THE DANGER OF OLD TOBACCO PIPES.

Kumara Times, Issue 466, 25 March 1878, Page 2

THE DANGER OF OLD TOBACCO PIPES.

A case of si called " nicotine " poisoning has recently happened in England which is attracting considerable' attenti m. A child of about' seven years of age a-uused himself by blowing : soap bubbles in an old wooden iii^-which

had become foul by long usage. Shortly after, vomiting and convulsions ensued and the child died. The circumstance was put down as a case of " nicotine poisoning" but the Chemist and Druggist rery cogently points out the in> possibility of such being true, inasmuch as nicotine only exists in the unburnt leaf or jnice, and the heat of combustion splits it up into other compounds. At the last meeting of the British Medical Association Professor McKendrick, of Glasgow, mi-1 a paper "onthe physiological action of the Chrvsoline and Pyridine Series of Compounds," detailing v.-ry extended researches, and especially slating that these alkaloids seem to destroy life either by exhaustive convulsions, or by gradual paralysis of the respiratory nerves, thus causing as* phyixa. According to the researches of Vohol and Euleuburg, alkaloids of the pyridine series are all thin, mobile, and colorless liquids with a peculiar odor, and the same authorities consider that the stupefying effects of opium, when smoked in a pipe are due not so much to the opium alkaloids "as to certain members of the pyridine series which are formed during its combustion." Tho physiological effects noted by Vohl and Elenbnrg are contraction of the pupil, difficulty of breathing, general convulsions and congestion of the lungs, death taking place from asphyxia. These effects accord with those noted by Mo Kendrick, aud likewise those observed in the case of the child previously referred to. Hence it is probable that death resulted from poisoning, hot by nicotine but by the pyridine, picdine* etc., produced by dry distillation, and existing in the old pipe. Rank pipes,. it appears, are nearly as dangerous as loaded pistols to leave about a house where there are young children. At the same time they seem to offer not only the most disagreeable but the most deleterious method of smoking as the user is sure to swallow some proportion of the poisonous alkaloids with which they are charged, and consequently to risk serious injury to health, especially of those who have not become habituated to them.