Effects of Smoking Tobacco.
By M. E. Cornell
THE following is an extract from an Essay on Smoking Tobacco, submitted by Dr. Richardson, to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Being an apology for smoking, the frank acknowledgment of its injurious effects should have weight with all. "The water vapor of smoke is not injurious, but the carbon in it settles on the mucous membrane, and irritates the throat. The narcotic effect of tobacco smoke, if received into the lungs, resides in the carbonic acid, the ammonia causes dryness, a biting of the mucous membrane of the throat, and an increased flow of saliva—experiences familiar to smokers. Absorbed into the blood, it renders the fluid too thin, causing an angularity of the blood corpuscles, suppression of the biliary secretion, and yellowness of skin, quickening and then reducing the action of the heart. In young smokers it produces nausea." "The empyreumatic substance seems to have little effect except in giving the peculiar taste to tobacco smoke, and after a while of making the breath of tobacco smokers unbearable. Nicotine is rarely ever imbibed by the cleanly smoker. It affects only those who smoke cigars by holding them in the mouth, or dirty pipes saturated with oily matter. When absorbed, its effects are injurious, such as palpitation of the heart, tremor and unsteadiness of the muscles, and great prostration. It will not of itself, produce vomiting; it is the bitter extract which is the cause of this, imperceptibly swallowed and taken into the stomach."