THE EFFECTS OF TOBACCO ON HEALTH.
By E. L. Hart
Mr. George Crickett, the great London authority on the diseases of the eye, says that he is constantly consulted by gentlemen for commencing blindness, caused solely by great smoking. He accordingly condemns smoking in most unqualified terms, as most dangerous to human health. It will be seen that medical opinion on the evils of smoking is prolific. The causes that lie at the root of these evils, and the reasons that have led to their prevalence, are not so fully recognized, nor have the investigations of the medical faculty indicated any effective remedy. The majority of smokers could at once and forever renounce the practice, with no injury and with little inconvenience. Many who have found smoking a slavery do not believe this, and, if they did, would lack the moral power to free themselves. Again, tobacco is woman's rival. She often becomes, in consequence of its pernicious action, a secondary consideration with the opposite sex. Women should therefore be the strongest foes to smoking. A woman who allows a man unrestricted liberty to smoke in her presence at all times and under all circumstances loses something of her own individuality, and comes, it may be unconsciously, into competition with a pipe or cigar. Instead of creating in herself an ideal, and “setting upon herself her own price,” she loses the power to make “brutes men and men divine,” and comes down from her God-given pedestal of purity and goodness to the level of the debased habits of man. It is sad to note the couples walking together in the parks and streets, and mark how the female has learned to tolerate the smoking habits of her companion. There are women who say they like their lovers to smoke, and see no harm in the practice. When married they will probably tell a different tale. . . . Dr. Adam Clarke says: “It is with pain at heart I am obliged to say that I have known many who, through their immoderate attachment to the pipe, have become mere sots.” In some instances smoking leads to intemperance, immorality, and crime. If the money spent in tobacco by the young men of the middle and working classes were devoted to self-education, self-culture, and improvement in their various trades and professions, they would be greatly benefited individually and collectively. The question of smoking does not resolve itself into a merely personal one, though under that aspect it is chiefly considered. As a national habit it aids in undermining the noblest characteristics of our race. The use of tobacco is of world-wide importance in its bearing upon human health and happiness, and affects generations yet unborn. Dr. Hardwicke said he thought that, as public men, the medical profession ought to speak out more boldly than they were wont to do about the evils caused by tobacco smoking. From his own experience he would say that there were no perfectly healthy men who smoked. He believed that smoking caused many severe diseases.—London Phrenological Magazine.