Health and Temperance by N. Y. Evangelist

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 23, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 49.

Health and Temperance.

By N. Y. Evangelist

EVILS OF CIGARETTE SMOKING.

AGAIN (on August 12) the New York Press reporter went round to call upon the leading physicians of this city to endeavor to ascertain the effects of cigarette smoking upon the youth of the metropolis. All with one accord seemed to agree that it tended to cause insanity and general unfitness for work of any kind. "Do you consider it damages the lungs?" was the question asked of one physician. In answer the doctor took a cigarette, lighted it, and drawing in a mouthful of smoke, blew it out through a corner of his handkerchief, which he held distended across his mouth, and then exhibited the place where the smoke had passed through. A dark brown stain was distinctly visible. "Now," said the doctor, "that same stain that you see on my handkerchief is left on the lungs, which are, as you know, soft and spongy in texture as is the handkerchief." Dr. William A. Shufelt, of West Eleventh Street, said, in the course of an interview, that he had himself seen many cases of pharyngitis sicca, one of epilepsy, and one of total insanity, caused entirely by cigarette smoking. The makers of cigarettes he said, especially of a cheap kind, import quantities of opium, which is largely used in their manufacture. "It is a well-known fact," he continued, "that there is nothing so alluring as opium, and you will find that smokers of cigarettes unconsciously choose the kinds that contain that drug in the largest quantities. Probably the persons who like it most have not the faintest idea of what it is that they care about in the cigarettes they smoke. Among the inhabitants, principally foreigners, of the east side of the city, you will find among the youth terrible cases of emaciation and incapability for work, caused entirely by this habit, which has grown upon them, of constantly smoking cheap cigarettes, which are probably more or less saturated with opium. Of course the principal evils of cigarette smoking are caused by the fact that the smoke is inhaled unconsciously by some, and on purpose by others, so that in time the lungs become quite studded and eventually destroyed.