Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

SMOKING AND PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT.

From the records of the senior class of Yale College during the Past eight years, the non-smokers have proved to have decidedly gained over the smokers in height, weight, and lung capacity. All candidates for the crews and other athletic sports were non-smokers. The non-smokers were 20 per cent. taller than the smokers, 25 per cent. heavier, and had 62 per cent. more lung capacity. In the graduating class of Amherst College of the present year, those not using tobacco have in weight gained 24 per cent. over those using tobacco, in height 37 per cent., in chest girth 42 per cent., while they have a greater average lung capacity by 8.36 cubic inches.—Medical News.

Just see the countenance which is given to this habit by too many of our clergymen—the example which they set! Yes, in many of our denominations, young men who are known to be smokers, or chewers of tobacco, with their breaths smelling of this filthy, poisonous weed, are deliberately licensed and ordained by Clergymen, when it is known that they will go in and out before young and old, setting them an example which will unquestionably do untold injury to the rising generation, and confirm old smokers and chewers in their injurious and destructive habits, and thus be instrumental in destroying many lives. What are the fathers and mothers in our churches thinking about when they consent to such an example being set before their children? Is it not time that they awake to the importance of choosing and introducing into office their own ministers, instead of entrusting this duty to the clergy? Swedenborg has given us the true signification of ordination by the laity. In speaking of the ordination of the Levites by the laity he says: "By the sons of Israel laying their hands upon the Levites was signified the transference of the power of ministering for them, and the reception of it by the Levites, thus separation."—A. C. 10,023. It will be seen that it was not Aaron the priest who laid his hands upon the Levites when they were introduced into the office of the priesthood, but the laity, or the children of Israel; and we can all see how appropriate and significative the ceremony was; and it was strictly in accordance with republican usages of this day. It does not exalt the officer above the office which he fills.

Is there a race of men on earth to-day who stand in greater need of light on spiritual subjects, and of the services of good, earnest, clean, pure-minded Christian Missionaries, who shall call men and women to repentance, and by precept and example lead them to shun the fearful evils named above, and many others, as sins against God, more than the people of the United States? Look at our children, many of whom, if they live at all, grow up with crooked legs and spines, delicate muscles and irritable brains, imperfectly developed jaws and consequently crowded teeth, which commence decaying and torturing the young before they are twenty years old, instead of lasting during life as they should; all of which results principally from feeding children with starvation bread, or superfine flour bread, cakes, and puddings, instead of the "full corn in the ear," or unbolted flour or meal, as the Lord has organized it in the kernel of grain. Many years ago scientific investigation demonstrated the fact that the portions of the grain which nourish the brain, muscles, and bones is principally confined to the dark, hard portion of the kernel immediately beneath the hull; this is not easily pulverized or rolled into superfine flour, and if it were the flour would not be white; but it goes principally into, the second and third runnings or as canal, shorts, and bran, and is fed to the horses, cattle, and hogs, causing them to be well developed, strong, and healthy, while our children, for the want of it, are half starved. Even a dog, it has been found by experiment, will starve to death on superfine flour bread, but will live well enough on Graham or unbolted flour bread. I have seen a child come near starving to death on such bread, and only rescued her from impending death by mixing mashed potatoes with the flour from which the bread was made. The little girl thought she could eat no other food but such bread, and if she ate anything else she threw it up. And yet, strange to say, I have known in one or more institutions under the care of physicians, which were devoted to the treatment of deformed and crippled children, superfine flour bread to be given them to eat.

It is fashionable and customary to use superfine flour bread; and as a physician, and an employer of men, I know how difficult it is to induce or persuade fathers and mothers, even for the sake of their children, to use Graham or unbolted flour bread, cakes, and puddings, which will give nourishment to the brain, muscles, teeth and bones, and all the fat and heat-producing material they need, instead of superfine white flour bread, cakes, and puddings, which give comparatively little more than fat and heat-producing material.

I remember very well when my wife and myself were traveling in Egypt up the Nile, and were at ancient Thebes, mounted on donkeys, going to the tombs of the kings, the young Arab girl, with a vessel of water upon her head, balanced by the ends of the fingers of one hand, who ran beside us over the sand, stones, and hills; for she was one of the most beautiful and symmetrical female forms I have ever seen. There was no contracted waist or humped shoulders, but a beautiful female figure, full of life, with splendid teeth and sparkling eyes. And on a visit to the house of our Arab dragoman, or guide, we saw how the flour or meal was made upon which that young girl was fed. In the court-yard two women were grinding at a mill as they ground thousands of years ago. There were two circular mill stones, perhaps 20 inches in diameter, standing in a basin; through the centre of the upper stone there was an opening through which the wheat was poured, and upon two sides were erect wooden handles, by which the women turned the stone round and round, and back and forth, and the meal escaped into the pan at the circumference. I said to our dragoman: "We have not had a bit of good bread in Egypt. We have been stopping at hotels where they think they must give the Americans and Englishmen white bread. Now, I wish you would bring me some bread made from that flour to-morrow morning;" and he brought us some bread, and it was by far the best bread that we had in Egypt.

The fearful evils which I have hastily named in the preceding pages, and many others which cause the prevailing deformities, diseases, insanity, and premature deaths, are not to be dragged along into the Church of the New Jerusalem now descending from God out of heaven; but our race is to be purified, renovated, and developed into a healthy, noble, symmetrical, graceful manhood by the new inflowing of truths from the Lord, pointing out the evils and falses which are causing the present suffering and wretchedness, and calling on men and women to shun such evils and falses as sins against God. A reformation from worldly motives is but "skin deep," and generally only results in the changing of one bad habit for another. Men and women must be earnestly called to repentance, and to the absolute necessity of shunning the evils which prevent the development of the body, impair health and reason, and so fearfully shorten the average duration of human life, as sins against God, which will tell on their eternal destiny. The fact that individuals who drink intoxicating drinks, smoke or chew tobacco, or deform their bodies by tight dressing, sometimes live to old age under otherwise favorable circumstances, amounts to nothing. The simple question is, do such habits shorten the average duration of human life? If they do, they are a violation of the laws of God as manifested in the organization of the human body and in His Word.