Articles - The week that...

September 22, 1792: The French National Convention proclaims France a republic and it is officially Day One of the first day of autumn of Year One of the First Republic of France. While the French Revolutionary Calendar only replaced the Gregorian Calendar and came into law in 1793 (until 1805) it was effected retroactively to include the previous year.
September 25, 1878: Dr. Charles Drysdale, senior physician to the Metropolitan Free Hospital, writes an article in The Times newspaper in Britain warning against the ill effects of tobacco use. In it he pointed to "the enormous consumption of tobacco in all European states" and estimated that £15,000,000 was spent annually in Great Britain on tobacco. He concluded: "The use of tobacco is one of the most evident of all the retrograde influences of our time." Years earlier, in 1864, Drysdale had published the results of reasearch into excessive tobacco use in a medical journal, documenting cases of jaundice and "most distressing palpitation of the heart" in a young man who smoked ½ oz daily.