D. H. Kress, M. D. Neurologist of the Washington, D. C., Sanitarium and Hospital, says,— “What we need is more building up and less whipping up.”
HERBERT PHOTO
Recently there appeared a full-page article in the Sunday magazine supplement of some of our newspapers, calling attention to some experiments conducted by Dr. Hazel Field, Associate Professor of Zoology at the Occidental College, Los Angeles, showing that, contrary to the general belief that smoking of tobacco acts as a depressant, it really has a stimulating effect and produces an increase of energy. The purpose of the article evidently was to convey the idea that tobacco smoking was not merely harmless but actually beneficial and desirable.
The experiments were conducted on white rats. The rats were exposed to the fumes of tobacco daily. Dr. Field says: “I used to hold the naïve belief that tobacco was a depressing agent. Imagine my consternation when I found out that tobacco is a stimulant.”
NO NEW DISCOVERY
This is no new discovery, doctor. Every smoker knows that smoking produces a feeling of well-being and exhilaration. Reporters can inform you that when they are suffering from what they term “brain fag,” and it seems impossible to write another line, they involuntarily reach for a cigarette, and, after taking two or three deep inhalations, the brain begins to function, and they are able to complete their write-up. In this respect the effect of the tobacco smoke is similar to that produced by a small dose of cocaine. Practically all the sensational and highly spiced novels are written by men and women while under the influence of some such stimulant.
Smoking also increases the heart action. It is a heart stimulant, and raises the blood pressure. By placing the sphygmograph over the radial artery and taking the pulse tracing, it will be observed that very shortly after resorting to smoking the heart beats more vigorously and the pulse tracing is more pronounced.
The trouble is, however, that, shortly after the stimulating effect of the smoke wears off, there follows a corresponding state of depression. This unnatural depression creates the demand for another smoke, or more stimulation. It is this that creates the smoke habit. The smoker finds that he is at his best only while under the immediate influence of the smoke.
In this respect the results of smoking are again similar to that experienced by the user of cocaine or morphine. This places nicotine in a class with these habit-forming drugs. The same effects that were obtained by the doctor in her experiments with tobacco smoke upon rats may be obtained by using morphine or cocaine in small doses. This is another evidence that tobacco, like these other drugs, is injurious and undesirable. In describing the immediate effect of smoke inhalation upon rats, the doctor is quoted as saying:
MADE FOOLS OF THEMSELVES
“They were playful, sportive, excited to the point of hysteria, sometimes. They would run from corner to corner, hop about excitedly, jump up and down the sides, nibble at food, and drag it around. They would kick the shavings, which served as their beddings, from one corner to another, then kick the stuff back again, foolishly indulging in vigorous acts of this nature. But the controls, the rats who did not smoke, never showed any such behavior.”
This excitation was altogether unnatural and abnormal. The rats that were not exposed to the smoke, she says, “never showed any such behavior.” Of course not. The fact is that the rats, while under the irritating influence of the smoke, made fools of themselves, just as young cigarette smokers sometimes do while under the immediate influence of the smoke.
Another point of interest and significance was observed from these experiments upon the rats, which are daily observed by every smoker; that is, this exhilaration was followed by a period of pronounced depression, which was not true of the rats not so exposed. It stated: “Also, smoking had a perceptible tendency to become a habit. That is, when the experimentals were not administered smoke for a few days, they became distinctly depressed.”
“Sometimes this depression due to enforced abstinence was very marked and significant. When the smoking was revived, the rats became alert again with surprising promptness.
“If the tobacco in any experiment was less active, that is, if its nicotine content was relatively small, the effect upon the rats was also much less than when the standard or better grade of tobacco was used in the pipes.”
AN EYE OPENER
This, again, is true of the influence of any habit-forming drug. Every drug addict knows this. The removal of the drug causes misery temporarily.
Dr. Field’s experiments are of value in that they show up the insidious and deceptive nature of tobacco, and should be an eye opener to every smoker, and should lead him to abandon its use. The doctor concludes by saying: “This is merely the beginning of a research which has many9important possibilities. With my limited resources, I have not been able to go as far and as deeply into this work as I should wish to. I intend to continue these investigations. For decades, almost centuries past, the question of tobacco smoking has been debated. Its champions, usually the poets and Bohemians who like to drink wine and smoke for sociability, have praised the tobacco weed to the skies.
“The puritanic moralists, on the other hand, have pronounced tobacco as a cursed thing, responsible for all sorts of maladies. But, nobody had taken the trouble to find out the facts. So I undertook these experiments. It was, for the present, practicable to experiment only with the animals, and not with human beings. Of course, you need not believe that what is true about the rats is necessarily true about men and women too. Still, the experimental results are significant.”
“The same method could be employed, I suppose,” Dr. Field hinted, “toward a new line of research for determining just how coffee affects a man or an animal.”
I can predict beforehand that she will observe effects very similar to those obtained from smoke inhalation, by experimenting with coffee, for coffee is in the same class with these other drugs. It is a temporary stimulant. This explains, too, why coffee drinking and tobacco smoking are so intimately associated. Coffee can not be carried around and taken whenever the feeling of depression comes on, while tobacco can be resorted to anywhere. The use of the one often leads to the use of the other. In countries where the use of coffee is prevalent smoking is also prevalent.
In my clinical work a few years ago, in treating smokers, I found that in practically every case heavy smokers were also heavy coffee drinkers. But why spend time in carrying forward such experiments with animals? It merely will give results that are being demonstrated and witnessed daily among men, women, and the youth in everyday life.
One error, or wrong impression, conveyed in the article should be corrected. The statement is made in large headlines: “Smoking Increases Energy.” Smoking does not increase energy. It liberates energy. Drugs can not produce or increase energy. They enable the addict to draw upon nature’s energy resources, and often to the point of depletion. This, in time, makes nervous wrecks of men and women, and also explains why we have so many nervous men, women, and children in America, and why nervous and mental diseases are so rapidly on the increase.
Tobacco is a mocker, whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. What is needed is more building up and less whipping up.
