In October, 1873, I started for the country on a brief furlough, having served through the heat of the summer as a member of the staff of the Evening Post, and, not finding the tobacco to my liking, was forced to be exceedingly temperate for several weeks. Slowly, yet perceptibly, the affection of the arms wore off. The hand and forearm were less numb when I woke up in the morning, and my handwriting began to assume its former continuity. This I attributed at first to rest, fresh air, and freedom from worry—an error in the main, as will presently appear, though a very natural one under the circumstances.
I had been at home four or five weeks when I succeeded in supplying my commissary department with a sufficiency of the weed of the required quality, in the mean time smoking a little undoctored Connecticut leaf, when the craving became too strong to be comfortably resisted, but consuming, probably, less than two ounces a week. Upon resuming my usual quantum, and within twenty-four hours after the resumption, my arms were as troublesome as ever, and no rest in the least availed to soften the shooting pains or dissipate the numbness (penetrated as if with lances of neuralgia) that enveloped the arm from the wrist to the shoulder. I was thoroughly dispirited, and contemplated shifting my profession and applying for admission to the bar. I did not yet suspect the relation between the tobacco-habit and the malady under which I was suffering.
Remaining in the country, however, longer than I at first intended, my supply of the weed ran out; and I was again reduced to vulgar rations of Connecticut leaf, of which I consumed the smallest quantity possible. The consequence was an immediate reduction of the pain and numbness in my arms. In the course of this somewhat intermittent use of the narcotic, I observed also that a certain cloudiness of recollection, and a slight tendency to aphasia—the latter due, probably, to action on the lingual nerve—followed the resumption of the full dose after an interval of abstinence, the former interfering materially with the opulence of illustration necessary to a good style, the latter annoying me now and then with slips of the tongue in ordinary conversation.
At this stage of the investigation, with the barest suspicion in my mind that tobacco was responsible for most of the ills my flesh had fallen heir to, or rather my nerves, I returned to New York in the latter part of December, and initiated a series of experiments, with a view to test the physiological action of the various brands, and to verify or disarm the suspicion.
December 26th.—Procured a quantity of Cuban tobacco known as Honradez, an extremely fine brand, and put myself on a ration of half an ounce per day. Continued this regimen for twelve days, without perceptible alteration in the symptoms so far as my arms were concerned.
