Cigarettes and Consumption.
THE record of evil against tobacco is daily growing more and more formidable. The most recent observations indicate that the use of cigarettes is a common cause of consumption. It has long been known that coal miners are subject to a peculiar form of consumption due to the lodgment of little particles of carbon in the lungs, which set up an irritation, resulting finally in a breaking down of the lung tissue, and death. Chimney sweeps are subject to the same form of disease. It appears also that the use of tobacco in the form of cigarettes produces the same results and in the same way. The little particles of carbon present in the smoke are retained in the lungs, and the continuance of the habit results in just such accumulation of soot as may occur in the lungs of the professional chimney sweep; the lungs break down, and the victim of a depraved practice dies. If a man were compelled by circumstances beyond his control to live in an atmosphere charged with an ill-smelling smoke, he would receive the profound sympathy of his fellowmen, and no effort would be spared to rescue him from his unhappy position. And yet we see thousands of men who live continually in a smudge, voluntarily subjecting themselves to a martyrdom by smoke, scarcely breathing one breath of pure air during their waking hours, preferring to take the life-giving fluid, which Heaven has provided in such purity and abundance, filtered through “a stinking-pipe.” Nature evidently abhors smokers, and adopts every possible means of getting rid of the nuisance as soon as possible.—Sel.