The New York Medical Journal contains a convincing article on tobacco: "Tobacco contains an acrid, dark brown oil, an alkaloid, nicotine, and another substance called nicotianine, in which exists its odorous and volatile principles. When tobacco is burned a new set of substances is produced, some of which are less harmful than the nicotine, and are more agreeable in effect, and much of the acrid oil—a substance quite as irritating and poisonous as nicotine—is carried off. These fire-produced substances are called, from their origin, the 'pyridine series.' By great heat the more aromatic and less-harmful members of the series are produced, but the more poisonous compounds are generated by the slow combustion of damp tobacco. This oil which is liberated by combustion is bad both in flavor and in effect, and it is better, even for the immediate pleasure of the smoker, that it should be excluded altogether from his mouth and air passages.
"Smoking in a stub of a pipe is particularly injurious, for the reason that in it the oil is stored in a condensed form, and the smoke is therefore highly charged with the oil. Sucking or chewing the stub of a cigar that one is smoking is a serious mistake, because the nicotine in the unburned tobacco dissolves freely in the saliva, and is absorbed. 'Chewing' is, on this account, the most injurious form of the tobacco habit, and the use of a cigar holder is an improvement on the custom of holding the cigar between the teeth. Cigarettes are responsible for a great amount of mischief, not because the smoke from the paper has any particularly evil effect, but because smokers—and they are often boys or very young men—are apt to use them continuously, or at frequent intervals, believing that their power for evil is insignificant. Thus the nerves are under the constant influence of the drug, and much injury to the system results. Moreover, the cigarette smoker uses a very considerable amount of tobacco during the course of a day. 'Dipping' and 'snuffing' are semi-barbarities which need not be discussed. Not much effect is obtained from the use of the drug in these varieties of the habit.
"Nicotine is one of the most powerful of the 'nerve poisons' known. Its virulence is compared to that of prussic acid. If birds be made to inhale its vapor in amounts too small to be measured, they are almost instantly killed. It seems to destroy life, not by attacking a few, but of all the functions essential to it, beginning at the center, the heart. A significant indication of this is that there is no substance known which can counteract its effects; the system either succumbs or survives. Its depressing action on the heart is by far the most noticeable and noteworthy symptom of nicotine poisoning. The frequent existence of what is known 'tobacco heart' in men whose health is in no other respect disturbed is due to this fact."
"A youth of eighteen at Bayshire, L. I., has become insane from the excessive use of cigarettes."
Those who can use tobacco without immediate injury will have all the pleasant effects reversed and will suffer from the symptoms of poisoning if they exceed the limits of tolerance. These symptoms are: 1. The heart's action becomes more rapid when tobacco is used. 2. Palpitation, pain, or unusual sensations in the heart. 3. There is no appetite in the morning, the tongue is coated, delicate flavors are not appreciated, and acid dyspepsia occurs after eating. 4. Soreness of the mouth and throat, or nasal catarrh appears, and becomes very troublesome. 5. The eyesight becomes poor, but improves when the habit is abandoned. 6. A desire, often a craving, for liquor or some other stimulant is experienced.
"In an experimental observation of thirty-eight boys of all classes of society, and of average health, who had been using tobacco for periods ranging from two months to two years, twenty-seven showed severe injury to the constitution and insufficient growth; thirty-two showed the existence of irregularity of the heart's action, disordered stomachs, cough, and a craving for alcohol; thirteen had intermittency of the pulse, and one had consumption. After they had abandoned the use of tobacco, within six months one-half were free from all their former symptoms, and the remainder had recovered by the end of the year."
Pasteur Recommends Camphor Smoking.—In an interview with M. Pasteur, he was asked whether he considered la grippe occasioned by bacteria? The professor smiled sardonically and shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. On being asked what he considered the best remedy for the malady, he remarked: "Let men and women both quit smoking tobacco and smoke camphor instead, and they will probably escape the pest."—Paris Special.
The Bulletin of this city has a good article on insanity and the cigarette. Ten or twelve boys have within a short time been committed to the insane asylum at Napa whose insanity has been traced directly to the smoking of cigarettes. The number who by reason of the same indulgence have brought on a degree of imbecility that may ultimately land them in the asylum or in the penitentiary cannot be reduced to an exact estimate. But having occasion recently to make some inquiry about a number of boys who had figured in the records of the criminal courts, it was found that a majority of them were habitual smokers of cigarettes.
The connection between cigarette smoking, mental imbecility, idiocy, and crime has recently attracted more than usual attention. No boy or young man can smoke a cigarette without being harmed thereby. One of the reasons ascribed for the lunacy of several boys was that the cigarettes were made up of the vilest stuff. They contained a narcotic beyond that usually found in pure tobacco. This is supposed to be some of the cheaper forms of opium. But, whatever it may be, it is making imbeciles and idiots of many boys, and criminals of some of them. In a number of instances where boys have been sent to the asylum, it was found that after a short period, the cigarette and all other forms of dissipation having been cut off, the patients rapidly improved, and after a few months' detention they were sent home. The evil does not end here. If a boy becomes an inveterate cigarette smoker, the chances are greatly against any reformation. Some friend may take him in hand and show him the danger in season. The larger number will keep right on. Of this number it is doubtful if ten per cent will ever come to anything. And even these will accomplish far less than if they had never weakened their mental powers by this vile indulgence.
The crazy boys who bring up in the asylum are only the few wretched examples of the cigarette mania. Other examples are constantly found in the criminal courts. The moral sense has been utterly lost, or so weakened that there is no clear distinction between right and wrong. Every boy who smokes a cigarette has started to go to the bad. Just where he will bring up—whether in the insane asylum, in the criminal courts, or in a condition of such hopeless moral and mental imbecility that friends must support him, or the almshouse must finally give him shelter, is one of the questions that time will settle for him. But if any better record is to be made for him, the boy and the cigarette must have a prompt and final separation.