Smoking Injurious

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 135, 24 April 1886, Page 3

Smoking Injurious

• The United States nary,' remarks the Standard, 'enrols a small army of apprentice lad> erery year, who are sent with the fleet all over the world, and are gradually trained into capable seanieu. It ishardlj necessary to say that there is nerer any lack of applicants, fur most bmj* with English blood in lueir veins Uvethe sea, and are fond of adventurous Major Hou<ten, of the Washmtf-Navy-jurd Barracks, states, liowtrer, that one fifih of all tUe boys examined are ' ploughed' on account of heart disease. The first question j;ut to a lad who wi*hef to enlist is * Do j-eu smoke ?' and the surgeon declares that as the result ot actual examinations in progress month after month, there »s no room lo doubt that iv 99 oases out of 100 the physical defect of woakuess which causes the rejection of the candidates arises from cigarette smoking. It is established, by sound medical evidence, that the smok.ng of cigarettes produces heart disease amongst growing lads. We should be «orry to see any reasonable liberty c:ir» tailed ; but on physical and moral ground alike, smoking in all its forms by precocious boys ought to be put down. The lads who indulge in tho weed, even in iU least hurtful forms, weaken the hearts action, and unconsciously prepare the way for a great deal of misery to themselres and others. A law which f«rbade iinoking before the age of 18 would c«mfnend itself to all sensible people, and would certainly have the emphatic approval of the doctors, rho alone know the full extent of the physical mischief which juvenile smoking occasions.'