Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Tina-Kate's post in our Victorian Room made me think of that opened pouch of chewing tobacco found in Andrew's pocket when he died. Yet people said he didn't use it.

I believe he didn't use it - he was so uptight and strict, and cheap.

I think it was someone else's tobacco that was at the murder scene that day, and it got axe-identally put in with the pile of stuff they took out of Andrew's pocket, like one of the doctors or any one of the many people that traipsed thru the house that day.

I suppose he could have found it and picked it up, like the broken lock. Or, probably more remotely, the killer put it in his pocket.

I am surprised that after learning he didn't use it, it was still included as part of his pocket contents with seemingly no questions asked as to what he was doing with it. Anything out of place could have been a clew.

There's also the possibility that Andrew, having been ill, was using the tobacco medicinally.

Tobacco was often prescribed to aid digestion and regularity.

Being cheap, a pouch of tobacco was probably less costly than a doctor's visit or drugstore remedy.

It's too bad a doctor at the time didn't give that as speculation. Is that nicotine that could be prescribed?

We have a possible spit on the inside of the dining room doorway that they thought was blood- it sounds like there might have been some old chewing done by someone...

Prof Dr Wood at trial p1010
A. Yes, sir. Next that dining room door frame. I noticed this in Fall River myself, while it was standing in this shape; and the room was fairly dark, so that I thought from an inspection of that, as I saw it, in the door frame itself---I thought it looked like a blood stain.

Q. Was it removed at your suggestion?
A. I made the suggestion to Dr. Dolan. But upon examination of that it is seen to be a distinctly yellow stain, which, on being tested, is not a blood stain. It looks more like a stain containing some colored material, like tobacco juice or something of that sort; not necessarily that, it might be soup.

Q. Not blood?
A. Not blood; no, sir.

It wasn't actually the nicotine that was prescribed, but smoking or chewing tobacco, believe it or not.

In a book I've been reading on 18th and early 19th century medicine, it talks about tobacco as a medicine. The book was written within the last 25 years, I think, by a doctor, who says something to the effect that some doctors have until recently sometimes prescribed tobacco as an aid to digestion and regularity.

I know from personal experience that after I quit smoking about 5 years ago, I began experiencing chronic intestinal problems. When I told my doctor that the symptoms seemed to have appeared after I'd stopped smoking, he said there can be a connection, with smoking either controlling or masking conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome.

Since there was far more widespread use of homegrown folk remedies in the 19th century, I'm just supposing that Andrew might have known that chewing tobacco could calm an upset digestive system.

Forgive me for copying and pasting from an earlier post of mine in another thread. I hope it won't be frowned upon, but I do not have my reference materials available. I've had some pretty heavy issues going on, and really just have the time to pop in for a moment to try to get an idea of what the current topics are to try to keep up. I noticed this one, which I thought I had posted something about before. I wouldn't normally copy and paste but...Fairhavenguy is right. Tobacco was often used for medicinal purposes. I have researched some of it's uses myself. This is a very interesting question to pose Augusta. If Andrew didn't use tobacco in the more recognized manner, then why was it found on him?


(Copied and pasted:)

Tobacco: Its Use and Abuse -By J. B. Wight, published in 1892.

It's range is being narrowed. But, medicinally, tobacco is not without it's virtues. As many as seventeen properties are ascribed to it. It is errhine, sternutatory, sialogogue, emetic, cathartic, expectorant, cholagogue, diaphoretic, diuretic, antispasmodic, nervine, stimulant, narcotic, anaesthetic, anaphrodisiac, parturifacient, and antiparasitic. Dr. John Lizars says that dropsical swellings sometimes disappear under operations of this drug. It has been used with advantage as an injection in some cases of strangulated hernia; but where thus used its effects have so often been fatal that the best physicians now discourage its use for this purpose, especially as there are other remedies which are as efficacious, and much less dangerous.


The Pharamceutical Journal and Transactions- by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, published in 1891.

Looking only at the extreme opposite effects of tobacco and strychnine he put a pinch of about 6 or 8 grains of tobacco in hot water and gave the boy and injection; he had no stychnine rigors, and in fact took no harm from it. He always said that should such a case occur again that the first remedy he should fly to as an antidote to strychnine was tobacco. He had also seen the action of tobacco some time ago, in a very bad case of pain from passage of a gallstone, where the limbs had become contracted with pain to a distressing extent. An injection of tobacco relieved the pain in less than ten minutes. He thought the medicinal use of tobacco was no sufficiently known.

Transactions- By Eclectic MedicalSociety of the State of New York, Eclectic
Medical Society of the State of New York, Published 1878.

It has already been stated that the proper place for tobacco is upon the list of medicinal agents. But it has too often been proposed for such a purpose where it was exceedingly ill-advised. Medical men have often shown themselves, in this respect, great novices in science and matters of common sense. This article has often been prescribed where the remedy was infinitely worse than the disease. Many have said: "Tobacco was recommended to me by a physician to cure a watery stomach." The first objection to its use in any such case, or, indeed, in any other case by mouth, is, it never cures the disease. The second objection is, it is never taken like other medicines and then laid aside.All that can be done or that is generally needed in such a case is abstaining from the cause which produced and prolonged difficulty, and giving nature a chance to relieve herself of the disease


I will post the link to the other thread as well.
viewtopic.php?t=3675&highlight=tobacco

Thank you, you guys.

And yes Allen, nice to see you again- hope everything is OK. We were wondering where you'd got to...
Any pastes you want to make of your own posts to remind us, are welcome.

Totally fascinating, Chris and Allen! That would explain Andrew's pouch of chewing tobacco. The only thing I could think of was it was someone else's, picked up by axe-ident at the scene.

I remember we talked about that tobacco before, but it still bothered me.

I think it's things like this that are missing from the Borden case as we know it. A lot more was said and done in Fall River back then than what has been recorded.

Somewhere there's an answer. I keep waiting for these gems people have in their attics to be released. Or kept in their files (the Robinson papers), or held back for any of a slew of reasons.

Wow, do I have a headache. I think I'll inject myself with some tobacco!