Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1881

Temperance.

MEDICAL AUTHORITY AGAINST SMOKING.

We take the following paragraphs from the New York Tribune's account of interviews with Dr. William A. Hammond, and Prof. Lewis A. Sayre, M. D. Both these men are eminent in their profession, and what they have said will be corroborated by every intelligent physician. And yet in spite of all the testimony as to the injurious character of tobacco—that it is simply a poison and nothing else—there are hundreds of men who will virtually claim that they are exempt from the laws which govern other human beings, by saying that tobacco doesn't hurt them:—

"If children smoke cigars they destroy their nervous systems before they are fully formed, and render themselves liable to neuralgia and various functional diseases of the brain, which are certainly calculated to destroy their mental force. There is also some evidence to show that tobacco in young persons actually interferes with the development of the body in regard to size—that it stunts their physical system. It certainly impairs digestion, for they cannot use tobacco without spitting inordinately. The saliva expelled from their bodies is one of the most important of the digestive fluids, and the proper digestion of the food in the stomach is materially interfered with when there is not enough saliva left to mix with their food before it is swallowed. Again, it certainly impairs hearing and eyesight. I have seen several instances of young children having their eyesight injured seriously, if not irreparably, by the use of tobacco. The excessive use of tobacco is injurious to everybody, adults as well as infants, male as well as female.

"Now as to cigarette-smoking. It is injurious to everybody, practiced as it ordinarily is, by inhaling the smoke in the lungs. The use of cigarettes has been increasing to a most extraordinary degree in this country in the last ten years. I have already seen the ill effects of it in my practice, in the production of facial neuralgia, insomnia, nervous dyspepsia, sciatica, and an indisposition to mental exertion. In young persons all these effects are seen with much greater intensity, and, consequently, the effect upon them is very much worse than upon adults. In France, the difference between those who smoked cigarettes in the polytechnic schools and those who did not, as regarded their position in their classes, was so great that the government has prohibited absolutely the use of tobacco in all the government schools. Some time ago I was consulted by Commodore Foxhall Parker, then superintendent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, relative to the advisability of allowing the cadets to smoke. He stated in his letter that it was almost an impossibility to prohibit the practice, and he put the question whether it wasn't better to allow them to smoke under regulations than to punish them constantly for violation of rules. I replied that that was a matter of discipline; but that, so far as the effects of tobacco were concerned, I had no hesitation in saying that its influences would be injurious to the cadets and that I had constant evidence of it in my private practice and in the course of my observations otherwise. Commodore Parker replied that he thought what I said was right.

"I see boys in the street, three and four years old, smoking. To-day I stopped a little wretch, and took away from him a long, strong cigar, that would have made me quail. As to the practice of smoking cigar-stumps, it is simply villainous. A cigar is a kind of retort and the oil condenses in the stump. . . . It is undoubtedly highly injurious to persons whose nervous systems are not developed, or to women, who naturally have more delicate nervous organizations than men and, consequently, are more susceptible to sedative or exciting influences."

"Cigarettes are worse for boys than pipes or cigars. The nicotine absorbed from the cigarettes has a very bad effect upon the nervous system, and, taken in excess, weakens the action of the heart and in that respect diminishes the force of the circulation of the blood. This necessarily impairs nutrition of the tissues and of the brain itself, independent of the poisonous influence of the nicotine upon the brain and nerve tissues. Dryness in the mucous membrane of the faux and larynx is produced, and boys who smoke cigarettes are mostly in the habit of expelling the smoke through the nostrils, which produces the same dryness, in the mucous membrane of the nares. Boys make chimneys of their noses by exhaling this dry, hot air, and destroy the natural sweetness and liquidity of the tones of their voices. Every boy who expects to become an orator, with a liquid voice, should never smoke a cigarette. The habit also causes loss of appetite. If boys smoke cigarettes over night, they have no appetite for breakfast, and a growing boy who has no relish for his meals is being retarded in his growth and development. It results in a nervous trembling of the hands, and, carried to excess, cigarette-smoking affects the memory. I think paper cigarettes are worse than tobacco cigarettes. It may be because the paper absorbs more of the nicotine, which is thence carried into the system. Certainly the paper cigarette has the worse odor."