"INHALING" CIGARETTE SMOKE

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11510, 17 February 1903, Page 7

"INHALING" CIGARETTE SMOKE

Inhaling cigarette smoke is a very common practice, and.a writer in the January "Chambers's Journal" draws a dreary picture of the results. Inhaling, as readers know, consists simply in drawing a volume of smoke from the cigarette into the mouth, and then taking a deep breath, in the act of which the smoke is carried from the mouth down into the lungs. In their passage the fumes, it is saw, come into intimate contact with the nervous system, and the result is an instantaneous communication into the brain, which takes the form of a momentary semi-paralysis—when the man is new to the habit, that is. The old inhaler is not, of course, so easily affected, because his nerves and senses have been dulled by the practice; but he is affected all the same. Those who habitu-

ally inhale suffer mucli, we are told, both mentally and physically: —"In the first place a constant and severe nervousness hangs over the victim. He is in a continual state of lethargy which he cannot overcome. His mental powers are very considerably dulkd, and liis capacity for work greatly reduced. Only with difficulty can he apply himself to the reading of any thoughtful book. . . . The. pulse becomes very irregular, the heart is weakened, the appetite is greatly <hminished, and the hollow cheek and sunken eye are palpable indications that scmiethinig w seriously wrong. The victim, moreover, almost "inevttablv developes a peculiar kind of asthma, and" becomes very Bueceptible to luns trouble of all sorts." The writer advises smokers never, upon any consideration, to be tempted to inhale for the first time. Once the habit is begun it » most difficult to break away from it.