The crop
is immensely exhaustive to the soil. Its culture has blighted whole
sections of fertile territory. In the time consumed by the producer
and the trader in its production, manufacture, and sale, and by the
consumer in its use, and by the general interference with vital
activity and consequent decreased productive capacity, there is
represented an almost unimaginable sum of money. Certainly the people
at large are not so well fed both as to quantity and quality, or so
thoroughly clothed, or so hygienically housed that they can afford
this gigantic economic waste.
There can be little doubt that if the people had sufficient
intelligence and moral strength to taboo tobacco, this comparatively
senseless outgo would be largely devoted to supplying these and other
necessities of an exalted health status.
Tobacco injures health through its moral effects. The tobacco habit is
certainly a dirty and frequently a disgusting habit, and encourages
other dirty practices. Its use tends to make men cowardly, irritable
in temper, and low in spirits. It blunts ideas of purity and courtesy,
leading to invasion of the rights of others. It is presumed that few
medical men would visit a delicate, sensitive patient after saturation
with the "fragrant" effluvia of onions, but thousands whose systems
are saturated with nicotine and who reek with nauseating odor do not
hesitate to inflict their presence on sick or well.
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