p. 13 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 30, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 38.

Health and Temperance.

Tobacco and the Young.

PREVENTION is easier, better, safer, more probable, and less expensive than cure. There is but little hope of a human being who has so far perverted, revolutionized his natural constitution and moral tastes as to endure tobacco, then to relish its taste, and then to be so wedded to it that it seems one of the necessities of life, who will not emancipate himself from his “filthy habit,”—as the intelligent and honest user acknowledges it to be—and still clings to it with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause. When the young men have been pampered by the use of stimulants—the contents of the castor, irritating spices, strong acids—have been accustomed to luxurious food, rich dishes, such as destroy normal tastes and appetites, it is not a difficult matter to acquire a taste for intoxicants and tobacco—twins in the ruin of the young! When they are encouraged by certain great men (really small) it seems to them that a dissipation of this kind is a passport to greatness, to manhood, a graver blunder than which cannot be made. It is a fortunate fact that one of this class, whose high position gave him prominence, who did much to corrupt the young, by his pernicious example, before his death admitted his error, expressing regret that he ever formed the baneful habit.

The use of tobacco by growing boys is so generally recognized as pernicious that it is extraordinary that more energetic measures are not urged upon those having the care of youth to prevent the habit. Already it has been prohibited in the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis; in the United States Military Academy at West Point; in the Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, and in various other enlightened educational institutions.

This was not the result of prejudice or hobbyism. If any set of men are free from these vices of learning, it is the naval surgeons, and it was especially from them, and particularly from Dr. A. L. Gihon, United States Navy, that this attack on the weed began. The indictment laid against it charged: That it leads to impaired nutrition of the nerve centers; that it is a fertile cause of neuralgia, vertigo, and indigestion; that it irritates the mouth and throat, and thus destroys the purity of the voice; that by excitation of the optic nerve, it produces amaurosis and other defects of vision; that it causes a tremulous hand and an intermittent pulse; that one of its conspicuous effects is to develop irritability of the heart; that it retards the cell change on which the development of the adolescence depends.

This is a formidable bill of particulars, and yet each of these charges is preferred by the best modern authority, and what is more, each is substantiated by an abundance of clinical evidence. Testimony is also adduced from the class records of schools and colleges, which indicate very positively that the effect of tobacco on the mental faculties is deteriorating. The best scholars are not tobacco-users; non-smokers take the highest rank in every grade; and whether we look at the exceptionally brilliant students, or compare the average of those who use and those who refrain from tobacco, the result shows the same.—Medical and Surgical Reporter.