JUVENILE SMOKERS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1880

JUVENILE SMOKERS.

A BRITISH physician, observing the large number of boys under fifteen years of age on the streets with cigars and pipes in their mouths, was prompted to examine the health of this class of smokers, and for that purpose selected thirty-eight boys between the ages of nine and fifteen. In twenty-two of these cases he found various disorders of the circulation and digestion; palpitation of the heart, and more or less marked taste for strong drink. In twelve there was frequent bleeding of the nose, and twelve had slight ulceration of the mouth caused by tobacco. The doctor treated them for the ailments, but with little effect; the habit of smoking was discontinued, when health and strength were soon restored.

The effect of tobacco in creating a taste for strong drink is unquestionably very great. If the testimony of some tobacco-users and medical men is of any weight, one of the most radical methods of keeping the young from being led to intemperate drinking is to deny them tobacco.