p. 487 | Cigarette-Smoking

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 31.

Cigarette-Smoking.

IN regard to the results of cigarette-smoking, physicians say it affects seriously the functions of the stomach, especially in the young. It has a tendency to increase the action of the heart, causing palpitation. It is a fruitful source of indigestion. It has a decided tendency to produce catarrh in the head. This, it is said, arises from the fact that a cigarette, being much shorter than a cigar, more of the smoke finds its way into the mouth and nasal organs, a very much larger percentage of smoke being inhaled by the smoker from a cigarette than from a cigar. Cigarette-smoking, it is averred, has also a decided tendency to produce asthma, and renders the system more liable to the attacks of pneumonia and bronchitis. In its effects upon the nervous system, cigarette smoking is said to be in the highest degree pernicious, both directly and indirectly. It destroys healthy appetite for solid food, and by the constant expectoration it produces, leads to a morbid craving for drink. Injury or destruction of the nerves of the eyes, it is alleged, has been in hundreds of instances produced by cigarette-smoking.—Scientific American.