Physiological Effects of Tobacco Smoke

Abstract

Is Dr. Krause (NATURE, vol. xi. p. 456, vol. xii. p. 14) acquainted with the manner in which cascarilla bark modifies the physiological effects of tobacco smoking? The addition of a few very small fragments of the bark can hardly be supposed to materially affect the amount of carbonic oxide produced; and yet, with such an admixture, the strongest tobacco may be smoked by a tyro without, in most cases, the production of the usual nauseating effects. Loss of appetite, thirst, vascular and nervous depression are sometimes produced if such a mixture is smoked in excess. On the other hand, if Dr. Krause's theory, that the nausea, &c., of tobacco smoking is due to the carbonic oxide inhaled, be admitted, the question is suggested whether some of the volatile products of burnt cascarilla bark are antagonistic in their physiological action to the gas in question?