Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/95

Rh my broiled steak and drank my cup of coffee with a relish to which I had long been a stranger. The longing for tobacco did not recur strongly until the third day, when it was so importunate that, had I not been trying an experiment, it would have triumphed over all scruples.

Mentally, during the ten days, I was as one coming to himself after a long drowse—an Epimenides recovering from weeks of trance; and, after the third day, during which I suffered from a dull, continuous pain at the base of the brain, in the medullary rather than the cerebellar region, the numbness began to disappear from the arms, which continued to improve pending the progress of the experiment.

21st.—Weighing 122 lbs. 6 oz., put myself on an allowance of three Reina Victoria (Regalia) cigars per day, one after each meal, and continued the regimen for ten days, with the same general result that had followed the pipe and Honradez regimen, but somewhat less marked in its nervousness and tendency, to tremor.

3lst.—Weighed 120 lbs. 15 oz., and smoked my last Reina Victoria.

February 1st.—Commenced another ten days of abstention, with recovery from the symptoms, at the expiration of which my weight was 122 lbs. 13 oz.

11th.—Placed myself on an allowance of a quarter of an ounce perique per day. The first day I suffered from dizziness after smoking, and from slight nausea while in the act. These symptoms disappeared on the second day. The use of this tobacco (a strong Louisiana variety) was not attended with the marked tendency to tremor and sleeplessness incident to Honradez, but with a marked narcotism of the motor tract, and a marked vital depression—the specific action, no doubt, of its excess of nicotine on the great nervo-vital centre, the medulla oblongata. On the fourth day a peculiar sinking at the heart kept me in bed half an hour later than usual in the morning, but a cup of strong coffee taken in bed dissipated the lassitude and restored the vital energy. The numbness in my arms grew more and more pronounced every day, until it required some minutes in the morning with the flesh-brush to readjust the circulation; and with this came a tendency of the legs to fall asleep, showing obstructed nervous circulation, to be followed, in the nature of things, by defective nutrition and ultimate paralysis. During the last two days of the experiment the vital depression became so oppressive that I resorted to brandy in doses of a tablespoonful three times a day. Lost 1 lb. 11½ oz. during the experiment.

Discarding the perique, with its excess of the nicotine, I now limited myself to three pipes of Honradez per day, with a resultant consumption of two ounces a week. This regimen I maintained until the first of April, when I put myself on a daily allowance of a quarter of an ounce of Virginia cavendish; but the vital depression was so rapid that I desisted from the experiment after four days of lassitude.

April 10th.—Left New York for the country a thorough