p. 12 | The Cigarette Evil by Geo. Thomason, M. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 31, 1907

The Cigarette Evil

By Geo. Thomason, M. D.

THE terrible ravages of the deadly cigarette are becoming more and more apparent from year to year. They are such as to give good ground for the fear that the future welfare of the nation is greatly jeopardized. Those giving only casual study to the matter find overwhelming evidence that cigarette smoking is rapidly sapping the vitality and strength of our boys and young men.

Mr. Frank Swan, Honorable Secretary to the Boys’ Anti-Cigarette League, of Birmingham, England, who has given very extensive study to the subject, goes so far as to say, “A far greater danger is threatening the rising generation from cigarette smoking than from drink.” When the frightful consequences of drink are considered, it seems hardly possible that such a statement could be true; but abundant supportive evidence would seem to emphasize it. Over 100,000,000 cigarettes are sold weekly in the United Kingdom, in penny packets alone; 86,745,000 pounds of tobacco are consumed every year in England, entailing an expenditure of £25,000,000, or more than double what it was fifty years ago. During the last ten years cigarette smoking has increased one hundred fifty per cent in England. Cigarette smoking among the Germans has increased more than one thousand per cent in the last ten years. They annually consume more than four hundred tons of cigarettes.

Tobacco is, directly or indirectly, the cause of about eighty diseases, and is estimated to be responsible for twenty thousand deaths per annum in England.

Blindness is a well-known result of tobacco using, and is due to the paralyzing effect of tobacco on the optic nerve of the eye. It is not that this nerve is more sensitive to the influence of nicotine than the other nerves, but its results are more apparent. This same effect is produced upon other important nerves; for instance, those controlling the action of the heart. Every physician recognizes the condition known as “tobacco heart,” in which there is irregularity and palpitation, and which, sooner or later, proves fatal.

Tobacco heart is the most frequent cause of rejection from the army. When the Spanish-American War broke out, the rejection of volunteers for physical unfitness was three times as great as during the Civil War of 1860, and ninety per cent of those rejected were cigarette smokers. During the Boer War, in the Manchester district alone, eleven thousand men volunteered, of whom eight thousand were at once rejected as physically unfit, and only twelve hundred finally passed the doctors. The chief cause of unfitness was proved to be cigarette smoking as boys and young men.

Paralysis of the brain also occurs, as evidenced by deficient mentality, and even insanity. College professors and teachers all recognize the deteriorating influence of tobacco upon the student, physically and mentally. Professor Fiske, of Northwestern University, Chicago, made the observation that among three hundred students, of all the seventy-five students of the highest standing, only two per cent were tobacco users. In another school of five hundred pupils, the observation was made that the boys were inferior to the girls in general efficiency, and the cigarette was suspected. As the result of several months’ close investigation of twenty-six “cigarette fiends,” twelve were found to have poor memories, ten very poor; only four had fair memories, and not one of the twenty-six had a good memory. Twelve of the boys were in a poor physical condition, and six were practically physical wrecks; none were robust.

Dr. Forbes Winslow, an eminent authority on the subject of insanity, says that cigarette smoking, especially among boys, is a fruitful source of mental degeneracy. The head master of the King Edward VI School, at Chelmsford, declares: “A boy smoker is certainly a worse student than the ordinary boy, and is here always known or suspected from being at the bottom of the class or form, and is usually dull, dense, and generally stupid and indolent.”

One of the greatest of throat specialists, Sir Morell McKenzie, said that of all the forms of smoking, cigarette smoking is the most injurious to the throat.

Owing to the practise of inhaling, which almost universally goes with cigarette smoking, far greater injury results to the body than from the ordinary smoking. Smoking, as usually practised by others than cigarette smokers, allows the poisonous element to come in contact with only a limited surface, the lining membrane of the mouth and throat, probably less than a square foot; but when the smoke enters the lungs, as it does when inhaled, it comes in contact with fourteen hundred square feet of delicate membrane, the special function of which is to absorb and exchange gases. Only the thinnest possible membrane separates the blood from this poison-laden air inhaled into the lungs, and rapid exchange takes place, the blood is contaminated, and its living cells benumbed. All the blood in the body passes through the lungs every thirty seconds, and during this time makes a complete circuit of the body, so that the poison is thus transmitted to the most remote cell of the body.

Tobacco taints the breath, ruins the digestion, obliterates taste and smell, destroys the blood, injures the brain and nerves, depresses the heart, decreases the functions, deteriorates and contaminates every organ and tissue of the body, lessens vitality, and shortens life.

These are only a few of the poisonous effects of the cigarette upon the body. Neither cigarette nor any form of tobacco can be used by any who aspire to superior mental, moral, or physical vigor. — Geo. Thomason, M. D.