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[Hall's Journal of Health]

About This Item

  • Title: [Hall's Journal of Health]
  • Date: 23 January 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00720
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 23 January 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Avery Porter Kaylen Michaelis Brandi Faulkner Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[Hall's Journal of Health]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00720.xml (TEI)
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[Hall's Journal of Health]

Hall's Journal of Health argues that tobacco smoking is injurious, because the forger Huntington weighs 15 lbs. more in prison, where he cannot smoke, than he did in Wall street, where he was always smoking. This is an instance of the rapidity which people jump to conclusions which they wish to see established. There are a thousand changes in Huntington's situation which would account for his improved health. The main one probably is, that while in Wall street, he was harassed by cares, and always fearful of discovery; he now knows the worst, and his mind is no longer distressed by anxiety or apprehension. To say that it is the loss of his segar which has improved his health, is no more justifiable than to attribute it to his loss of liberty. If from this instance it is to be concluded that smoking injures health, by parity of reasoning we may argue that liberty injures it also.

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