p. 14 | Effects of Cigarette Smoking

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 9, 1908

Effects of Cigarette Smoking

DR. MARDEN, in Success, has this to say to the boy beginning the use of the cigarette: “The whole tendency of the cigarette nicotin poison in the youth is to arrest development. It is fatal to all normal functions. It blights and blasts both health and morals. It not only ruins the faculties, but it unbalances the mind as well. Many of the most pitiful cases of insanity in our asylums are cigarette fiends. It creates abnormal appetites, strange longings, undefined desires, discontent, uneasiness, nervousness, irritability, and, in many, an almost irresistible inclination to crime. In fact, the moral depravity which follows the cigarette habit is something frightful—lying, cheating, impurity, loss of moral courage and manhood, a complete dropping of life's standards all along the line, are its general results.”

Magistrate Crane, of New York City, says: “Ninety-nine out of one hundred boys between the ages of ten and seventeen years who come before me charged with crime have their fingers disfigured by yellow cigarette stains. I do not care to pose as a reformer, but it is my opinion that cigarettes will do more than liquor to ruin boys. When you have arraigned before you boys who are hopelessly deaf through the excessive use of cigarettes, boys who have stolen their sister's earnings, boys who absolutely refuse to work, who do nothing but gamble and steal, you can not help seeing that there is some direct cause, and a great deal of this boyhood crime is, to my mind, easily traced to the deadly cigarette. There is something in the poison of the cigarette that seems to get into the system of the boy and to destroy all his moral fiber.”

Cigarette smoking is no longer simply a moral question. The great business world has taken it up as a deadly enemy to advancement and achievement, and many leading business firms, all over the country, have put the cigarette on the prohibition list. Anything which benumbs the senses, deadens the sensibilities, and dulls the mental faculties is a deadly enemy, and nothing will do this more quickly than the cigarette.—Physical Culture Magazine.