THE DREADFUL WEED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1129, 5 August 1913, Page 4

THE DREADFUL WEED.

EVILS OF SMOKING

VIEWS OF A LADY DOCTOR

Auckland, July 29

A lecture ou tobacco and its evils was given by Dr. Florence Keller, which contained interesting matter dealing with the history of tobacco. Dr, Keller pointed out that the “dreadful weed” had been a gift from the heathenism of the West Indies to the so-called Christian nations of the world. She showed how the tobacco habit had prevailed over the prohibitory laws of such rulers as James 1., of England, and the all-powerful Duke of Moscow. She stated her opinion that smoking was a habit both thought-destroying and souldestroymg. When the burning ot tobacco in cigars and cigarettes produced such poisonous products as prussic acid, carbonic acid, nicotine, and the oil of tobacco, most of which products came in contact with the absorbent cells of the lungs, she could not see that smoking could be other than harmful to the system. She had seen dozens of small boys picking up cigar and cigarette “butts” on the sidewalks and in the gutters of Chicago, and had been credibly informed that these “butts” were sold to manufacturers, who treated them and had them made into cigars and cigarettes for the market. Then, too, the papers of the cigarettes were soaked in cocaine in order to make the smoking “soothing.” A remarkable thing was the growth of cigarette smoking. The first cigarette was manufactured in 1876, only 37 years ago, yet last year in New York alone fifteen million cigarettes were sold to the men, women and children of New York. Dr. Keller remarked that in every case of cancer of the lips the patient |had been a smoker, and that it was the general opinion of the medical profession that smoking was injurious. Respecting its mental effect, she referred to the banishment of tobacco from the Polytechnic School of Paris by Napoleon 111., because he had discovered that every boy who failed in the school was a smoker, and she stated that tor the last 15 years rjot a student bad graduated with honours at Harvard University who had used tobacco.

Incidentally she deplored the spread of'the tobacco habit to women, and mentioned that she frequently observed the tell-tale yellow tinge on the fingers of women who came to consult her at her office in Aupkland. Even those engaged in the tobacco business, she said, recognised that

smoking was injurious, and iu support of that she quoted an instance that had come under her notice. Some of the tobacco firms offered premiums for the collection of tags from boxes of cigarettes to their make. A boy collected 15.000 tags of a particular brand, and wrote to the manager of the firm in Pennsylvania asking where he should send them, and what the premium or prize would be. The reply was, “Our firm does not give premiums, but if you smoke 15.000 more boxes of cigarettes we will send you a coffin. When you have smoked 10,000 send us your measurement, so that it will be a sure fit.” Alter quoting other personal observations of the effect of using tobacco, Dr. Keller concluded by saying that she had, when a child, heard an old couple say, “Tobacco is a filthy weed, of which the devil sowed the seed,” and she believed it was true.