now, as the plant grows, water from the soilb or from the air
unites chemically with carbon, and forms the woody fibre of
its stem, the sugar of its sap, and the starch of its seed.
When the plant dies and decomposes in the air, the water is
again set free from its woody stem. Or when the animal
digests the starch or sugar, the water which these contain is
discharged from its lungs and skin.
Thus the living plant works up water into its growing
substance, which water the decaying plant and the breathing
animal again set free; and thus a chemical circulation continually goes on, by which the same water is caused again
and again to revolve. Within a single hour it may be in
the form of starch in my hand, be discharged as watery
vapour from my lungs, and be again absorbed by the thirsty
leaf to add to the substance of a new plant.
II. THE CIRCULATION OF CARBON. —This chemical form
of water-circulation will be rendered more clear by tracing
the still more beautiful circulation of carbon.
Carbonic acid gas is now familiar to my readers as that
sparkling air which, rising in countless bubbles, gives life




340             THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
to the creaming tankard, to the tempting champagne, and to
the more innocent soda water. This gas, as I have already
explained, consists of carbon and oxygen only, and is an
essential constituent of our atmosphere.   It exists, it is
true, only in small proportion in the air. Every two thousand five hundred gallons of the air at the level of the sea
contain only one gallon of the gas; yet upon the constant
presence of this small proportion, the continuance of all
vegetable life depends.
This dependence appears more striking to us, however,
the more precise our ideas become as to the absolute quantity of this substance which the entire air contains. The
whole weight of the atmosphere is about 15 lb. to the square
inch, and of this the carbonic forms somewhat less than 120
grains, containing about 33 grains of carbon.  Now, living
plants are continually sucking in this gas by their leaves;
and the operation goes on so rapidly, that were the entire
surface of the earth dry land and under cultivation, crops
such as we generally reap from it would extract and fix the
whole of the carbon in the form of vegetable matter, in the
short space of twenty-two years! * Were this to happen,
vegetation would cease. But such a catastrophe is prevented by the constant restoration of carbonic acid to the
air through the increasing operation of preservative causes.
Thus10. The trees of the forest yearly shed their leaves, or
in Australia their bark. Through the influence of the
weather these waste portions decay and disappear, restoring
again to the atmosphere a portion of the same carbon which
the living tree had previously extracted from it during the
* In my published Lectures on A gricultural CAemistry and Geology, second
edit., p. 262, I have calculated this period at fourteen years. It has recently been
discovered, however, that at great heights the proportion of carbonic acid in the air
is very much larger than at the sea level. A new calculation, therefore, has led me
to extend the period to at least twenty-two years, as given in the text.




HOW CARBON CIRCULATES.               341
period of their growth. The yearly ripening herbage also,
and every plant that naturally withers, on plain or hill-the
grass of the burning prairie, and the timber of inflamed
forests-with all that man consumes for fuel and burns for
other uses;-every form of vegetable matter, in short, when
exposed to the action of air or fire, returns, more or less
quickly, to the state of carbonic acid, and disappears in the
invisible atmosphere. Thus, what is yearly withdrawn from
the air by living plants is so far restored again by those
which naturally perish, or which are destroyed by the intervention of man.
2~. But man himself and other animals assist in the
same chemical conversion..They consume vegetable food,
with the same final result as when it perishes by natural
decay, or is destroyed by the agency of fire. It is conveyed
into the stomach in the form in which the plant yields it.
The green herb, the perfect seed, and the ripe fruit, are
eaten and digested; then forthwith they are breathed out
again from  the lungs and the skin, in the form of carbonic
acid and water. But we can follow this operation more closely, and it will be both interesting and instructive to do so.
The leaf of the living plant sucks in carbonic acid from
the air, and gives off the oxygen contained in this gas.  It
retains only the carbon.  The roots drink in water from the
soil, and out of this carbon and water the plant forms starch,
sugar, fat, and other substances.  The animal introduces
this starch, sugar, or fat into its stomach, and draws in
oxygen from  the atmosphere by its lungs. With these
materials it undoes the previous labours of the living plant,
delivering back again, from the lungs and the skin, both
the starch and the oxygen in the form of carbonic acid and
water. The process is clearly represented in the following
scheme:



342            THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
Takes in                Produces
To~ PLANT,  {wCarbonic acid by its leaves;  Oygen from its leaves;
TEPLANT, IWater by its roots.,   Starch, 4c., in its solid sub
stance.
Carbonic acid and Water
THrE ANIMAL,  Starch andfat into the stomach;    from the skin and the
Oxygen into the lungs.      lungs;
Fat in the animal's body.
And this fat, laid up for a while in the body, is in its
turn also breathed away in carbonic acid and water.*
Thus the circle begins- with carbonic acid and water,
and ends with the same substances. The same materials
-the same carbon, for example-circulates over and over
again, now floating in the invisible air, now forming the substance of the growing plant, now of the moving animal, and
now again dissolving into the air, ready to begin anew the
same endless revolution.  It forms part of a vegetable today-it may be built into the body of a man to-morrow; and
a week hence, it may have passed through another plant
into another animal.  What is mine this week is yours the
next. There is, in truth, no private property in ever-moving matter.
30. Yet all the carbonic acid which is removed from the
air by the agency of plants, is not immediately restored by
the circulation above described. Two larger wheels revolve
to make up the deficiency.
a. It has been shown that when plants die and decay,
are burned in the air, or are eaten by animals, the carbon
they contain is delivered back again to the atmosphere in
the form of carbonic acid. But all the plants produced
yearly over the whole earth are not so resolved into gaseous
substances in any given time. In all parts of the world, and
during all time, some portions of vegetable matter have
escaped this total destruction, and have been buried beneath
the surface of the earth, to be preserved in the solid form
for an indefinite period. With such comparatively indestructible forms of vegetable matter we are familiar in the
* See WiHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOE.




]BITRNING OF COAL.               34 
peat-bogs of Scotland and Ireland-sometimes from  50 to
100 feet deep-and in the submarine forests which are seen
in so many parts of our island-shores. We are still better acquainted with them, however, in those vast deposits of coal
which a kind Providence, long ago, brought together and
covered up. What is and has been thus collected and gradually buried would necessarily cause a constant diminution
in the small quantity of carbonic acid contained in the air,
were there no natural means in operation for making up the
yearly loss.
The means we are most familiar with for repairing this
loss, are those which man himself brings into operation.
At a certain period in his history, half-civilised man discovered the use of coal. At a more advanced period he
found out how to dig deep and hollow out mines in search
of it; and, at a still later period, how to employ it for a
thousand beneficial purposes. In burning coal, we cause its
carbon to unite with the oxygen of the air, and to disappear
in the state of carbonic acid.  We restore it to the atmosphere again in the state in which it existed there, perhaps a
million of years ago, when it was sucked in by the growing
plants, and, in the form  of vegetable matter, afterwards
buried beneath the earth's surface. In raising and consuming coal, therefore, we are, to a certain extent, undoing and
counteracting the yearly lessening of the carbon in the air,
which appears to ensue from the yearly covering up of a
portion of vegetable natter. The two hundred millions of
tons of coal which are now yearly consumed throughout the
globe, produce about 600 millions of tons of carbonic acid.
How far this quantity serves to compensate for what-is constantly buried up again, it is impossible to estimate. It must
be acknowledged, however, that the coal fires we burn are
an important subsidiary agent in promoting the circulation
of carbon on the globe.




344           THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
40. Again, within the bosom of the great seas, tiny in
sects are at work, upon which nature has imposed, in ad
dition to the search for food and the care of their offspring,
the perpetual labour of building new houses.. The common
shell-fish of our coasts toil continually for defence as well
as for shelter, repairing, enlarging, and renewing their own
dwelling-places; and as they die, each drops its shell as a
feeble contribution to the beds of shelly limestone which are
every where forming at the bottom of our deep seas.
In more southern waters again, still humbler insects build
up massive coral walls thousands of miles in extent, which
now, skirting long coast-lines, and now encircling solitary
islands, bid defiance to the angriest storms. And these,
too, as they die, generation after generation, leave, in rocky
beds of coralline limestone, an imperishable memorial of
their exhaustless' labours. These rocks contain, chained
down in a seemingly everlasting imprisonment, two-fifths of
their weight of carbonic acid. This has been all withdrawn
either directly or indirectly from the atmosphere; and thus,
through the rock-forming living things it contains, the sea
must ever be drinking in, and storing up the carbonic acid
of the air.
And the same process has been going on almost continuously since the world began. Vast coral reefs lie buried
beneath our beds of coal, and mountains of thick-ribbed
shelly limestone have been lifted from ancient seas before
these older reefs were formed. The labours of marine ani.
mals, therefore, like the burying of vegetable matter, must
throughout all time have been causing a daily lessening of
the absolute quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere,unless some other natural operation has meanwhile been
making compensation for this constant removal.
But the earth herself breathes for this purpose. From
cracks and fissures, which occur in vast numbers over the




FOUNTAINS OF CARBON.C ACID.            345
surface of the earth, carbonic acid gas issues in large
quantities-sometimes alone, and sometimes along with
springing waters —and daily mingles itself with the ambient air. It sparkles in the springs of Carlsbad and Seltzer;
rushes, as if from subterranean bellows, on the table-land
of Paderborn; astonishes travellers in the Grotto del Cane;
interests the chemical geologist in the caves of Pyrmont and
among the old lavas of the Eifel; and is terrible to man and
beast in the fatal "Valley of Death," the most wonderful of
the wonders of Java.  And besides, it doubtless issues still
more abundantly from the unknown bottom of the expanded
waters which occupy so large a proportion —of the surface of
the globe. From these many sources, continually flowing into
the air or rising into the sea, carbonic acid is, and has been,
daily supplied in place of that which is daily withdrawn, to
be buried in the solid limestones of the globe. Did we know
after what lapse of time the earth would again breathe out
what is thus daily entombed, we should be able to express in
words how long this slowly revolving secular wheel requires
fully to perform one of its immense gyrations.
Thus, like the watery vapour of the atmosphere, its carbonic acid also is continually circulating. While that which
floats in the air, circles from the atmosphere to the plant,
from the plant to the animal, and from the animal to the air
again-many times, it may be, during one single generation
-never really the property of any, and never lingering long
in one stay-the whole created carbon is slowly moving
in a greater circle between earth and air.  It rises from
the earth at one end of the curve in the state of an elastic
gas, it amuses itself by the way in assuming for brief inter
vals many successive varieties of plant-form and animal-form,
till it is finally buried in the earth again, at the other end of
the curve, in the state of blackened fossil plants, or beds of
solid limestone.
VOL, I. —.1I*




346           THE CIRCUOLATION OF MATTER.
III. CIRCULATION OF NITROGEN. —We advance now to
a circulation a little more complicated in its character, but,
if possible, still more interesting to us, because it is more
closely connected with our own personal history, both physiological and domestic.
I have already described how, if a portion of wheaten
Fig. 113.           flour be made into
+.dough,  and   this
dough  be  washed
with water upon  a
sieve, or on a piece
hesive substance like
bird-lime, which  is
known by the name
\\I____ -~ —    of gluten; and how,
again, if the milky
water be allowed to settle, a white powder collects at the
bottom, which is common wheaten starch.
By this process the flour of wheat is separated into two
very different chemical substances,-starch and gluten. Of
these two it chiefly consists, and in this respect it is the type
of all other vegetable productions which are used as food.
They all contain, as their principal constituents, two classes
of substances, which are represented respectively by the
starch and gluten of wheat. In tracing the circulation of
carbon, we have already seen what becomes of the starch of
plants when consumed by animals; we are now to follow the
changes in which their gluten takes a part.
Gluten is distinguished from starch and fat by containing




HOW GLUTEN IS FORMED.              347
nitrogen. This nitrogen is the kind of air which forms nearly four-fifths of the bulk of the atmosphere. It exists also
in ammonia,-the well-known compound substance which
gives their pungent odour to the liquid hartshorn and smelling salts of the shops,-and in aquafortis, familiar to chemists
by the name of nitric acid.  These two compound bodies,
ammonia and nitric acid, exist and are formed in the soil,
and from the soil these and other substances containing nitrogen are taken up by the roots of plants. In the interior
of the, plant, these substances are subjected to new influences; new chemical changes take place, in which they bear
a part; and by means of the nitrogen they contain, gluten is
formed. The many intermediate changes which follow each
other within the vegetable sap we do not as yet understand;
but we do know that the nitrogen which existed as ammonia,
nitric acid, &c., in the soil, assumes, after these changes, the
final form of gluten within the plant.
And now I have only to recall to the minds of my readers another chemical analogy, to enable them to follow this
same nitrogen through still further changes. In treating of
the natural relations which exist between animal and vegetable food, I have shown that the fibre or fibrin of the animal
muscle and the white or albumen of the egg, are nearly the
same thing in composition and general properties as the gluten of wheat. They all contain nitrogen in nearly the same
proportion, and probably in a similar state of chemical combination. When the animal consumes vegetable food, therefore, it introduces into its stomach the very substance of its
muscles and blood-the ready-formed materials out of which
its several parts are to be built up.  It does, in fact, so
build up and renew its several parts by means of this vegetable substance.  The gluten of the plant is transformed
into the flesh and tissues of the living animal.
Thus the nitrogen of the soil, through the intermedium




348           THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
of the plant, has attained to its highest dignity as a part of
the body of breathing and intellectual man.
But having attained this most perfect form, the restless
elements soon grow weary, so to speak, of their new dignity.  Not only is the living body in constant movement as
a whole, but all its parts, even the minutest, are in perpetual motion.  They are like the population of a great city,
moving to and fro, coming and going continually, weeded out
and removed hour after hour by deaths and departures, yet
as unceasingly kept up in numbers by new incomers;changing from day to day so insensibly as to escape observation, yet so evidently, that after the' lapse of a few years,
scarcely a known face can be discovered among congregated
thousands. And so rapid is the tear and wear of the animal
machine, to change our figure, in consequence of this incessant movement, that the repairs which are constantly called
for are said to renovate the whole frame-work in less than a
month. Every wheel in that short space is renewed. New
materials are brought in for the purpose, while the old are
thrown away and rejected.*  Scarcely has the gluten of the
plant been comfortably fitted into its place in the muscle,
the skin, or the hair of the animal, when it begins forthwith
to be dissolved out again-to be decomposed and removed
from the body. Restlessness, beyond our control, is thus inherent in the very matter of which we are formed.
A brief summary will show how and in what forms this
taking down and removal of the bodily substance is so rapidly effected.
The living animal absorbs much oxygen from the air by
its lungs. One portion of this oxygen is employed to convert the carbon of a certain part of its food into carbonic
acid; another portion is built into the substance of the body
itself (p. 565); but a large proportion also is employed in
* See WHAT, How, AND WnY WE DIGEST.




CIRCULATION OF NITROGEN.             349
dissolving out and removing the waste, and now worthless,
matter of the muscles and other tissues. This inhaled oxygen is, in fact, the agent through which the change of matter is effected. The muscle, for example, combines with
oxygen, and after several intermediate transformations, is
finally changed into substances called urea, uric acid, &c.,
which pass away through the kidneys.  This urea and uric
acid return to the soil, from which the nitrogen they contain
originally came. There they are gradually converted into
ammonia, nitric acid, and other substances such as the plant
roots originally took up, and which, now re-formed, are ready
again to enter into new roots, and thus to recommence the
same round of change.
But the animal does not extract and work up all the
gluten of the vegetable food it eats.  A part of it escapes
digestion, and is rejected in the animal droppings., This
mingles with the soil, and there, like the urea, &c., is changed into ammonia and nitric acid. The same happens to the
gluten of vegetables which die, and, without entering the
stomach, undergo direct natural decay in the air or in the
soil. Animal bodies themselves die also at last? and, like
the vegetable gluten, pass through those successive changes
which we call putrefaction and decay. As the result of
these changes, the nitrogen they contain is again made to
assume those forms in which plants are able to take it up,
and to convert it into their own substance.
Thus, after various turns of the wheel, all the nitrogen
that entered the plant in the form of ammonia, nitric acid,
and similar available compounds, returns again to the soil
in one or other of the same states.  Some of the matter revolves a time or two less, returning at once from the plant
to the soil without passing through the animal at all, or at
once from the muscle to the soil without undergoing the
ordeal of the kidneys-but whether it runs one, two, or




350              THE CIRCULATION O] MATTER.
three heats, all arrives, sooner or later, at the same goal,
ready to start again on the same race. A bird's-eye view
of this circulation is presented in the following scheme:Takes in                  Produces
THE PLANT,     Nitrogen, in the forms of ammonia, Gluten.
nitric acid, &c. from the soil.
a. Gluten into the stomach in
its vegetable food, and oxygen  a. Muscle and other tissues.
Tax aNINAL, r  ithro.usl an the uor                  tissues.
T   ANIMAL,   through the lungs.
b. Animal muscle, &c. into the
stomach in its animal food, and  b. Urea, &c. in the liquid exoxygen through the lungs.    cretions.
Urea, and other animal excretions; Ammonia, nitric acid, and
Tn SOIL,  U dead animals and plants.    other compounds containing
nitrogen.
Thus we end where we began-the soil, the plant, and
the animal being involved in one never-ceasing, mutually.
dependent revolution.  We need scarcely concern ourselves,
therefore, for the destiny of the organic part-the tissues
and blood of our bodies.  Its fate is decided by fixed and
unerring laws. When it has served our purpose, new and
immediate uses await it. We attempt in vain to detain it
from  pre-determined  labours, or, by the arts of the  embalmer, to compel it to perpetuate a loved and honoured form.
We need not wait even, as in Itamlet's supposition, for the
body to crumble into dust. The fluids and tissues decompose rapidly, and are quickly dissipated, so that what is now
part of the body of a Csesar or a Venus, may literally
within a week become part of a turnip or of a potato.
Even here, however, or in respect to this organic form
of matter, we obtain occasional glimpses of a still wider
circle. While the same portion of matter, on the whole,
goes round and round unceasingly, as we have described, a
certain portion of the ammonia and other volatile compounds
of nitrogen, which are produced by decaying animal and
vegetable substances, rises in the form of gas or vapour, and
escapes into the air. It rises also in unknown quantity from
the lungs and skins of animals, in their breath and peri;pira'




A WIDER CIRCLE.               - 351
tion.  This ammonia the rains of heaven wash out and
bring back again to the earth-thus restoring it to the soil
from which it originally came, and to the wants of vegetable
life. But these very rains also carry down a portion of it
directly into the sea, and, through the rivers, sweep it from
the land. Yearly, also, a part of the ammonia, nitric acid,
and other similar compounds, is by natural operations
resolved into elementary nitrogen, and is thus lost to living
plants.
To make up for this waste, nitric acid is continually
formed in the air in minute quantity. The nitrogen and
oxygen of the atmosphere unite to form this acid through
the agency chiefly of electric currents, which are continually passing through the air. Ammonia also is given off
into the atmosphere from all living volcanoes; and both of
these compound substances the falling rain dissolves and
carries earthward, so that the failing supplies of nitrogen,
in an available form of combination, are continually kept up.
Thus, from the great atmospheric reservoir a stream of
nitrogen of unknown bulk flows down yearly to the earth in
the forms of nitric acid and ammonia, while a similar stream
returns again yearly to the air in the form of elementary
gas, after having probably many times gone through the cycle
of changes in which gluten and fibrin take a part. Within
what conceivable time could the nitrogen of the whole
atmosphere sake4 part in this slow circulation?




CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER,
A RECAPITULATION.
Circulation of mineral matter.-General form of this circulation from the soil througlh
the plant into the animal, and thence to the soil again.-Special form.-Circulation
of phosphoric acid and of saline matter.-Shedding of leaves and annual decay of
vegetable productions.-Course of mineral matter through the animal body.Waste and death of the body, and its return to the soil.-General view of this circulation.-Its constancy and rapidity.-Vain attempts to preserve human dust
apart.-Mummies, pyramids, and Etruscan tombs.-The Valley of HIinnom.Customs in Thibet and the Himalayas.-How the natural diminution of mineral
plant-food is replaced.-Interference of slow geological revolutions.-Lessons
taught by all this.-Small quantity of matter on which all life depends.-Lesson of
constant, intelligent activity with a view to a definite end.-Purposes served by
every movement of matter in living bodies.-How the plant waits upon and serves
the animal.-Small change in the condition of things which would banish life
from the world.-Man forms no part of the scheme of the universe. —Iis insignificance the crowning lesson.
IV. THE CIRCULATION OF MINERAL MATTER. -We
must now trace the revolutions through which the dust also
-the earthy, inorganic, incombustible, or mineral part of
the animal-passes.
When  a portion  of a plant is burned  in  the air, the
organic or combustible part is dissipated, and disappears;
but a  small quantity  of  ash  or mineral matter  remains
behind. The wood-ash left when trees are burned is a familiar example of this. In like manner, when any part of an




CIRCULATION OF COMBUSTIBLE MATTER.         353
animal is burned in the air, a portion of ash remains unconsumed.  I need scarcely add, that a portion of soil, treated
in a similar way, leaves an abundant residue of earthy mat
ter undissipated by the fire.
Now, in regard to the combustible part of the plant —
which is made up of carbon, nitrogen, and the elements of
water —differences of opinion are possible as to whether the
raw materials for building it up are derived from the soil o-f
from the air. They all exist both in air and soil, and may
be derived from the one or from the other.  But in regard
to the mineral or incombustible part of the plant, there can
be but one opinion.' Mineral matter does not exist in the
atmosphere, and therefore the plant must derive all it contains of this kind of matter from the soil in which it grows.
Again, as all which the animal body contains is derived
either directly or indirectly from vegetable food, the mineral matter or ash it leaves when burned must have come to it
from the soil through the plant. And as, further, when the
animal dies, its body is sooner or later returned to the soil,
we have again another complete cycle, in which the earthy
matter of living things is the ever-moving body. It ascends
from the soil into the substance of the plant, thence into the
substance of the animal, and thence descends again into the
mother earth, to begin, as in our other examples, a new and
similar career.
But a more minute chemical examination of this mineral
or earthy matter will make our acquaintance with this cycle
still more interesting and instructive.
At is not any kind of earthy matter, indifferently, which
the plant-root sucks up and builds into the substance of its
growing stem and leaves. It selects, as it were, only the
rarer and more precious materials of which the soil consists,
and from among these again, such as natural waters can more
or less readily dissolve. Phosphoric acid, lime, magnesia,




354           TIIE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
and certain kinds of saline matter, of which we may take
common salt as the, representative, are the most important
of these substances.  Generally speaking, these ingredients
exist but sparingly in the soil.  The productiveness of a
tract of land, therefore, in so far as it depends upon their
presence, is kept up either by a constant natural circulation
of the same quantity of these matters, or by the addition of
periodical supplies from some other source, equal in kind
and amount to those which the yearly herbage carries away.
In uncultivated regions the natural circulation is short
and simple. In natural forests, for example, where the leaves
or bark are annually shed, and the trees periodically die, the
mineral matter quits the soil for the plant as it grows, and
again, when the plant decays, returns to the soil. It thus
makes but a short stage from the earth to the plant, and
from the plant back to the earth again.  It is so also in
natural meadows. Yearly, in autumn, the grass ripens,
withers, and returns its mineral matter to the soil, and yearly,
again, in spring, the young herbage grows up and feeds on
the relics of the previous year.
The circulation, though less direct, is not much more
protracted when the vegetable produce, as in cultivated regions, is almost entirely consumed by animals.  It then enters into their stomachs, is dissolved or digested, and converted into blood. From this blood its several mineral constituents
are taken up by vessels provided for the purpose, to be conveyed to the parts of the body where their services are required.
The saline portion is retained by the blood and the tissues.
The phosphoric acid in combination with lime, forming
phosphate of lime, is chiefly deposited in the bones, and in
combination with potash, as phosphate of potash, in the
muscles.
The importance of the former of these compounds —the
phosphate of lime-to the animal economy, becomes appar.




TItE PHOSPHATE OF LIME.               355
ent when it is recollected that dry bones leave, on burning,
two-thirds of their weight of a white ash, of which five-sixths
consist of phosphate of lime. But its comparative importance appears still more manifest when we consider how
large a proportion it forms of the whole mineral matter of
the body.  Thus, in a full-grown man,
The whole mineral matter is about..    10111 lb.
The phosphate of lime about..  8
And the other mineral matters, of which common  2111 lb.
- salt forms more than a half,..
But though the mineral matter of the vegetable, when
introduced into the animal's stomach, is thus distributed to
different parts of the body, and for the most part becomes
fixed, as it were, for a time in its most solid parts, this does
not necessarily imply any tardiness of circulation. For, as
we have already seen, all the parts of the body, even the
most solid, are in a constant course of alteration and renewal.
To this law of change the bones are subject equally with the
softest parts, so that the phosphoric acid and lime which are
carried into them by the blood and built into their substance
to-day, are, a few days after, taken down and carried out
again, along with the other refuse and waste materials of
the body. And forthwith, as fast as they reach the soil,
these mineral substances commence a new career.
Finally, the whole body dies at once, and all the mineral substances which it at the time contains, return directly to
the earth from  which they came.  There they undergo,
chiefly through the agency of the air, a final breaking-up
or decomposition, by which they are again brought into
states of chemical combination, in which they can enter
usefully into the roots of plants.
Thus, all which the plant took from the soil, the animal
— partly as it wastes, and partly when it dies- returns to
the soil again without any long delay. New plants are thus




356             THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
at liberty to work up again the old materials, and to des
patch them forthwith on a new voyage. This general succession of changes undergone by the mineral matter, which
takes a part in the established order of vegetable and animal
life, is briefly represented in the following scheme:Takes in             Produces
The perfect substance of plants
THE PLANT,   Phosphoric acid, lime, common  The pefect substorg ance of plantsral
and other salts, from the soil.    s(ostances togethera
a. The parts of plants as food.    a. Perfect bone, blood, and
THE ANIMAL,  b. The bone and tissues of its body b.Phosphats and other saltssues.
with oxygen through the lungs. j in the excretions.
TaE SOIL,    Excretions of animals, dead ani- Phosphoric acid, lime, com-,   mals, and plants.         mon salt, &c.
It may be that a careful hunter after human dust might
scrape together as much of what thus returns to the soil as
would "stop a hole to keep the wind away." But our chemical science teaches us that this animal earth is not the
kind of stuff that plastic clays are made of, and that such
vile uses are after all only imaginary slights, to which our
cherished ashes can never be subjected. They have other
appointed uses, from which, treat them as we may, they cannot long be withheld.
The plant, on the one hand, is so wonderfully framed,
that it refuses to grow unless it can obtain the phosphoric
acid, &c., which it is bound to gather up and supply to the
growing animal. And the soil, on the other hand, is so
poorly provided with these and other most needful substances, that plant and animal are both ordained to return
without fail their borrowed materials to mother earth, when
the term of their own lives has come. A duty is laid also
upon each particle of matter, zealously to prepare for a new
service as soon as each earlier commission is performed.
Thus, a constant circulation of the same comparatively
small quantity of mineral matter is secured.  Thus, also, we
can claim no personal property in any single atom of it.




MATTER WILL CIRCULATE.             357
How idle it seems, then, to the cold chemical eye to cherish
either affection or reverence for dead ashes! Do as we may,
they can never long be prevented from connecting themselves
with new forms of vegetable and animal life, in which we
have no concern.
And how visibly rapid, in the majority of cases, is the
passage of this substance of our bodies to new forms of life.
Thousands yearly perish in the sea, and are at once swallowed, digested, and built into the forms of marine animals.
Thousands more die and decay in waste places, where vegetable forms soon cover and feed upon them. Armies of
fighting men strew, as they march over a thousand fields,
the relics of their wasting strength. A single battle restores
to the soil of a populous district, materials enough to build
up the bodies of its inhabitants for many succeeding generations.
Nor do grave-yards hold it more securely. Of how many
bygone men and women has the mineral substance lived anew
in the village sheep which crop the green herbage of the
tufted tomibs! In how many affection-tended, ornamental
cemeteries does the dust of those we loved fatten the soil
for the cherished trees and shrubs? And how long is the
consecrated ground itself secure against the changes of successive times —the demands of new roads, new streets, new railways,and new sanitary enactments, or the still more ruthless
innovations of religious and political revolutions!
Or embalm the loved bodies, and swathe them, as the
old Egyptains did, in resinous cerements, and you but preserve them a little longer, that some wretched, plundering
Arab may desecrate and scatter to the winds the residual
dust. Or jealously, in regal tombs and pyramids, preserve
the forms of venerated emperors and beauteous queens, still
some future conqueror, or more humble Belzoni, will rifle
the most secure resting place. Or bury them in most sacred




358          THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
places, beneath high altars, a new reign shall dig them up
and mingle them again with the common earth. Or, more
careful still, conceal your last resting-place where local history keeps no record, and even tradition cannot betray you,
then accident shall stumble at length upon your unknown
tomb and liberate your still remaining ashes.
How touching to behold the vain result of even the most
successful attempts at preserving apart, and in their relative
places, the solid materials of the individual form! The
tomb, after a lapse of time, is found and opened. The
ghastly tenant reclines, it may be, in full form and stature.
The very features are preserved-impressed, and impressing
the spectator with the calm dignity of their long repose.
But some curious hand touches the seemingly solid form, or
a breath of air disturbs the sleeping air around the full proportioned body-when, lo! it crumbles instantly away, into
an almost insensible quantity of impalpable dust!
Who has not read with mingled wonder and awe of the
opening, in our own day, of the almost magical sepulchre of
an ancient Etrurian king.  The antiquarian dilettanti, in
their underground researches, unexpectedly stumbled upon
the unknown vault.  Undisturbed through Roman and barbaric times, accident revealed it to modern eyes. A small
aperture, made by chance in the outerwall, showed to the
astonished gazers a crowned king within, sitting on his chair
of state, with robes and sceptre all entire, and golden ornaments of ancient device bestowed here and there around his
person.  Eager to secure the precious spoil, a way is forced
with hammer and mattock into the mysterious chamber.
But the long spell is now broken-the magical image is now
gone. Slowly, as the vault first shook beneath the blows,
the whole pageant crumbled away. A light smoky dust filled
the air; and, where the image so lately sat, only the tinselly
fragments of thin gold remained, to show that the vision and




DUST  OF THE  BOURBONS.                         359
the ornaments had been real, though the entire substance of
the once noble form had utterly vanished.*
For a few thousand years some apparently fortunate
kings and princes may arrest the natural circulation of
a handful  of  dust.   But  in  what  are  they  better than
Cromwell, whose  remains  were  pitilessly  disturbed-than
Wycliffe, whose ashes were sprinkled on the sea-than St
Genevieve, whose remains were burned in the Place de Greve,
and her ashes scattered to the wind —than Mausolus, whose
dust was  swallowed  by  his  wife  Artemesia-or than  the
King of Edom, whose bones were burned for lime-or than
St Pepin, and all the royal line of Bourbon, whose tombs
were  emptied  by a Parisian  mob?t   Their  ashes  too  are
* See DENNIs's Asncent Etruria. The fragments of the gold ornaments are in
the collections of Lord Kinnaird at Rossie Priory.
t "They burnt on the Place de Grbve the remains of St Genevieve, the popular
patroness of Paris, and threw her ashes to the wind.... A decree of the Convention had commanded the destruction of the tombs of the kings at St Dcnis. The
Commune changed this decree into an attack against the dead.... The axe
broke the gates of bronze presented by Charlemagne to the Basilica of St Denis...
They raised the stones, ransacked the vaults, violated the resting-places of the departed, sought out beneath the swathings and shrouds, embalmed corpses, crumbled
flesh, calcined bones, empty skulls of kings, queens, princes, ministers, bishops.
Pepin, the founder of the Carlovingian dynasty, and father of Charlemagne, was
now but a pin/ch of grey cash, which weas in a momenet scattered by the wised.
The mutilated heads of Turenne, Duguesclin, Louis XII., Francis I., were rolled on
the pavement.... Beneath the choir were buried the princes and princesses of
the first race, and some of the third —Hugues Capet, Philip the Bold, Philip the
Handsome. They rent away their rags of silk, and threw them on a bed of quicklime.
They flung the carcass of Henry IV. into the common fosse. His son and
grandson, Louis XIII. and XIV., followed. Louis XIII. was but a mummy;
Louis XIV. a black indistinguishable mass of aromatics. Louis XV. came last out
of his tomb. The vault of the Bourbons rendered up its dead-queens, dauphinesses,
princesses, were carried away in armfuls by the workmen, and cast into the trench."
-LAMARTINE, History of the Girondists, book lii. ~ 28. A brief interval of proud
separation, and they were mingled with the common dust I
From all this desecration only the remains of Turenne escaped. Rescued by a
patriotic admirer from the hands of the destroyers, they were at first concealed in
an obscure corner of the Jardin des Plantes, and afterwards consigned to the care of
n. Alexandre Lenoir, among other curiosities he had collected in the museum of
tihe Petits Augustins. In September 1799 they were transferred from this place by
Napoleon, then consall and a- conqueror, to a splendid tomb prepared for them be



360                THE  CIRCULATION  OF MATTER.
Dissipated  at last.   Their empty  tombs  may  remain-the
houses of the dead, like the houses of the living, long surviving, as  melancholy mementoes  of the tenants for whom
they were erected.*
There is a barbaric philosophy, therefore, as well as an
apparent knowledge of the course of nature, in the treatment of the dead which prevails in Thibet and on the slopes
of the Himalaya.   In the former country the  dead  body is
cut in pieces, and either thrown into the lakes to feed the
fishes, or exposed on the hill-tops to the eagles and birds of
prey. On the Himalayan slopes the Sikkim burn the body
and scatter the ashes on the ground. The end is the same
among these tribes of men as among us. They briefly anticipate the usual course of time-a little sooner verifying
the  inspired  words, "Dust thou  art, and  unto  dust thou
shalt return."
There remain  now  only one or two other observations to
complete our history of the revolutions of mineral matter.
Notwithstanding the constant return of plant and anneath the dome of the Invalides, and there deposited with much state —:' where,"
says M. Thiers, "the body now reposes, and where it-was soon to be rejoined by his
companion in glory, the illustrious and virtuous Vauban, where he was destined to
be joined one day by the author of the great things we are here relating; where he
will, certainly remain, surrounded by this august company, throughout the ages
which Heaven may reserve for France."
How rash this prophecy of the illustrious historian, all past history may testify. (See also ALISoN's History of 7Europe, and Sir TuoMAs BRowN Oss Urn
Burial.)
* How suggestive are the following remarks of M. de Saulcy on the rock-tombs
of the valley of Hinnom: —" The immense necropolis, traces of which are to be met
with at every step in the v aley, dates from the period when the Jebhusites were
masters of the country. After them the Israelites deposited the remains of their
fathers in the same grottoes; and the same tombs, after having become at a still
later period those of the Christians who had obtained possession of the Holy City,
have, since the destruction of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, ceased to change
both masters and occupants. Even the scattered bones are no more found in
them; and from the city of the dead the dead alone have disappeared, while
the abodes are still entire."-Do; SAULOY'S Jo'rney Round tihe Dead Seer, vol.
ii. p. 258.




ACTION OF RAINS AND RIVERS.           361
imal to the parent earth, all the mineral matter they contain does not remain where they are deposited. Rains and
rivers daily remove from the soil a portion of the materials
which are so essential to the perpetuation of animal and
vegetable forms, and transport them to the sea.  Thus the
natural store of mineral food becomes daily smaller, and
the land, in consequence, less fitted for the growth of
plants.
But for this contingency also there is a provision. The
solid rocks which form the crust of the earth contain all
these essential forms of inorganic matter in minute proportion. As these rocks crumble and mingle with the soil,
they yield constant small supplies of each ingredient-of
phosphoric acid, lime, magnesia, &c.  These the springs
which trickle through the rocks from above or from beneath,
dissolve and diffuse wherever they go. Thus, in many localities, a moderate supply is day by day brought to the
surface-soil, to replace that which, by natural causes, is
constantly removed. And the great seas help in this work
of restoration. They heave their lofty waves into the air
and break in foam, that the rough wind may take up and
bear back again to the land a portion of the salty spoils
with which the rivers are ever enriching them.
And then, lest these small daily restorations should not
succeed in perpetually maintaining the necessary richness
of the soil in mineral plant-food, periods of convulsion come
at last to their aid. Great physical revolutions from time
to time intervene. Now all at once, and now by slow degrees, the bottom of the sea becomes dry. Land and water
change places, as they have often done during the geological
history of the globe. And after each change, new races of
plants forthwith begin to take up what rivers and rains had
carried down into former sea-beds.  The same mineral matter begins to play over again the same part as before, in the
constant succession of animal and vegetable life! In this




362          THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
we see another long cycle through which certain ingredients
of the solid earth are ever slowly moving.
Thus all the varieties of matter which are essential to
the existence of living forms are in a constant state of circulation. Each has its appointed round of duty, at one
point or other of which it is sure to be found. And while
the motions of all the wheels are prescribed, and a restless
activity imposed on every particle of matter, all contingencies are guarded against which might interfere with the final
accomplishment of the one simple design.
How profound, yet how interesting and intelligible, is
all this! How instructive the lessons it reads us! Thus1~. On how small a quantity"of matter, for example, does
it show us that all life depends. Over and over again, as
the modeller fashions his clay, plant and animal are formed
out of the same material. Over and over again it is transformed in the earth and in the air, as soon as it has been
liberated for a time from the domain and dominion of life.
In the face of this clear knowledge, how crude, how untrue
to nature, how irrational, how misleading are the views which
some have promulgated with regard to the final resurrection
of man! As if the same matter whidh forms our body, when
we are laid in the grave, and which, after a brief residence
there, makes its way, through some nutritive plant, into the
body of another man, and forms part of his body still when
he is buried-as if this matter, which is neither his nor mine,
has already "been slave to thousands," and may be buried
with ten thousand bodies more, before the resurrection comes
— as if this very matter were meant to form the clothing of
the disembodied spirit, when, in visible form and sensible
identity, it shall be raised on the day when "small and
great " appear before the dread tribunal!
The words of the passage, " It is sown a natural body, it
is raised a spiritual body;" and of this one, " The dead shall




THE PLANT AND THE ANIMAL.            363
be raised incorruptible;"-these alone should be sufficient
to deter the theological expositor from propounding ideas so
gross in regard to the changes we are to undergo at that
mysterious time. That which is formed of matter, such as
circulates in living beings now, can neither be a spiritual
body, nor free from the changes which are commonly implied by the word corruption.
20. Again, the moral lesson is not unimportant which this
steady but unceasing movement of the material particles of
living bodies holds up to us. No stoppage long hinders it.
No delay diverts its attention or causes it to forget its duty.
Like the stone which we suspend in the air, it is ready to
drop the instant the cord snaps by which it is upheld. Is all
senseless matter to be thus perpetually labouring,-and are
we intelligent beings to idle away a precious but limited
life? To work while we live, is one of the moral lessons
which the chemist reads in the movements, so plain to him,
in apparently dead rocks and earth and air, not less than in
the lifeless bodies of the animal and the plant.
30~ But they teach him also to work steadily and with a
view to a definite and useful end. In contemplating the
moving wheels I have one after another introduced to my
readers, they must have felt inclined to stop and ask respecting each, " Why does this wheel turn? Why its unceasing
restlessness? What purpose is effected, or is intended to be
effected, by its endless revolution? " Generally the answer
is, that the maintenance of life, animal and vegetable, depends,
as in a complicated piece of mechanism, upon the perpetual
movement of all the wheels at once. In detail, the special
answer is, that the turning of each wheel determines the
comfortable discharge of one or more of the necessary functions of animal and vegetable life.
When, for example, the plant seems only to be amusing
itself in forming starch and vegetable fat from carbonic acid
and water and the animal, in merely undoing what the plant




364'THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
has done-re-converting the starch and fat again into car,
bonic acid and water-an unseen effect is being produced at
the same time, which is indispensably necessary to the continuanceof animal life, as it is now constituted. The change
which the starch and fat undergo in the animal body-as
well as the final change which the gluten consumed by the
animal undergoes-is a kind of burning. The heat produced by this burning is imparted to the body and keeps it
warm; and the necessity of such internal warmth to the
maintenance of animal life is familiar to every one.  This
wise purpose, therefore, is served, by the. way as it were,
while the little wheel is turning by which carbonic acid and
water alternately disappear in starch and fat, and alternately
appear again in their gaseous and liquid forms. And so,
were we curiously to inquire what physiological or other effects are produced during the turning of any other of our
wheels, either great or small, we should see good coming out
of each-a beneficent provision for the comfort of living animals, or for the healthy growth of vegetable forms, accompanying the sensible and chemical results of each revolution
In this the chemist reads the lesson that his ever-moving activity should have reference to a definite and good end.
40. It is especially beautiful, as well as interesting, to
see how clearly the consideration above presented exhibits
the plant as the servant of the animal. Man placed upon
the earth, without the previous existence of the plant, were
utterly helpless.  He could not live either upon the earth
or upon the air, and yet his body requires a constant supply
of the elements contained in both. It is the plant which
selects, collects, and binds together these indigestible materials, manufacturing them into food for man and other animals. And these only throw back again to their toiling slaves
the waste or dead materials which they cannot further use,
to be worked up by them anew into palatable and nutritious
food. In this aspect, the plant appears only as the appoint



THE HEAVENLY BODIES.               365
ed bond-servant of the animal; and yet, how willing, how
beautiful, how interesting a slave it is! It works unceasingly, yet it is self-tasked.  It toils itself to death, yet,
punctually as spring comes round, it rises again in a new
life-young, beautiful, and willing as ever, rejoicing to renew its destined toil. There is in it none of the bitterness
of human slavery to render the task unsweet. In this, too,
there is a lesson for us.
50. And it is not the least striking of the reflections to
which this subject leads us, that an alteration in the natural
constitution of things of so small a kind as to be inappreciable to our senses, would at once insure the certain extinction of animal and vegetable life. Let the All-powerful
order that the minute proportion of carbonic acid in the
atmosphere should be removed, and in a single hour vegetation would droop-in a single week, probably, not a plant
would remain alive on the whole face of the dry land I And
yet the human organs would perceive no change in the nature of the atmosphere, and the mass of mankind would
first wonder at the fatal plague which had so suddenly
stricken all vegetable forms, and after a brief period of stupefied and undefined dread, they, too, would perish as the
plants had done, for want of sustenance,
60. This thought again leads us to the contemplation of
those purely mechanical motions in which the heavenly
bodies continually exercise themselves, without, as a consequence, undergoing any sensible chemical change of matter.
On first becoming acquainted with the chemical revolutions
of matter above described, we might be inclined —indeed it
is a very natural first-sight question-to ask, What have
these earthy, revolutions which concern us so much-what
have they in common with the majestic movements of satellites and planets in their orbits, and with that of systems in
the ethereal space?  What part do these lesser revolutions
-annual lmany of them, like that of the earth round the sun




366           THE DIRCULATION OF MATTER.
— what part do they play in the system of the universe?
The humbling answer is, that they take no sensible part in
them at all.
The supposition of an insensible removal of the carbonic
acid of the atmosphere, and a consideration of its consequences, show that the existence of life, either vegetable or
animal, is not a necessary condition of things even on our
globe. With an atmosphere so changed the earth might
roll on in its place in the solar system-its attendant moon
still encircling it for countless ages, without the change deranging, or even altering in any degree, the most insignificant phenomenon which is nightly seen in the starry heavens.  Earthly life, therefore, has no share in the general
system of the universe.  It is a little episode, so to speak,
in the great poem of creation. The Deity willed that this
corner of His vast work should be the theatre of new displays of wisdom, of consummate contrivance, of a wonderful
fitting-in of means to the accomplishment of beneficent ends,
and at last the seat of an intellectual being, with capacity
to study and comprehend and admire His works-to praise,
and love, and serve Him. It is solely on this seemingly
separate act of His will that we depend " for life, and breath,
and all things."
And in thinking over this insignificance of man, and all
his contemporary forms of life," how awful does it appear,
that, in the event of a necessity arising, all this life could
be stopped at once-by the simple turning of a screw, as it
were-and that the disappearance of all our race would, to
the physical universe, be of as little moment as the crushing
of the tiny insects, to which all the world they know is but
a drop of water! —This is the crowning lesson of all.




INDEX.
Abyssinian tea, i. 160.                  Amanita muscaria, the, ii. 141.
Acer saccharicum, the, i. 220.           Amanitin, what, ii. 145.
Achillea millefolia, effect of, on beer, ii.  Ambergris, where procured, ii. 211-hot
56.                                      employed, 212.
Acorn coffee, i. 175.                    Ambrein, a perfume, ii. 214.
Acarus calamus, the, ii. 207.            American aloe, wine from the, i. 272.
Acullico, what, ii. 120.                 Ammonia, presence of, in the air, i. 20Aegilops, wild, the origin of our wheat, i.    absorbed by plants, 64-produced dur69.                                      log fermentation of tobacco, ii. 81Africa, the onion in, ii. 225.             given off by animal droppings, 236Agave Americana, the, i. 271.              how changed into nitric acid, 251.
Agave wine, 271.                         Amok, a Javanese cry, ii. 79.
Aguardiente de Maguey, the, i. 272.      Amygdalus communis, the, ii. 186.
Aguamiel, what, i. 271.                  Amyle alcohol, i. 280.
Air, the, height and weight of, i. 5-its  Amylic ether, ii. 199.
composition, 6, 10-that in water, 38-  Anamirta cocculus, the, ii. 50.
that in snow, 40-purified by plants,  Andropogons, sweet-smelling grasses, ii.
75-its influence on decay, ii. 235, 249    195.
-as drawn into the lungs, 20 —its  Angostura, stupefying of fish by, ii. 52.
changes there, 271-its composition on  Animal, the, when it feeds on itself, ii.
being expired, 272-detection of car-    803.
bonic acid in it, 2T3.                 Animals, fed by plants, i. 75-relation of
Alabama, chalk soils in, i. 67.            their breathing to external nature, ii.
Albumen, what, i. 112 —in beef juice,    299-the stomach of herbivorous, 308
121.                                     -how they change after death, 350.
Alcohol, how formed from cane-sugar, i.  Animal charcoal, a smell remover, ii.
240-and from  milk-sugar, 253-pro-    254.
portion of, in beer, 247-in grape wines.  Animal  decomposition, circumstances
203-in spirits, 277-its action in the    affecting it, ii; 235.
blood, 288.                            Animal droppings, fermentation of, ii. 236
Alcohols, different species of, ii. 191.   -their odours, 237 —changes of, in the
Alcoholic drinks, benefits of, to the old,    soil, 850.
&c., i. 289.                           Animal heat, how produced, ii. 291.
Ale, distinction between, and beer, ii. 40.  Animal odours, ii. 207-those of the goat,
Alehoof, a substitute for hops, ii. 49.    &c., 231.
Alhagi, manna yielded by, i. 230.        Animal substances, action of quicklime
Alimentary canal in man, the, ii. 297-    on, ii. 263.
in animals, 308-passage of the food  Anise oil, ii. 187.
through, 310.                          Anthoxanthum   odoratum, odoriferous
Alkali-makers, vapours thrown into the    principle of, ii. 193.
air by, ii. 247.                       Antiseptics, action, &c. of, ii. 251.
Alkarsin, what, ii. 244.                 Apes, not injured by morphia, ii. 77.
Allium ursinum, ii. 222-cepa, 222-sati-  Apple, water in the, i. 97-wine, 260vum, ib.                                 oil, ii. 202.
Alluvial soils, how produced, 47.        Apples, varieties of, in Normandy, i. 261.
Allyle, what, ii. 225-sulphuret of, and  Aquafortis, what, ii. 147.
its odour, ib. 226.                    Arabian coffee, i. 165.
Almonds, bitter, the Nile water clarified   Arachis hypogcea, nut of, i. 188.
by, i. 87-composition of the oil of, ii.  Aral, lake, water of, i. 31.
186-the tree, ib.                      Araucaria imbricata, use of the seed of
Aloe, American, wine from the, i. 272.     the, i. 91.




368                                  INDEX.
Ardent spirits, distillation of, i. 275-con-  Beer, malt, how prepared, i. 242-multi.
sumption of, in the United Kingdom,    plication of yeast in, 245-its compo283-consumption of, in the form  of        sition, 246-alcohol ill it, 247 —from
beer, 282 —and  of wine, 285-their         millet, &c., 250-chemical chan es dureffects, 287, 288-adulterations of, 290.   ing its preparation, 351 —how drunk in
Areca catechu, the, ii. 103.                 the Himalayas, 352-vinecgar, the acid
Arraca. distillation of, i. 254.             of, 264-ardent spirits consumed in, 282
Arrow-root, why it does not nourish    — why it intoxicates less than spirits,
alone, i. 104.                            287-substances used to adultelrate it,
Arsenic, white, the eating of, ii. 166-its    289-that of rice, ib.-distinction beeffects, ib. et seq.-its effects on ani-    tweei  it and ale, ii. 41-a physical
meals, 169-how given to horses, ib.-       drink, ib.-origin of the name, 48-the
physology of its action, 171.             love of it travels with the Englishman,
Arterial blood, specific heat of, ii. 321.   50-that of China, 54-how made healdy,
Artesian wells in Alabama, i. 49.            55-adulterated with grains of parladise,
Artocarpus incisa, the, i. 96.               113-and with thorn apple, 186-made
Arum  cordifolium, high temperature of,    of heather, 149-flavoured with sweet
ii. 299.                                   flag, 212.
Asperula odorata, the, ii. 196.            Beetroot, average composition of, i. 214Asphyxiating shells, ii. 244.                extraction of the sugar from, 216-proAssafcetida, how collected and used, ii.    portion of sugar and saline matters in,
224-contains allyle, 225-used  as a        217-produce of, per acre, 218.
condiment, ib.                           Beet sugar, history of the manufacture of,
Assal, what, i. 199.                         i. 213-manufactories and produce of,
Assassin, origin of the name, ii. 94.        214. See also Sugar.
Association, influence of, with regard to   Belgium, beet sugar manufactories in, i.
smells, ii. 280.                           214 —sogar consumed in, 226-and toAtmosphere, the, its height and pressure,    bacco, ii. 14 —pro(uce of hops in, 37.
i. 5-its composition, 6-rising of va   Bengal, date sugar manufactured in, i.
pours into, 16-how washed, 21.             220-poppy fields in, ii. 59.
Atropa belladonna, narcotic effects of, ii.  Benzoic acid, use of, ii. 192.
146.                                     Benzoin, what, ii. 192.
Attar of roses, ii. 180.                   Berenice, her taste for odours, ii. 219.
Austria, arsenic-eating in, ii. 166.       Betel nut, the, ii. 104-export of, from
Auvergne, petrifying waters of, i. 34.       Sumatra, ib.-how  prepared,  104Ava or arva, a drink of the South Sea    fondness for it in the East, 105-its
islands, i. 254-its properties, 256-pre-    effects, 106-its constituents, 107-conparation of it, 257, 258.                  sumption of it, 108-substitutes for it,
Aymaras, melancholy  temperament of    ib.-its astringent principle, 113.
the, ii. 124.                            Betel pepper, hlow  collected, ii. 110Azalea pontica, poison in the, i. 200.       consumption of it, ib.
Azof, sea of, its water, i. 31.            Beverages we infuse, the, ii. 127 —in difBacca orientalis, the, ii. 51.               ferent countries, 129-their general conBacon, why eaten with veal, &c., i. 112-     stituents, 187-and effects, 189-effects
and with greens, 102.                      of intellectual activity on their conBadger, mountain, yields hyraceum, ii.    sumption, 192.
233.                                     Bicarbonate  of lime present ii  hard
Baking meat, loss by, i. 121-process of,    waters, i. 35.
123.                                     Bile, the chemical effect of, on the food,
Balsams of Peru and Tolu, the, ii. 191.     ii. 302 —where mixed with it, ib.-salt
Banana fruit, changes in, during ripen-      contained in it, 826.
ing, i. 92-allowance of, to a labourer,  Bilsah, what, ii. 18.
ib.-supply of food yielded by the tree,  Birdcherry sugar, i. 200.
ib.                                      Bisulphate of lime, what, i. 217-its
Bang or beng, what, ii. 91.                  effect on sweet juices, ib.
Barks, various, for drngging fish, ii. 60.    Bitter ale, hops for, ii. 41.
Bean, composition of the, i. 89-as a sub-  Black Sea, water of the, i. 31.
stitute for coffee, 172.                 Black tea, how prepared, i. 132-varieBeauty, effect of arsenic-eating on, ii.    ties of, 134.
168.                                     Bleaching by sulphurous acid, ii. 260.
Beaver, castoreum from the, ii. 211.       Blood, the, combines with oxygen, ii. 275
Beef we cook. the, i. 106-difference be-    -its purpose or uses, 273-its flow, 288
tween, and bread, 10S —compared with      -its course through the heart and Iungs
cheese, flour, &c., 120-effects of heat    289-its weight, 290-provision for its
on, 121-tea, how prepared, 128.            oxidation, ib.-its composition, 300



INDEX.                                  36~
the dry matter of it, 300 — its formation,  Bread-fruit tree, fruit yielded by the, i.
301-its proportion, 302-matters in it,    95.
804-materials supplied by it, ib.-the   Bread meal, a kind of earth, ii. 172.
corpuscles of it, 314-interest of its  Breathing, action of coca on, ii. 128-and
study, 315-its colouring matter, ib.-      of arsenic, 169-what it is, 272-its
globulin of, ib.-its ash, ib.-its serum,    chemical purposes, 28 —its physiologi816-life-like properties of its  cor-    cal purposes, 291-keeps the animal
puscles, ib.-its resemblance to flesh,    warm, 292.
ib.-changes it undergoes, 317-its per-  Bronchial tubes, the, ii. 273.
manence, 318-production of heat in it,  Broom  seeds, a substitute for coffee, i.
320-its capacity for heat, 321-that of    175.
arterial and venous, ib.-changes in its  Buckwheat flour, nutritive quality of, i.
capacity for heat, ib.-distribution of    88.
heat by it, ib.                          Bug tribe, smell of the, ii. 233.
Boa, uric acid in droppings of, ii. 286.   Bull-hoof, a substitute for opium, ii. 85.
Bodily movement, waste accompanying,  Burial grounds, effects of. on well waters,
ii. 305.                                   i. 35-saltpetre made fiom, ii. 335.
Bodies of men and animals, internal temu-  Burned clay, smells absorbed by, ii. 257.
perature of, ii. 285.                    Burnes, Dr., on use of opium, ii. 82.
Body, the, how sustained, ii. 301-its com-  Burnet's disinfecting fluid, ii. 265.
position, ib. 302-comparative compo-  Butcher-meat, composition of, i. 109.
sition of it and blood, 303-its tenacity   Butter, why eaten with white fish, i. 111
of life, ib. —constant movement and        -used as an unguent by the Greeks,
waste of it, 305-its rapid renewal, 306    &c., ii. 216.
-rapidity of its waste varies, ib.-an   Butyric acid, ii. 202.
assemblage of chemical wonders, 312-  Buyos, what, ii. 100.
action of its parts on the blood, 317-   Cabbages, origin of the, i. 69-their nu
preserved from  great alterations, 318-    tritive properties, 102.
its chemical instincts, 319-why it re-  Caesonia, love-drink given to Caligula by,
quires salt, 826-its susceptibilities, 328    ii. 170.
— influence of light on it, 329.         Caffeine, proportion of, in tea, i. 141-in
Boiling of meat, loss in, i. 121-how best    coffee, 171.
done, 123.                               Calabria, manna produced in, i. 227.
Bolivia, cultivation of the coca leaf in, ii.  Calcareous soils, carbonate of lime in, i
118-garlic smelling plants in, 228.        48.
Bone, proportion of, in the body, ii. 302.   Camphors, various, ii. 189.
Bones, what they appropriate, ii. 3817-   Canada, maple sugar produced in, i. 220.
crushed, their action on grass lands, i. 68.  Cancer in the lip, alleged origin of, ii. 22
Bowza or millet beer, i. 250.              Candle-works, smells from, ii. 247.
Borassus, wine from the, i. 269.           Cane sugar, see Sugar.
Bore wells, water of, i. 31.               Caanibis Indica, ii. 89-sativa, ib.
Borneo, opium-smoking in, ii. 62-cam-   Canterbury hops, ii. 41.
phor, 190.                               Cantomn, price of tea at, i. 137.
Bouquet of wines, the, i. 266, ii. 205-   Capacity for heat, what, ii. 320.
small portion of oil which caulses it, 206.  Capraria bifolia, i. 154.
Brain, action of tobacco on the, ii. 27-its   Carbon, whence derived by the plant, i.
composition and structure, 330-section     63-its circulation through the plant
of it, ib.-phosphorus in it, 331-its    and animal, ii. 343-buried in coal, 344
grey and white matter, ib.-functions,    -and in  coral reefs and limestone
&c. of its parts, ib.-its ash, ib.-chemi-    rocks, 344-breathed out as carbonic
cal adjustments in its parts, 332.         acid, ib.
Bran, position of, in rye, i. 80-gluten in,  Carbonate of lime in calcareous soils, i.
86.                                        48.
Brandies or ardent spirits, i. 274.        Carbonic acid, preparation and properties
Brassica, the wild, i. 69.                   of, i. S-proportion of, in the air, 9-this
Brazilian cocoa or Guarana, i. 188-holly,,    adjusted to organic life, 12 —in the Java
150-tea, 165.                              poison-valley, ib. —its absorption by
Bread we eat, the, i. 80-difference be-    water, 38-formed  during fermentatween new  and stale, 82-proportion        tion, 39-absorbedl by the leaves of
of water and gluten in wheaten, 83-        plants, 63-exhaled from the lungs and
composition of wheaten and rye, 85-        skin, ii. 279, 2SS-might soon Le rehow it becomes spongy, 82 —its compo-    moved from the air, 841-effects of such
sition, 86-peculiar ferment in the bran    removal, 3842-hoew restored, 841 et seq.
of, 104-wheaten, compared with beef,    -breathed out of the earth, 344.
108.                                     Carlsbad, the springs of, ii. 344.




370                                  INDEX.
Carnivorous animals, stomach of, ii. 308.    179-its effects, ib.-adulterations of it,
Carolinas, waste lands in, i. 59.            179.
Carraways, distillation of, in England, ii.  Children, effects of opium on, ii. 72.
186.                                     Chilian pine, use of the seeds of the, as
Carrion plants, ii. 230.                     food, i. 92.
Carrot, cultivated, its origin, i. 69-its  China, consumption of tobacco in, ii. 10composition, 98-roasted for coffee, 175.    and of opium, 69-adulterations of opiCartilages, the, ii. 317.                    um, 78-camphor, 189.
Caryota urens, wine from the, i. 270.      Chinese, preparation of opium by the, ii.
Casein, what, i. 113.                        61-its effects on them, 82.
Caspian sea, water of the, i. 31.          Chinese beer, ii. 54.
Castoreum, what, ii. 211.                  Chlorine, destroys sulphuretted hydroCatechu or Cashu, how used, ii. 108.         gen, ii. 255-as a smell destroyer, 258
Cats not injured by morphia, ii. 77.         et seq.
Cava, what, i. 255.                        Chlorides of iron, lime, and zinc, as smell
Cecropia peltata, ash of, used with coca,    destroyers, ii. 261.
ii. 123.                                 Chocolate, preparation of,i.184-flavoured
Celery, mannite in, i. 229.                  with Vanilla, ii. 192.
Cells, number of, in the lungs, ii. 270.   Chocollatl, the Mexican name for cocoa,
Cerambyx moschata, the, ii. 213.             i. 181.
Cerebellum, the, ii. 330.                  Christison, Dr., on tobacco, ii. 22.
Cerebrum, the, ii. 330.                    Churrus, what, ii. 90.
Cesspools, how sweetened, ii. 254.         Chuspa, what, ii. 119.
Chaccar, what, ii. 120.                    Chyle, the, what, ii. 294-changed in the
Chaco, what, ii. 177.                       lacteals, 296-conveyed into the juguChalk rocks, section of, i. 45-their influ-    lar, ib.-under the microscope, 314.
ence on the soil, 49.                    Chyme, the, what. ii. 293.
Chalot, use of the, in France and Eng-  Cider, making of, i. 260.
land, ii. 226.                           Cider apples of Normandy, the, i. 261.
Charcoal burns in oxygen, i. 5-darkens   Cigars, how  manufactured, ii. 20-disflowers, 69-its action on smells, ii. 251  eases ascribed to, 23-why preferred,
-on flesh, ib.-and on water, ib. —a de-    31.
odoriser, 253-efficacy of animal, 254-   Cinchona bark, drugging of fish with, ii.
action on nightsoil, ib.-on cesspools,    52.
graves, &c., ib.-value of peat, ib. —na-  Cinnamic acid, ii. 191.
ture of its action on smells, 255-res-  Cinnamon, oil of, ii. 186-tree, ib.
pirators, 25T-their use in hospitals,  Cinnamonium zeylanicum, the, ii. 186.
&c., 257.                                Circulation of matter, the, see Matter.
Charms, reality of, ii. 171-former notions   Civet, fragrance of, diluted, ii. 210-tineon them, 173.                              ture of, 212.
Chavica betle, the, ii. 110.               Civet cat, the, ii. 210.
Cheddar cheese, composition of, i. 116.    Clay, Mr., on the use of opium in Preston,
Cheek, blush of the, ii. 380.               ii. 72.
Cheese, varieties of, i. 115,116-compared   Clay, eating of, among the negroes, ii.
with milk, &c., 117-as a digester, 118    1T3-in Java and Northern  Europe,
-scented with melilot, ii. 195.            174 —anong the Otomacs, 175.
Chemical arts, rise of the, i. 239-combi-   Clay soils for wheat, &c., i. 67.
nation, what, 25.                       Cleansing of towns, best means of, ii. 265.
Chemico-geological relations, influence of  Climate, influence of, on the effects of toon a national diet, ii. 325.              bacco, ii. 23.
Chemistry, influence of, on the sugar  Cloves, distillation of, in England, ii. 187.
manufacture, i. 226-applications of, in   Coca, what, ii. 116-how  collected, 118 —
beetroot sugar making, 217-and to ar-    its cultivation, ih.-its ancient use, 118
tificiai perfumes, ii. 216.                -general use of, in Peru, 119 —used as
Chenopodium olidum, the, ii. 228.           a circulating mediurn, 119-how  preCheshire cheese, 1. 116.                    pared, 120-its effects, 122-virtues asChica, how prepared, i. 24S8-influence of    cribed to it, 125-veneration for it, 126
the salivain making, 249-from barley,    -lessens desire for food, 126-Von
&c., 250.                                 Tschudi and Weddell on it, ib.-imChick pea, the, i. 88-roasted for coffee,    proves the breathing, 128-condemned
ii. 174.                                   by the Spaniards, 129-recent testimoChicory, a substitute for coffee, i. 176-    ny regarding it, 130-its use recomhow prepared, 177-topers of, 178-its      mended in Europe, ib.-its constitu
active ingredients, ib.-quantity  con-    ents, 130-how it acts, 182-resembles
sunled, ib.-detection of it in coffee,    hemp ant opium, 133-total consump.




INDEX.                                  37
tion of it, 134-revenue drawn from it,  Cotton plant, soil suited for the, i. 68.
ib.-numbers among whom used, 154-   Coumarin, what, ii. 194 —plants in which
compared with opium, 160-country of,    found, 196-its influence, ib.
i. 184.                                  Cow, how it gives off its phosphorus, ii.
Coccinic acid, ii. 203.                      220-composition of its milk, i. 114.
Cocculus indicus, adulteration of beer  Crawford, Dr., on the specific heat of the
with, i. 290-figure of, ii. 50-its effects    blood, ii. 321.
in beer, 51-its use forbidden, 52-pro-  Creosote, prevents decay, ii. 250.
portion used in beer, ib.-its constitu-  Cress, the oil of, ii. 225.
ents and poisonous qualities, 53.        Crocus sativus, the, ii. 56.
Coccus maniparus, the, i. 235.             Cuba, sugar manufactured in, i. 210-toCochlearia oflicinalis, oil of, ii. 227.     bacco of, ii. 16.
Cocoa, or chocolate, description of the   Curd of milk, the, i. 113.
tree, i. 180-brought to Europe by the   Curing of meat, the, ii. 250.
Spaniards,181-its fruit and beans, 182-   Cutty pipes, why preferred, ii. 31.
imports into Great Britain, 183-beans,  Cyanide of Kakodyle, ii. 227.
how roasted, &c., 183-and used, 184-   Cyanogen, what, ii. 227.
husk, ib.-nibs, ib.-its constituents,  Cyperus esculentus, root of, used for co185-butter, 186-compared- with milk,    coa, i. 188.
187-Brazilian, 188-its effects, 191-  Dalecarlians, beer of the, ii. 55.
total consumed, 193-and numbers by   Damaras, the, their desire of salt, ii. 327.
whom, 193.                              Dandelion, the, used for coffee, ii. 174.
Cocoa-nut tree, sugar from  the, i. 220-  Darnel, narcotic qualities of, ii. 147.
soil on which grown, 68.                 Date and date-palm, the, i. 94-sugar from
Cocos nucifera, the, i. 267.                 the palm, 219.
Codeine, what, ii. 74.                     Datura sanguinea and stramonium, ii.
Ccecum, the food in the, ii. 298-acid        137.
formed in the, 299.                      Dead bodies, associations with, ii. 230.
Coffee, introduction of, i. 165-consump-  Dead sea, water of the, i. 32.
tion of, in Great Britain, ib.-varieties,  Deadly nightshade, narcotic effects of the,
&c. of, 167-the tree, 167-its effects,    ii. 146.
168-its constituents, 170-compared   Decay, means of arresting, ii. 249, 250.
with tea, 172-effects of roasting, 172-  Decomposition,  circumstances  which
its alleged effects on gout, &c., 174-va-  haston, ii. 234.
rieties cultivated, 174-substitutes for  Delphinium glaciale, the, ii. 209.
it, i. —its physiological effects, 191-  Delusions, effects of narcotics in inductotal consumption, 193-numbers by          ing, ii. 156.
whom used, 194-the aromatic ingredi-  Denmark, tobacco consumed in, ii. 14.
ent, ii. 215-use of the leaf, i. 159-and   Deodorisers, what, ii. 253-distinguished
its constituents, 159-tea, how prepared,    from disinfectants, 260.
156-its effects, 157.                    De Quincey on the effects of opium, ii.
Cognac, alcohol in, i. 277-oil, ii. 202.     64.
Cold-blooded animals, do not breathe, ii.  De Sacy, on the word assassin, ii. 94.
285.                                     De Saulcy on the Valley of Hinnom, ii.
Colegate hop, the, ii. 42.                   365.
Coleridge on opium, ii. 68.                Dew, cause of, i. 14-its fall, 15.
Colon, the, its position, ii. 298.         Dhoora or Dhurra, i. 89.
Compound radicals, what, ii. 224-their  Diastase produced during fermentation,
combinations, 225-their number, 226.       i. 243-its action on starch, ib.
Condiments, the onion tribe and assafce-  Dibs or dips, what, i. 199.
tida as, ii. 223-selection of, 326.      Diet, water an element of, ii. 323-influConstantinople, opium-eating in, ii. 64,    ence of water on, 324.
66.                                     Digestion, process of, ii. 294 et seq.-proConstitution, influence of, on the effects   moted by the saliva, 295-its purpose,
of tobacco, ii. 23.                        300-necessary to breathing, 309-and
Convulsions, geological, influence of, on    to motion, 310-summary of its pro.
plant growth, ii. 365.                     cess, &c., 311-its purpose the same in
Cook, Captain, on the bread-fruit tree, i.    all animals, 313-promoted by sunshine,
96.                                        332.
Cooking beef, loss in, i. 121.            Digestive organs, the, ii. 297.
Coquero, what, ii. 120.                    Diodorus Siculus on soothing cordials, ii.
Coral reefs, carbon buried in, ii. 345.      93.
Corn plants, origin of, i. 70.            Dipteryx odorata, the, ii. 194.
Corpus papillare, the, ii. 329.            Disease brought on by want of salt, ii
Corrosive sublimate, eating of, ii. 77.     329.




372tS                                INDEX.
Disinfectants, what, ii. 255-the best, 265   Farnham hops, ii. 48.
-act chemically, 255-distinguished   Fat, proportion of, in domesticated an!.
from deodorisers, 255.                     mals, i. 108-in wild ones, Tb.-in MeDistillation  of spirits, i. 278-different    rino sheep, ib-in fish, 110(-in cocoa,
modes of, 279.                             186-results of deficiency of food on the,
Distilleries, the Scotch, mixtures of grain    ii. 274-combines with oxygen in the
employed in, i. 280.                       body, 275-why relished, 288-action ol
Dobrudscha, use of salicine in the, ii. 201.    the stomach on, 298-proportion in the
Dogs, not injured by morphia, ii. 77.        blood and body, 308.
Dogsbane, honey poisoned by, i. 200.       Fat cells of the skin, the, ii. 332.
Domesticated animals, fat in, i. 108.      Fats, animal and -vegetable, i. 125-solid
Dough, raised by yeast, i. 81.               and liquid, 126-liquid, become soonest
Drains, sweetening of. by charcoal, ii.    rancid, 127-in the brain, ii. 831-phos249.                                       phorus an ingredient of these, ib.
Drunkenness, influence of tobacco on, ii.  Feathers, silica a constituent of, ii. 310.
23.                                      Females, effects of arsenic on, ii. 107.
Dunes, sandy, waters of, i. 37.            Ferment, peculiar, in bran, i. 103.
Duodenum, the food in the, ii. 300.        Fermentation ofaloe juice, i. 274-of canls
Durham, water used in, i. 30.               juice, 273-of dough, 82-of grape juice,
Dyspepsia in snuff takers, ii. 23.           262-of palni ju ice, 267-of sugar, 216Eau d'ange, ii. 180.                         chemical changes during it, 238.
Eau de Cologne, ii. 182.                   Fertility, influence of geological strumcture
Earth-chestnut and  earthnut used  as    on, i. 47 —etreat of, toward the west of
cocoa, i. 184.                             North America, 58.
Eatwell, Dr., on the effects of opium, ii. 83.  Ferula assafcetida, the, ii. 224.
Edinburgh, water used in, i. 80.           Fezzan, consumption of the date in, i. 95,
Eel, fat in the, i. 110.                   Fibres and fibrin in flesh, i. 107.
Egg, composition of the, i. 111, 112-com-  Fibrin, proportion of, in the body, ii; 302
pared with other nutriments, 113.          -resembles gluten and albumen, i. 107.
Eggs and bacon, why eaten together, i.  Fig, nutritive quality of the, i. 95.
112.                                     Finland, earth mixed with the blread in,
Egypt, the onions of, ii. 226.               ii. 172.
Electric spark, the, effect of, on the air, i.  Fish, proportion of fat in, i. 110-plants
19.                                        which intoxicate, ii. 49-and fish cakes,
Elephant, blood-corpuscles of the, ii. 321.    imitation of, 2383.
El-mogan, what, ii. 92.                    Flesh, composition of, i. i07, 108-that of
Emetic holly, the, ii. 145.                  wild animals, 109-how  preserved ill
Emotions, origin of, ii. 157.                the Panlpas, &c., ii. 2032-effects  of
Enamel of the teeth, the, ii. 835.           charcoal on, 252.
Endive, wild, see Chicory.                 Flesh meat, composition of, i. 108-conmEnfleurage, what, ii. 163.                   pared with oat cakle, 10S —its loss in
England, consumption of sugar in, i. 224     cooking, 120-qualities of well cooked,
-and of spirits, 383 —of spirits per    122-salting of, 124-why nutritionl
head, 385-is it more temperate than        125.
Scotland, &c., 887-consumption  of  Flour, whole meal, i. 84 —wheaten, comnhops in, ii. 88-opium  used in, 70-        position of, 83.
opium-eating, on the increase in, 71.   Flowers, color of, altered by charcoal,
English farming, former defects of, i. 60.   &c,, i. 69-their leav es give off carbonic
Ether, caprylic, ii. 204-propylic, ib.       acid, ii. 2SS-and produce heat, ib.
Ethers, simple, with organic acids, form   Fluorine, contained in the bones and
perfumes, ii. 241.                        teeth, ii. 317.
Ethereal perfumes, ii. 197.                Flying bug of the Ganges, the, ii. 2383.
Ethyle, combined with sulphur and ar-  Food, nutritioius, i. 103-twhly we mix,
senic, ii. 241.                            103, 104-why we add water to, 104 —
Ethylic ether, ii. 199.                      the desire for, lessened by coca, ii. 127
Eucalyptus sugar, i. 229.                    -action of the saliva on it, 295-in the
Europe, use of coca recommended in, ii.    gullet, 297-action of the stolnach and
131.                                       intestines on it, 298, et seq.-is acid in
Excretine contained in ni g-htsoil, ii. 237.  the stomach and ccecilm, 299-and alExcretotic acid, ii. 23T.                    kaline in the small intestines, 302-the
Extrait d'ambre, preparation of, ii. 258.    rejected refuse, 308.
Eye, adaptations in the, ii. 332.         Formic acid, what, ii. 204.
Eyes, the, action of acrolein on, ii. 170.    France, beet-sugar manufactories in, i.
Faham tea, i. 162-its odoriferous princi-    214-sugar consumed in, 224-and to.
ple, ii. 195.                             bacco, ii. 13.




INDEX.                                   373
Frankincense, what, ii. 216-added  to   Grave-yards, effects of, on well waters, i.
wine, i. 290.                               35-evils of their being near houses,
Fraxinus ornus, the, i. 227.                  &c., ii. 237-sweetened  by charcoal,
Freezing, action of, with regard to decay,    254.
ii. 252.                                  Great Britain, agricultural progress of, i.
Fruit sugars, i. 200.                         60.
Fungus, the intoxicating, of Siberia, ii.  Greensand rocks, section of, i. 44-soils,
142.                                        suitable for hops, ii. 39-waters, in SurGalangals, what, ii. 114.                     rey, i. 30.
Gall-bladder, the, ii. 297.                 Green teas, varieties of, i. 133-adulteraGalton on the disuse of salt in S. W.    tions of, 151.
Africa, ii. 327.                          Ground ivy, the, a substitute for hops, ii.
Gambir extract, the, ii. 168-quantity         50.
produced in India, 169.                   Gualtheria procumbens, the, ii. 200.
Game flavour, the, ii. 230.                 Guano, enriching effects of, i. 64.
Garancine, manufacture of, i. 236.          Guarana, theine contained in, i. 188Gardner, Dr., on the coffee leaf, i. 189.    bread, ib.
Garlic, smell of, ii. 222-and salt as a cure   Guarapo, what, i. 270.
for thirst, 227.                          Guinea corn, i. 89.
Garlic-smelling plants, diffusion of, ii.  Gum tree, the, and its sugar, i. 231.
228.                                      Gunjah, what, ii. 91.
Gases, intermixing of, i. 9-absorption of,  Gymnemna sylvestre, i. 211.
by water, 38.                             Gypsum in hard water, i. 35-its effects
Gen, what, i. 236.                            in fertilising, 5S —used in adulterating
Geneva, alcohol in, i. 2TT.                   tea, 149.
Germany, beet sugar manufactories in, i.  Gyrinus natator, the, ii. 213.
214.                                      Haddock, fat in the, i. 110.
Germination, diastase produced during,  Hadjoun, what, ii. 92.
i. 244.                                   Halidrys siliquosa, the, i. 229.
Geysers, water of the, i. 29.               Hamlet's soliloquy on the changes of matGin flavoured with sweet-flag, ii. 208.       ter, ii. 334.
Glass-making, smells from, ii. 24T.         Hard waters, lime in, i. 33.
Glucina, what, i. 198.                      Haroun-al-Raschid, a hemp smoker, iti.
Gluten, extraction  of, from   wheaten        93.
flour, i. 80-its position in the grain, i.  Hashash or haschisch, what, ii. 91.
85, 86-proportion of, in pulse, 89-   Havre, sea-water of, i. 32.
does not nourish alone, 103-its resem-  Hawthorn flowers, scent of, ii. 268.
blance to fibrin, &c., 112-in tea, i. 145   Hay fever, the, ii. 175.
-in mat6, 156.                            Heat, radiation of, i. 16-in water, 2sGlycerine, distillation of, ii. 246.          how produced in the body, ii. 291.
Glycyrrhiza glabra, the, i. 234.            Heath plants, narcotic properties of, ii.
Goats' dung, influence of, on tobacco, ii.    151.
32-its smell, 237.                        Heather beer of the Picts, the, ii. 149.
Godfrey's cordial, effects of, ii. T2.      Hebenon of Shakespeare, the, ii. 29.
Golding hops, ii. 41.                       Ileetoo, what, ii. 54.
Gommuti palm, wine from the, i. 264.        Hemnatn, what, ii. 315.
Gongonha, what, i. 153.                     Hemp plant, resinous substance in, ii. 8,
Gooseberry, water in the, i. 97.              -how collected, 90-its properties, 91
Goose-grass roots used for coffee, i. 112.    -plant dried and smoked, ib. —forms
Goumelia, seeds of the, used for coffee, i.    in which it is used, 91-its chemical
171.                                        constituents, 100-its ancient use, 93Gout, effects of coffee on; i. 1T0.           effects of the resin, 95 et seq. —M. MoGout de terrain, the, in French ciders, i.    reau on it, 96-erroneous perceptions
261.                                        caused by it, 98-its effects vary, 99Grain spirit, i. 278.                         De Saulcy's trial of it, 100-volatile oil
Grains of paradise, adulteration of beer      of, 101-compared with opium, 102by, ii. 113.                                and with coca, 134-quantity used, 102
Gram, the, i. 99.                             -and numbers among whom  used,
Granite soils, vlhy poor, i. 54.              163.
Grape, oil, nature of, ii. 202 -sugar, see   Henbane, narcotic effects of, ii. 147
Sugar —wines-see Wines.                   Herbivorous animals, stomach of, ii. 369.
Grass-lands, effect of lime and bones on,  Herring, fit in the, i. 110 —brine, odour
i. 61.                                      o- ii. 229-pies, 114.
Grasses, sweet-smelling, il. 175.           Hertz, improvements of beet-sugar makGravel, effects of coffee on, i. 173.         ing by, i 218.




374                                  INDEX.
HIidri, what, ii. 167.                       -of Peru, their temperament, 120Highgate Hill, water near, i. 35.            of Bolivia, heavy taxation of, 121.
Hippuric acid, how prepared, ii. 189-ac-  Indigo, colouring of tea with, i. 150.
tion of heat on, 194.                    Insanity, how produced, ii. 161.
Holland, use of Java tea in, i. 138.       Insect odours, ii. 218-smells, 284.
Hollands, how flavoured, i. 277.           Intoxicating fungus of Siberia, the, ii. 140
Honey, foreign substances in, i. 200-        -its effects, 141-how used, 142.
Narbonne, ib.-Mount Ida, ib.-Trebi-  Iodine and iodoform as smell destroyers,
zond, ib.-sugar, 199.                     ii. 264.
Hop, the, its introduction into England,  Ireland, consumption of ardent spirits in,
ii. 36 - consumption of, in the king-    i. 283-is it more intemperate  than
dom, 87- duty  paid, ib. - produce         England, 288-influence of temperaabroad, 83 —the wild, ib.-is the nar-    ment in, 289.
cotic of England, 39 —its cultivation, 39  Iris, seeds of the, used for coffee, i. 171.
-plant and flower, 39 —Tusser's rules  Jaggery, what, i. 218.
for cultivating it, 40-soils for it, ib.-   Jamaica, substitute for opium in, ii. 85.
its uses, 40-varieties grown, 41-those   James VI. on tobacco, ii. 23.
of Farnham and Canterbury, 43-their  Java, poison-valley of, i. 12-sugar mannqualities, 44-those of Worcester, ib.-     facture in, 209-tea, 139-opium smokconsumption of the different kinds, 45    ing in, ii. 62-eating of clay in, 174-their quality as affected by soil, 45-    camphor, 189.
volatile oil of, 45-sleep-giving qualities  Javanese, influence of opium on the, ii. 79.
of the pillow, 46-constituents, ib. et  Jones' hops, ii. 42.
seq.-effects of, on the system, 49-sub-  Jordan river, water of the, i. 31.
stitutes for, 50.                        Julian, Don Antonio, on the coca leaf, ii.
Hopped beer of China, the, ii. 54.           129.
Horse-radish, oil of, ii. 227.             Juniper berries, uses of, i. 278.
Horses, effects of arsenic on, ii. 169.    Kakodyle, properties of, ii. 242-cyanide
Hospitals, charcoal respirators in, ii. 257.    of, 243 —of methyle, ib.-of ethyle, 268.
Hottentots, neglect of salt by the, ii. 327.  Kalmias, snuff made from, ii. 83.
Huille de mille-fleurs, ii. 182.           Kamtschatka, the intoxicating fungus in,
Human milk, i. 114.                          ii. 141.
Humboldt, account of the Otomacs by,  Karaca, what, i. 265.
ii. 175.                                 Kedis or civet cat, the, ii. 210.
Humeriads, odour of the, ii. 215.          Kenguel, what, i. 175.
Humic acid, i. 236.                        Kent, hop grounds in, ii. 41.
Humulus lupulus, the, ii. 89.              Kent water company, water of the, i. 83.
Hungarian wine-oil, what, ii. 203.         Khaat or Chaat, what, i. 161.
Hunter, John, on the life of the blood, ii.  Kidneys, action of the, ii. 318-their im316.                                       portance, 319.
Husbandry, effects of the nature of rocks  Kief, what, ii. 92.
on, i. 59.                               Kinon, how produced, i. 179.
Hydrogen preparation, &c. of, i. 24-ar-   Knaresboro' petrifying spring, the, i. 34.
senietted, ii. 239-phosphuretted, 238-   Kol-cannon, what, i. 103.
seleniuretted, ib.-sulphuretted, 219-   Kuskus of India, the, ii. 194.
telluretted, 239.                        Laboratories, use of charcoal respirators
Hyoscyamus, used for coffee, i. 175-ni-    in, ii. 257.
ger, narcotic qualities of, ii. 140.     Labrador tea, i. 160-a substitute for the
Hyraceum, what, ii. 211.                     hop, ii. 56.
Iceland, snuff-box of, ii. 18.             Lactic acid, i. 264.
Ilex gongonha, i. 151-Paraguayensis, 150   Lactucarium, what, ii. 86.
-theezans, 153-vomitoria, ii. 145.       Lactucin, what, ii. 86.
Illusions artificially induced, ii. 157.. Lagmi, what, i. 267.
Incense, resins used for, ii 197-action of  Laminaria saccharina, the, i. 229.
1heat on, ib.                            Lanarkshire cheese, composition of, i. 117.
India, substitutes for the hop in, ii. 53-   Lancashire, farming of, i. 61.
opium produced in, 70.                   Landes, the, well waters in, i. 38.
Indian Archipelago, bread-fruit tree in   Lane on the effects of tobacco, ii. 28.
the, i. 96.                              Langsdorff, Dr., on the intoxicating fun.
Indian-corn meal, composition of, i. 86-     gus, ii. 143.
sugar, 222.                              La Paz, clay eaten at, ii. 177.
Indian opium, ii. 76.                      Latakia, tobacco of, ii. 17.
Indian poisoners, thorn-apple seeds used   Laurus camphora, the, ii. 190.
by, ii. 187.                            Lava, soils formed from, i. 45.
Indians, use of the thorn-apple by, ii. 135   Lavender grown at Mitcham, ii. 184.




INDEX.                                  375
Layard on the effects of tobacco, ii. 23.    Manufactories, gases and smells from, ii
Leaves, carbonic acid absorbed by, i. 12     249.
-pores in, 64-consumption of, as food,  Manure, effect of, on the sugar-beet, i,
101-those of cabbage, 102.                 218-on tobacco,'ii. 32.
Leban, what, i. 254.                       Manuring, the art of, i. 69.
Ledum  palustre, the, i. 160-a substitute   Maple sugar, see Sugar.
for the hop, ii. 55.                     Maple honey, i. 222.
Ledums, narcotic properties of the, ii. 56.  Marah, waters of, i. 87.
Lemon grass and oil, ii. 195.              Mare's milk, beer from, i. 253.
Lentil, composition of the, i. 89.         Marl, fertilising effects of, i. 59.
Lepsius, Dr., on the manna of Scripture,  Marshy places, use of the charcoal respii. 232.                                   rators in, ii. 257.
Lettuce, the, a substitute for opium, ii. 86.  Mat6, what, i. 150-how  used, 154-its
Lie tea, what, i. 150.                       effects, 155-its constituents, 155.
Light, influence of, on the body, ii. 329.    Matlock petrifying spring, i. 34.
Lilium pomponium, the, i. 101.             Meconine and Meconic acid, what, ii. 75.
Lime, it hard waters, i. 33-how held in   Melilot, what, ii. 195-used for scenting
solution, 34 —its influence on pastures,    cheese, ib.-permanence of its odour,
68 —why added to sugar-cane juice, 207.    215.
Lime water, i. 8-action of carbonic acid   Melons, essence of, ii. 263.
on, 11.                                 Melsens, discovery of, regarding fermenLimestone rocks, carbon buried in, ii 343.    tation of sugar, i. 217.
Liquor of Cadet, the, ii. 243.             Mephitis Americana, the, ii. 232.
Liquorice root, i. 233-sugar, ib.          Mercaptan, what, ii. 241.
Lobelia, the, used for smoking, ii. 94.    Merino sheep, proportion of fat in, i. 109.
Lobsters, imitation of, ii. 231.           Methyle, kakodyle formed from, ii. 242.
Loka river, water of the, i. 30.           Methylic ether, ii. 199.
Love-philters, on, ii. 170.                Mexical, what, i. 273.
Lungs, the, ii. 270-cells in, ib.-air  Mexican cocoa, i. 180.
drawn into,- 271-changes it undergoes   Miasms, rise into the air, i. 20.
in them, 273-moisture exhaled from,  Mignonette, its odour, ii. 215.
275-and  carbonic acid, 275 —oxygen   Milk, composition of, i. 113, 114-a model
absorbed by, 276-their wonderful con-    food, 115-compared with  beef, &c.,
struction, 287-their position, 289.        117-beer, 252, 255-sugar, see Sugar.
Lupuline, what, ii. 46-its qualities, 47.    Millefoil, intoxicating qualities of, ii. 56.
Macpherson, Dr., on the effects of opium,  Millet beer, i. 250.
ii. 83.                                  Milman on the manna of Scripture, i.
Macropiper methysticum, the, i. 255.         232.
Madden, Dr., on  tobacco, ii. 26-on   Mind, effects of opium on the, ii. 63, et
opium, 64.                                   seq.
Madder, colouring matter of, i 2387.       Mirbane, essence de, ii. 189.
Magdeburg, beet grown at, i. 215.          Miserable, the cocoa husk, i. 182.
Magnesia, in th-e muscles, ii. 317.        Mitcham, liquorice grown at, i. 234-and
Maguey, the, i. 29.                          lavender and peppermint, ii. 184.
Maize, composition of, i. 84-beer, 248-   Mixture, a, what, i. 26.
spirit distilled from, 283-sugar, 222.   Mocha coffee, i. 164.
Malagueta pepper, ii. 113.                 Mograbins, the, use of tobacco by, ii. 163.
Malaria, use of charcoal respirators in, ii.  Momeea, what, ii. 90.
257.                                     Morning Chronicle, the, on the use of
Malays, influence of opium on the, ii. 79.    opium in Preston, ii. 72.
Malt, preparation of, i. 242-beer, ib.-   Morphia,  proportion  of, in  different
adulterations of it, 290-liquors, effects    opiums, ii. 76-found in the milk and
of the hop on, ii. 48.                     urine, 77-harmless to apes, &c., ib.
Man, influence of, on natural fertility, i.  Morphine, what, ii. 73.
56, 59, 61-his progress in supplying   Moschus moschatus, the, ii. 208.
his wants, ii. 92-weakness of his will,  Moselle wine, acidity of, i. 265.
194.                                     Mummies, drying of bodies into, ii. 232Manchester, use of opium in, ii. 72.         those of the Kreuzberg, ib.
Manilla, sugar-cane used in, i. 206.       Muracuja ocellata, a substitute for opium,
Mauna, extraction of, i. 227-its compo-    ii. 85.
sition, 228 —lrport of, 228-of the gum    Muriatic-acid gas, given off from  manutree, 229-rare varieties, 230-of the       factories, ii. 221-a  smell-destroyer,
Israelites, 2381-its quality, 232.         260.
Mannite, what, i. 228-found in seaweeds,  Murwa, what, i. 250.
&c., 229.                                Musk, ii. 208-its odour, ib.




'376                                 INDEX.
Musk deer, the, ii. 208.                   Nitrous oxide, a smell-destroyer, ii. 259Mustard, oil of, ii. 227.                    corrodes metals, ib.
iMycoderma cervisise, the, i. 246.         Noad, Mr., analysis of water from  HighNaples, waters in bay of, i. 24.             gate by, i. 35.
Narbonne honey, i. 207.                    North Africa, employment of civet in, ii.
Narceine, what, ii. 75.                      210.
Narcotic qualities of Thorn-apple smoke,  Norwich, curious fee-favor In, ii. 112.
ii. 139-of the poisonous fungi, 144-of  Nushturs, what, ii. 60.
the Puff-ball, ib. —of the Emetic holly,  Oatcake  compared  with  flesh-meat, i.
146-of Deadly  nightshade,  147-of    108.
common henbane, ib.-of Bearded dar-  Oatmeal, why it does not'ise in baking,
nel, 147 —of Sweet gale, 148-of Azalea    i. 87.
pqntica, 149-of Kalmia angustifolia,  Oats and oatmeal, composition of, i. 86150-of sweet-smelling flowers, 151-of    growth of, in Ireland, ii. 324.
various heath-plants, 150.               Odoriferous insects, ii. 213-particles, miNarcotics, universal use of, ii. 6, 152-     nuteness of, 214-resins, how used, 189
map of their distribution, 7-how  the      -volatile oils, 179.
use of them  is to be checked, 153-   Odours we enjoy, the, ii. 179-disagreetheir agricultural and commercial im-    able when concentrated, 210.
portance, 154-total produce and value   CEnanthic acid, what, ii. 205-ether, 264.
of them, 155-influence of the appetite   Oil of anise, ii. 187-of bitter almonds, ib.
for them  on domestic economy, ib.-        -its artificial preparation, 190-of cintheir general effects, 156-their special    namon, 187-of cress, 227-of horseproperties, 159-defects in our know-    radish, ib.-of jasmin, 181-of lavender,
ledge of them, 161-their national in-    119-of lemons, ib.-of mustard, 227fluences, 162-Asiatic  and American        of rape, 227 —of roses, 179-of scurvy,
customs regarding them, 163-summary        grass, 22T-of turpentine, 189.
regarding them, 164 —universal craving   Oil-palms, wine fiom the, i. 269.
for them, 164-slight differences among   Oil-sugar, distillation of, ii, 246.
them, 165.  See also  I-lemp, Hop,  Oily food, digestion of, ii. 221.
Opium, &c.                               Old believers, a Russian sect, ii. 23.
National habits, stability of, ii. 164-infiu-  Onions, nutritious qualities of, i. 101ence of narcotics, 161.                    consumption of, in  Spain, ib —their
Natron, use of, with tobacco, ii. 168.       smell, ii. 223-those of Egypt, 226.
Natural waters, impurity of, i. 29.        Onion tribe, general use of the, ii. 226.
Negro races, temperament of the, ii. 80.    Ononis spinosa, sweet contained in the, i,
Negroes, clay-eating among, ii. 173.         285.
Negrohead tobacco, ii. 20.                 Opilacion, what, ii. 124.
Nerves, action of tobacco on the, ii. 24.    Opium, origin of the name, ii. 59-how
Nettle, prickles of the, i. 74.              collected, 59-that of Smyrna, 60-how
New England, wheat culture in, i. 58-        prepared for smoking, 61-pipe and
maple sugar produced in, 220-hostility     box, 61-shops in Singapore, 62-its efto tobacco in. ii. 23.                     fects when smoked, 63-eating of, in
New South Wales, consumption of tobac-    Turkey, 63-De Quincey on its effects,
co in, ii. 14.                             64-Dr. Madden, 64-and Coleridge, 67
Nicaragua, burial-grounds in, ii. 3388.      -its after effects, 65-its effects on conNicotiana tabacum, ii. 9-rustica, 12-        firmed Theriakis, 66-its seductions,
this the yellow tobacco of Thibet, 12.     67-and power, 67-difficulty of abanNicotin, what, ii. 27-proportions of, in     doning it, 68 —misery caused by it, if.
different tobaccos, 28-contained in to-    -its power over the will, 6S-extent to
bacco smoke, Mi.                           which used in India, China, &c., 70Nightmare, artificial production  of, ii.    valerian an antidote to it, ib.-quantity
158.                                       raised in India, 70-import into Great
Nightsoil, peculiar compounds in, ii. 239    Britain, 71-its use in England on the
— deodorised by charcoal, 249.             increase, 72-its use in Manchester and
Nile water, how clarified, i. 37.            Preston, 72-its effects on children, 73
Nitrates in well waters, i. 86.              -its composition, 75 et seq.-Indian
Nitric acid, what, ii. 198-its production    inferior to Turkish, 76-from  Germama
in the air, i. 19-its effects on vegeta-    poppies, 77 —its narcotic principles pass
tion, ib.-how formed fiom ammonia,    through the body. ib.-adulteration of
251-brought down from the air, 853.        it in China, &c., 78-influence of race
Nitrobenzyl, what, ii. 187.                  and constitution on its effects, ib. —its
Nitrogen, preparation and properties of,    effects on the MIalays, 79-use of corroi. 7-its effects on the air, 10-necessa-   sive sublimate with it in Turkey, 81ry to the fertility of soils, 53.         its effects as distinguished from those




INDEX.                                  377
of wine, 81-is it necessarily deleteri-  Perfumes, artificial, ii. 216-as smell-dis
ous, 82-Dr. Eatwell on its effects in     guisers, 26?-7-conceal uncleanness, 268.
China, 83-the medical missionaries   Persian manna, i. 230.
there on it, 84-practical conclusions   Peru, use of the coca leaf in, ii. 118-balregarding it, ib.-infatuation it occa-    sam of, 187.
sions, ith,-substitutes for it, 85.     Peruvian, fondness of the, for coca, ii. 11S
Oppenheim  on the effects of opium, ii.    -his temperament, 120.
65.                                     Petiveria alliacea, the. ii. 226.
Orange-tree, the, ii. 1S4-perfumes from   Petrifying springs, i. 835.
the, 181.                                Philippines, use of the betel-nut in the,
Orcin manna, i. 2883.                        ii. 104.
Organs of smell, delicacy of the, ii. 215.    Phmnix dactylifera, sugar from the, i. 219.
Orinoco, eatable clay found on the, ii.  Phosphoric acid, what, i. 52.
176.                                     Phosphlorns burns in oxygen, i. 7-how
O'Shaughnessy, Dr., on the effects of    given off by animals, ii. 238.
hemp, ii. 95.                            Phosphuretted hydrogen, ii. 240.
Otomacs, substitute for snuff used by the,  Physico-geological influences, effects of,
ii. 33-clay-eating by the, 175.            on the soil, i. 46.
Over-cropping, sterility caused by, i. 56.   Picrotoxin, what, ii. 53.
Oxides of ethyle, methyle, and amyle, ii.  Picts, heather beer of the, ii. 149.
199.                                    Pigs' dung, odour of, ii. 237-its effect on
Oxygen, properties and preparation of, i.    plants, ib.
6-proportion of, in the air, 10-less of  Pine-apple oil, ii. 202.
it in the air from  the lungs, ii. 273-   Pipes, tobacco, different forms of, ii. 31absorbed by the lungs and slkin, 276-      Thibet and German, 30-opium, 61.
combines with the blood, 277-builds   Pipula moola, wlhat, ii. 112.
up the muscles, &c., 278-its action on   Plant, the, what it consists of, i. 62-its
the waste matter, 279-on the fat, 281      composition, 68 —source of its carbon,
-and on the starch of the food, 2S2-       68 —changes and forms of matterill, 71.
its action on alcohol, 282-how it pro-  Plants, carbonic acid absorbed by, i. 12duces heat in the body, 284.               why they refuse to grow on somne soils,
Oysters, imitation of, ii. 231.              51-soils affected by them, 55, 67Ozone, properties and production of, i.   those peculiar to certain  soils, 6718.                                       those which follow man, 71-purIposes
Paderborn, carbonic acid given off at, ii.    served by, 75-wide diffusion of garlic344.                                      smelling ones. 225-carrion ones, 280.
Pahsa, what, ii. 178.                      Plantain tree, the, i. 92-water in the
Palm sugar,.see Sugar —wine or toddy, i.    fruit, 97.
266-nnmbers by whom used, 270.           Plastic clay, section of, i. 44.
Palms, oil, i. 68-toddy, 269.              Plum, water in the, i. 97.
Palmitine, what, i. 125.                   Poison-valley of Java, the, i. 11.
Pampas, drying of flesh on the, ii. 285.   Poisons we select, the, ii. 165.
Papaver somniferum, the, ii. 58.           Poor, how they suffer from  adulterated
Paradise grains, importation of, ii. 113-    liquors, ii. 49.
adulteration of beer by, ib.-this ille-  Pbppig on the coca leaf, ii. 124.
gal, 114.                                Poppy, white, heads, 58-knives, ib.Paraguay tea, i. 151-how collected, &c.,    white and black, the opium fromn, i. 78.
ih. —kinds of, 152-quantity exported,  Pork, why eaten with pease pudding, i.<
ib. —that of Chili, 156.                   102.
Park, Mungo, on the love of salt in Afri-  Porter-ale, how made, ii. 44.
ca, ii. 627.                             Potash, presence of, in the blood, &c., ii.
Pea, cornposition of the, i. 89.               15.
Peach-borler, the, in New Jersey, i. 57.   Potato, composition of the, i. 98, 99-its
Pear oil, ii. 201-wine, i. 817.              cork skin, 74-connection between its
Peat, a smell-absorber, ii. 257-charcoal,    use and the spring waters of Ireland, ii.
its valne, 252.                            805.
Peaty soils, how formed, i. 48-plants pe-  Potato ethers, ii. 199-spirit, 199-starch,
culiar to, 67..   i 100-sugar, 202~
Pedang, coffee tea used at, i. 190.        Preston, use of opium in, ii. 73.
Peganumn harmala, ii. 87.                  Projectiles, suffocating and poisonous, ii.
Pepper, betel, growth and consumption        244.
of, ii. 110-long, 112.                   Proof spirit, alcohol in, i. 277.
Peppermint of Mitcham, the, ii. 184.       Propylamine, stinking odour of, ii. 281Pepper-worts, chemistry of thie, ii. 112.    its resemblance to trimethylamine, ib.
Pereira on tobacco, ii. 22.                  -flowers in which found, 267.




378                                  INDEX.
Prosopis algaroba, the, i. 250.              sumed in, 224-tobacco cultivated in,
Prout on the effects of tobacco, ii. 23.     ii. 12-sect in, by whom  it is rejected,
Prussian blue, coloring of teas with, i.    23-use of thorn-apple seeds in, 136.
150.                                     Rust in the cotton plant; i. 57.
Ptyaline in saliva, and its action, ii. 287.   Rye, structure of grain of, i. 85-starch
Puff-ball, narcotic qualities of the, ii. 143.    granules of, ib.-a substitute for coffee,
Pulque, what, i. 271-its qualities, 2783-    175-beer, 252.
its putrid smell, 273.                   Saccharum officinarum, the, i. 283.
Putrid fish, cause of the odour of, ii. 228-   Saffron, intoxicating effects of, ii. 67.
meat, plants smelling like, 230.         Sago and %ago-palm, the, i. 90-bread,
Pyroligneous acid, smells from manufac-      103-trees, people they can maintain,
ture of, ii. 247.                          92.
Pyrolignite of iron, a smell-destroyer, ii.  Saguerus saccharifer, the, i. 219.
264.                                     Salicine, what, ii. 201-used instead of
Quass, what, i. 252.                          quinine, ib.-its conversion into oil of
Queen of the meadow, and essence of, ii.    wintergreen, ib.
202.                                     Salicylic acid, ii. 201.
Quichuas, temperament of the, ii. 121.      Salting of meat, the, i. 124.
Quicklime, action of, on decay, ii. 252-as  Salvia, sclaria, effects of, on beer, ii. 56.
a smell-destroyer, 264-its action on   Sands, blowing, i. 67.
fresh animal matters, 265-and on fer-  Sandy downs, how produced, i. 47.
menting ones, ib.-how  to be applied   Sandwich Islands, consumption of sugarto fermenting heaps, 266.                   cane in the, i. 206.
Quinces, essence of, ii. 203.               Sausages, fat in, i. 111.
Quinine, salicine used for, in the Do.  Saussurea, putrid smell of, ii. 230.
brudscha, ii. 201.                        Sawdust, sugar prepared from, i. 201.
Quinoa, what, i. 88.                        Scent of grape-wines, the, i. 264.
Pace, influence of, on the effects of opi-  Scents compared to musical notes, ii.
um, ii. 80.                                 184.
Rags, sugar made from, i. 201.              Scented teas, i. 137.
Rancid fats, i. 127.                        Schabzieger cheese, ii. 19.5.
Rectification of spirits, the, i. 277.      Schinus imolle, the, i. 250.
Resin of hemp, the, ii. 88, 101-its effects,  Schlechtendal, Professor, on  cocoa, ii.
95 et seq.                                  130.
Resins, odoriferous, action of heat on, ii.  Scotch, use of deadly nightshade by the,
197.                                        ii. 146.
Respirator, charcoal, ii. 257.              Scotch distilleries, mixed grain used in
Retford, soil and hops of, ii. 43.            the, i. 280.
Reverie caused by tobacco, the, ii. 24.     Scotland, consumption of ardent spirits
Rhododendrons, snuff made from, ii. 36        in, i. 283-is it more intemperate than
-their narcotic qualities, 149.             England, 285.
Rhubarb  leaves, tobacco   adulterated   Scurvy produced by rice, i. 103.
with, ii. 33.                             Sea, saline matter carried from  the, i. 21
Rice, composition and use of, i. 87-beer,    -beds, ancient, now dry land, ii. 441adulteration of, 290.                       water, composition of, i. 32.
Richardson, Dr., on the Ledum  palustre,  Second sight, origin of, ii. 136.
ii. 66.                                  Seguiera alliacea, the, ii. 226.
Riegel, analysis of sea-water by, i. 32.   Seine, water of the, i. 37.
Rio Janeiro, sugar-cane used in, i. 206.    Seleniuretted hydrogen, ii. 239.
Roasting meat, loss in, i. 120-how  best  Seltzer, carbonic acid in the springs of, ii.
done, 122.                                 344.
Robinson, Dr., on the manna of Scrip-  Sheep, fat in, i. 109.
ture, i. 232.                             Sherry, acid in, i. 265.
Rochester, hops of, ii. 42.                 Shells, asphyxiating, ii. 244, 828.
Rocks, differences among, i. 43-stratified,  Siberian intoxicating fungus, the, ii. 141.
horizontal, and inclined, 44.            Sicily, manna produced in, i. 227.
Romans, sugar-cane known to the, i. 206.  Sick-rooms, charcoal respirators in, ii.
Rootlets of plants, the, i. 65.               257.
Rose oil, value of, ii. 283-water, prepara-  Sidhee, what, ii. 91.
tion of, 282.                            Silicious sand, what, i. 48.
Rotten egg, smell of, ii. 234.              Skate, fat in the, i. 110.
Rum, distillation of, i. 210-alcohol in,  Skim-milk cheese, composition of, i. 118.
277.                                     Skunk, the, ii. 232.
Russia, use of tea in, i. 138-beetroot su-  Smells, organs of, their delicacy, ii. 215gar manufactured in, 214-sugar con-        disguisers, 253-removers, 254.




INDEX.                                  379
Smells we dislike, the, ii. 218-different    -consumption in Great Britain, ib.tastes regarding, ib.-of animals, 231-     total production, ib., 224-how  its ferfetid, 239 et seq.-from  manufactories,    mentation is arrested, 216-consump247-their prevention, 250-action of    tion in different countries, 224-map of
charcoal and peat on them, 254-of    countries producing, 225-its change
chlorine and chloride of lime, 260-de-    into alcohol, 240-in beer, 244-proporstruction of them, 258 et seq.             tion of, in wines, 263.
Smelting of lead and copper, smells from,  Sugar, beetroot, the plant, i. 212-manuii. 247.                                   factories of, 214 —proportion in the root,
Smnyrna, opium of, ii. TO.                   ib.-proportion extracted, 215-its exSnuff, action of, ii. 30-substitutes for, 3388.    traction, 216-relative proportions of it
Snuff-boxes of Iceland, &c., ii. 18.         and saline matters, 217.
fSnuffs, manufacture of, ii. 20.           Sugar from the bird cherry, 202.
Social state, influence of geological struc-  Sugar, cane, i. 203 -the plant, 205ture on, i. 50.                            where it flourishes best, 204-varieties
Soda, carbonate and phosphate of, their    of it, ib.-known to the Romans, 206action on plants, i. 69.                   and used as food, ib.-its solubility, 29
Soda-makers, vapours discharged by, ii.    -proportion of it in the juice, 207-cut247.                                      ting and crushing the canes, 207-clariSoda-water, gas confined in, i. 39.          fying the juice, ib.-extracting  the
Soft waters, purity of, i. 34.               sugar, 208-loss in the manufacture,
Soil, ilnportance of, i. 42-how  formed,    209-proportion  extracted, 209 —to43-its influence on the hop, ii. 45.       tal quantity manuafetured, 211-difSoils of the granites, traps, and lavas, i.    ference between it and grape, ib.-its
46, 54-action of water and wind on,    conversion into the latter, 212-the cane
46, 47-peaty, 48-composition of, 51-       of the north, 228-its composition, 235
fertile, 52-rain necessary to, 55-and      -its relation to starch, 236.
warmth, 55-different plants peculiar  Sugar from cocoa-nut tree, i. 219.
to, 67.                                  Sugar from date-palm, i. 219.
South Sea islands, bread-fruit tree in the,  Sugar, eucalyptus, i. 229.
i. 95.                                   Sugar, fruit, i. 201.
Spices, adulteration of spirits by, i. 291.    Sugar, grape, i. 199-how  distinguished
Spirea, essence of, ii. 187.                 from cane, 211-its composition, 235.
Staffordshire, adulteration of beer in, ii.  Sugar, honey, i. 199.
114.                                     Sugar from lichens, i. 232.
Stale bread, what, i. 82.                  Sugar of liquorice, i. 233.
Stapelias, the, i. 272. ii. 230.           Sugar, maize, i. 222.
Starch, how formed, i. 65-granules of, 100   Sugar, maple, i. 220-its extraction, 221-its composition, 236-action of dias-    total produce, 222.
tase on it, 241, 243-that of the food   Sugar, milk, i. 113. 234 —its qualities, 234
combines with oxygen, ii. 247-sugar,    -how changed into alcohol, 308.
i. 201.                                  Sugar, palm, i. 219-produce of, 220.
Starving animal, the, action on its fat, ii.  Sugar from sea-weed, i. 202.
284.                                     Sugar of the sorghums, i. 223.
Stenhouse, Dr., on  the proportion  of  Sugar of starch, i. 201.
theine in tea, i. 142-and in mate, 156  Sugar from woody fibre, &c., i. 202.
-his respirator, ii. 256.                Sugar of lead, i. 198.
8tilton cheese, i. 116.                    Sulphate of iron as a smell-destroyer, ii.
Stow, Mrs., on the negro temperament,    264.
ii. 80.                                  Sulphite of lime, what, i. 216.
Stramoniumn, see thorn apple.              Sulphur, present in fetid animal and
Strata, various forms of, i. 42.             vegetable smells, ii. 225-its influence
Stratified rocks, i. 44-their extent, 44-    on the perspiration, 233.
their composition, 45.                   Sulphuretted hydrogen, properties, &c.
Straw, bleaching of, ii. 267.                of, ii. 218-its composition, 220-proStriped cane of Louisiana, the, i. 205.      duced in nature, 219 —in the rotten egg,
Strychnia, what, ii. 50.                     235.
Styria, arsenic-eating in, ii. 166.        Sulphuric acid, what, i. 52.
Subjee, what, ii. 91.                      Sulphurous acid, what, i. 216-given off
Succory, see Chicory.                        from volcanoes, ii. 220-universal dis.
Suffolk bank cheese, i. 116.                 like of, 221-a smell destroyer, 259-its
Sugar, introduction of, friom St. Domingo,    action  as  such, 260-its bleaching
i. 204-present state of its manufacture,    powers, ib.-as a fumigator, ib.
209-how  this to be improved, 210-  Sumatra, coffee-tea ulsed in, i. 158-exproduce per acre in the West Indies, 210   port of betel-nut from, ii. 104.




380                                  INDEX.
Sunderland, water used in, i. 30.            18T-its composition, 138- red, its ef.
Superphosphate of soda, action  of, on       fects, 138-use of, in the Andes, as a
flowers, i. 70.                            narcotic, 136.
Surrey, hop-grounds in, ii. 41.            Tobacco, the plant, ii. 6-its introduction,
Sussex, hop-grounds in, ii. 41.              into England and the East, 9-cpunSweden, eating of earth in, ii. 174.         tries it has spread into, ib. —King
Syrian rue, for what used, ii. 87.           James' Counterblast, 10-extensive use
Syrup of starch sugar, the, i. 201.          of it, 8-former opposition to it, 9Tamarisk manna, i. 231.                      consumption in the East and China, ib.
Tamarix gallica, the, i. 231.                -Papal Bull against it, 10-varieties oi
Tandou, what, ii. 73.                        it, ib., 12-the common green, 12Tannic acid in mate, i. 154-varieties of,    whence carried to the East, 18-its cul207.                                       ture in the United States, ib.-conTannin or tannic acid in tea, i. 144.        sumption in Great Britain, 1] 3-duty on
Tar-asun, what, ii. 54.                      it, 14-consumption  in Europe and
Tarfa tree, manna of, i. 230.                throughout the world, ib.-total proTartars, use of tea by the, i. 146.          duce, ib.-produce per acre, ib.-its
Tartaric acid, i. 264.                       produce compared with wheat, 15Tax, a manufacture promoted by a, i. 218.    produce in the United States, ib.-cirTea, consumption of, i. 130-the plant,    cumstances which affect its quality, 16
131-map of the districts of, 132 —pre-    -prices of different varieties, IS-that
paration of it, 132-changes in the leaf    of Latakia, ib.-forms in which used,
while drying, 183-that of different dis-    18-pipes of Germany and Thibet, 32
tricts, ib. —its price at Canton, 137-its  -cigars, 20-snuff, 21-its effects, 22introduction into China and England,    Pereira and Prout on it, 23-diseases
138-total produce of, 138-from Java,    ascribed to it, ib.-its soothing effects,
ib. -how used by the Chinese, 189-         22, 27-its effects in North America, 23
a Chinese on its effects, ib.-its effects    -opposition to its use in New England,
when new, 140-and in this country,    23 —Lane and Layard on it, 25-its exib.-its constituents, 141-why a fa-        citing effects, 27-reverie caused by it,
vourite with the poor, 144-why it    ib.-its constituents, 26-poisons  in
gives a black colour with iron, 145-       smoke, 28-its flavour affected by mathe leaves compared with beans, 146-       nure, 32-adulterations of it, ib.-subhow prepared among the Tartars, 146-       stitutes for it, 33-an exhausting crop,
eating of the leaves, 147-proportion       33-used as a circulating medium, 118
extracted by boiling water, ib.-soil    numbers among whom consumed, 153
suited for the plant, 181-adulterations    — chewed, &c. with natron, 163.
of it, ib.-ash left by it, 150 - com-  Toddy or palm-wine, i. 266 —palms, 269.
pared with coffee, 172-of Abyssinia,  Tolu, balsam of, ii. 192.
160-prevents sleep, 161-from  coffee   Tombeki, what, ii. 93.
leaves, 156-of Labrador, 160 —of Para-  Tonka bean, the, ii. 195.
guay, see Matl —of Tasmania, 161-  Trap rocks, soils of, i. 45.
plants used for, 163.                    Travers, Mr., on the product of tea, i.
Tellurium, influence of, ii. 233-com-    138.
pounds of, 244.                          Trebizond honey, i. 200.
Temperament, influence of, on the effects  Trimethylamine, what, i. 228-in stinkof tobacco, ii. 28.                        ing goosefoot, 228-in herring brine, ib.
Temperance pledge, the, how often bro-    -its composition, 229-its resemblance
ken, ii. 151.                              to propylamine, ib.-its possible use in
Terra Japonica, used instead of betel, ii.    cookery, 230.
108.                                     Triosteum  perfoliatum, a substitute for
Thames water, the, i. 30, 33.                coffee, i. 175.
Thebaine, what, ii. 74.                    Tunhoof, a substitute for hops, ii. 49.
Thebes, use of hemp known in, ii. 93.      Turfeh tree, manna of, i. 231.
Theine, proportion of, in tea, i. 141-its   Turnip, composition of the, i. 98-roasted
composition and properties, 142-its ac-    for coffee, 175.
tion, ib.-in mat6, 155-in coffee leaves,  Tusser on the hop, ii. 40.
157.                                     United Kingdom, consumption of coffee
Theobroma cacao, the, i. 178.                in, i. 165-of cocoa, 180-of sugar, 210
Theobromine, composition of, i. 185.         -of tea, 138.
Theriakis of Turkey, the, ii. 64.          United States, exhaustion of soil caused
Thibet, yellow tobacco of, ii. 10.           by growth of tobacco in, ii. 34.
Thirst, awakened by tobacco, ii. 23.       Unstratified rocks, i. 44-their composiThorn apple, common, adulteration of    tion, 46.
beer by, ii. 136 —effects of the seeds,  Ural Mountains, wild hops of, ii. 37.




INDEX.                                  381
Urban, Pope, bull by, against tobacco,    effects on  them, ib.-proportion  in
it. 9.                                     flour and bread, 83-and in fruits, 97Valerian, action of, on opium  intoxica-    sweetened  by  charcoal, ii. 251-sultion, ii. 70.                              phuretted hydrogen absorbed by, 258.
Valerianic acid in apple-oil, ii. 202.     Watery vapour, necessity of, to life, i. 15
Vanilla aromatica, the, ii. 192-country of    -in the air, 9, 18.
the, i. 181-its odoriferous principles,  Weald of Kent, hops grown in the, ii. 47.
ii. 192-used for flavouring chocolate,  Wear river, water of the, i. 30.
193.                                     Weddell, Dr., on the use of coca, ii. 124Vapours, rising of, from the earth's surface,    on the eating of clay, 177.
i. 15.                                   Weeds, European, in America and AusVegetable food, peculiarities in constitu-    tralia, i. 71.
tion of, ii. 353-matters in well waters,  Well-waters, where impure, i. 83 —nii. 36-smells, ii, 222.                    trates, &c., in, 36.
Vegetation promoted by nitric acid, i. 19   Wells, artesian, i. 49-petrifying, 34.
-its influence on soils, 47.             Wheat, failing growth of, in the New
Vetch, composition of the, i. 89.            England  states, i. 58-origin of the
Victoria, fertile country of, i. 45.         plant, 70-composition of the grain, 81.
Vinegar, the acid of beer, i. 264.         Wheaten flour, gluten and starch of, i.
Virginia, waste land in, i. 59.              79-composition of, 86.
Viverra civetta, the, ii. 210.             Whey, sugar in, i. 114.
Volatile oils, how extracted, ii. 180 —uses   Whiskey, alcohol in, i. 27T-its peat flaof, 181-from  different parts of plants,    vour, Mi.
ib.-quantity imported, 185-composi-   White of egg, the, i. 112.
tion of, 185-sweet-smelling ones, 180   Winds, saline matter transported by the,
-contained in ardent spirits, i. 30.      i. 21-their action on soils, 47.
Von Tschudi on coca, ii. 125.              Wines, how distinguished from  beer, i.
Wants, order in which supplied by man,    260-from  the apple and pear, 261ii. 2.                                     from the grape, their composition, 262
Waste lands, in Virginia, &c., i. 59.        -alcohol and sugar in them, 263-and
Water, composition of, i. 23, 25-propor-    peculiar acid, 264-their relative acidition of, in animals and plants, 15, 23-    ty, 265-consumption of them in Great
formed by burning hydrogen, 25-in-         Britain, 266-ardent spirits consumed
dispensable to life, 26-its freedom from   in form of, 285.
taste and smell, ib.-its cooling proper-  Wine ethelrs, ii. 200-spirit, 199.
ty, 27-its solvent properties, 29-never  Wintergreen, oil of, ii. 200 —artificial, ib.
naturally pure, 29 —the color of river,  Wood ethers, ii. 200-spirit, 199-vineib.-the brown of bogs, ib.-the milky       gar, smell from making, 301.
of glaciers, ib.-the green of the Gey-  Woody fibre, sugar from, i. 201.
sers, ib. —the blue of Naples and the   Worm, the, in distillation, i. 279.
Pacific, ib.-that of the Thames, 30-of  Worcester hops, ii. 44.
the greensand in Surrey, ib.-of the   Xenophon's soldiers, poisoning of, by
London water companies and bore-    honey, i. 201.
wells, 81,-of the Jordan, 81-of the   Yaourt, what, i. 254.
Seine and Nile, how clarified. 37-of  Yarrow, effect of, on beer, ii. 55.
Marah, how sweetened, 387-absorption   Yellow tobacco of Thibet, the, ii. 12.
of gases by, 38-soda water, carbonic   Yellows in peach trees, the, i. 57.
acid in, 39-composition of air in, 40-   Yerba, the, or Paraguay tea, i. 151.
its effect on the materials of soils, 46-   Yerbals, what, i. 152.
drawn by plants from the soil, 65-its  Yolk of egg, composition of, i. 112.
THE END.








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Faggots for the Fireside; or, Fact and Fancy.
By PETER PARLEY. Illustrated with twelve designs. 1 vol
12mo. Price $1 13.
The Wanderers by Sea and Land: With other
Tales. By PETER PARLEY. With twelve beautiful designs. 1
vol. 12uio. $1 13.
Nothing Venture, Nothing Have. By COUSIN
ALICE. 1 vol. 16mo.. with illustrations. Price 63 cents.
The Deserted  Village.   By  OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Illustrated with designs by the Etching Club. 1 vol. small
8vo. Cloth, gilt edges, $1 50; mor. antique, $3.
The World a Workshop; or, the  Physical Relationship of Man to the Earth. By THOMAs EwwBAN. 1 vol.
12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
Chemical Atlas; or, the Chemistry of Familiar
Objects; Exhibiting the General Principles of the Science in
a Series of Beautifully colored Diagrams, and accompanied
by Explanatory Essays, embracing the latest views of the
subject, illustrated. By EDWARD L. YOUAMaNs, Author of tle
"Chemical Chart," &c. 1 vol. 4to. Price $2.
The Castle Builders. By the Author of the
"Heir of Redclyffe."  1 vol. 12mo. Paper covers, 50 cents;
cloth, 75 cents.
Grace Lee: A  Tale.   By JULIA KAVANAGH, Author of "'Nathalie," "Madeleine," &c. 2 vols. 12mo. Paper
75 cents; cloth, $1.
My Brother's Keeper.   By A. B. WARNER, Author of " Dollars and Cents."  1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1.
Questions of the Soul. By I. T. HECKER. 1 VOL
16mo. 75 cents.