ture of galls. Tobacco yields its
active matter to water and proof spirit, but most perfectly to the
latter; long boiling weakens its powers. A most powerful oil may be
obtained by distillation, and separating it from the surface of the
water on which it floats."

IV. MEDICAL PROPERTIES.

These are considered to be those of a powerful _narcotic_,
_antispasmodic_, _emetic_, _cathartic_, _sudorific_, and _diuretic_.

"As a _narcotic_, it is endued with the most energetic, poisonous
properties, producing, when administered even in small doses, severe
nausea and vomiting, cold sweats, universal tremors, with extreme
muscular debility." From its exerting a peculiar action on the nervous
system, as ascertained by the well directed experiments of Mr. Brodie,
it powerfully controls the action of the heart and arteries, producing
invariably a weak, tremulous pulse, with all the apparent symptoms of
approaching death. And so different is its operation from that of other
narcotics, that it actually operates with more destructive efficacy,
when used by way of injection, than when applied either to the skin, or
when taken into the stomach.

From what has been said of its narcotic powers, you, Gentlemen, will
readily infer its virtue as an article of _medicine_. If we wish, at any
time, to prostrate the powers of life in the most sudden and awful
manner, we have but to administer a dose of tobacco, and our object is
accomplished. Hence its use in obstinate constipation, in cholic, in the
iliac passion, and in stranguary.

As it is conceded that its efficacy as an _antispasmodic_ depends upon
its power to prostrate every vestige of tone and elasticity in the
muscular fibre, prudence would dictate that it should be used with the
utmost circumspection, when the system had been previously exhausted by
the disease, or by the antecedent method of cure. Melancholy instances
are on record, of the fatal effects of this medicine when administered
without this caution, both as an internal remedy, and as an external
application in cutaneous diseases. Two instances will suffice.

"A medical practitioner," says Paris, "after repeated trials to reduce a
strangulated hernia, injected an infusion of tobacco, and shortly after
sent the patient in a carriage to the Westminster Hospital, for the
purpose of undergoing the operation; but the unfortunate man arrived
only a few minutes before he expired."

"I knew a woman," says the same learned a