CURRENT TOPICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 833, 30 April 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE DOCTORS AND

SMOKING

Why. it has often been asked, do doctors so generally fail to arrive at settled conclusions as to the effect of tobacco on the human system ? The reason sometimes suggested in kondou is that they are all, or nearly all, smokers thee, elves. Sever-' .->f the most distinguished athem are known to have quite inordinate fondness lor cigars. Some of the Continental physicians are rather more adventurous in the advancement of assertions and theories in regard to smoking. Dr. Kermabou, of the French army, has just attracted general attention to himself by declaring that tobacco, instead of being bad, is good for the health. He is prepared, for instance, to prove with statistics collected over a long period, that smokers are almost immune from meningitis. A report from Paris states that he has watched the ravages of cerebo-spinal diseases among the young recruits ot the French army, and, as their habits, among others, that of smoking, are noted in the reports, he was astonished to see that so few of the habitual smokers were attacked by the disease. The proportion as established by him is one in twenty ; that is to say, for one case of meningitis among a given number of smokers, there are twenty cases of the disease among an equal number of non-smokers. It has been widely believed that smoking is bad for the young. But Dr. Kermabon argues exactly the contrary. Rather than discourage young men from smoking, he says they ought to be encouraged, especially if they are liable to brain or spinal troubles.