A Warning to Tobacco-Users
The New York Times has a startling warning for tobacco-users. A gentleman of wealth and culture, with a cigar in his mouth, passed out of an instrument-maker's establishment as a professor of microscopy entered it. The wealthy gentleman was himself an amateur in the use of the microscope, and had just been trying the power of one upon a drop of blood from his finger. The instrument was still adjusted on the counter, and the professor glanced at it. Inquiring of the proprietor who the gentleman was, he informed him that he was his best customer, buying largely of his instruments. "And this is a drop of blood from his finger?" asked the professor. To the affirmative answer he said, "Very well, tell your best customer, if you can without impertinence, that unless he stops smoking at once he has not many months to live." He did not stop, but left for Europe in a few weeks to recruit his failing strength, and in a short time his death was announced from Paris, the doctors styling his disease "a general breaking-up."