PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT SMOKE

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 69, 28 December 1871, Page 3

PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT SMOKE

In an article on the medical aspect of smoking tobacco in the Food Journal , Dr. E. B. Gray asks : “Is smoking injurious?” This is an eveiy-.day question apt to be put by patients to their doctors. Like most broad questions of the kind, it involves far too many considerations to admit of being answered by a plain yes or no. A medical man who has long been a moderate smoker, and watched the effect of the habit on himself and others, here offers what he believes to be the true answer to the question. First of all,{there must be an understanding about the quality of the tobacco to be smoked. Bad—namely, rank, quickly intoxicating, and prostrating tobacco (certain kinds of shag and cavendish, for instance) must always be injurious. Few can smoke them at all—none, habitually at least—with impunity. So too with regard to quantity, even good tobacco smoked to excess will to a certainty be injurious to the smoker, sooner or later, in some way or other. Of the various evil effects of excessive smoking, more will be said presently. Next, as to the smokers. There are people to whom any tobacco, however smoked, is simply poison, causing, even in small doses, vomiting, pallor, and alarming prostration. Such people never get seasoned to its effects, even aAer repeated trials ; and if they are wise, they will forever let it alone. They will display still further wisdom by not presuming to make laws for others who have not the same idiosyncrasy. No one can enjoy smoking, or smoke with impnnity when out of health. The phrase “ out of health” though it may sound vague, is definite enough to frame a general rule. At the same time it is useful enough to know what, if any, are the particular disorders and conditions of health in which tobacco does special harm. As far as the writer’s knowledge goes, these have never been specified by medical writers as clearly as is desirable. To begin, a man with a bad appetite will, if he smoke, most assuredly eat still less—a noteworthy fact for smokers or others recovering from wasting illness or “ off their feed ” from whatever cause. This effect of tobacco, by the way, while an evil to the sick man who cannot cat enough, becomes a boon to the starved man who cannot get enough to eat ; and ample illustration of this was furnished among the French and German soldiers in the recent war. Again no man should smoke who has a dirty tongue, a bad taste in his mouth,or a weak or disordered digestion. In any such case he cannot relish his tobacco. It should be a golden rule with smokers, that the pipe or cigar which is not smoked with relish had better not be smoked at all. Indigestion in every shape is aggravated by smoking, but most especially that form of it commonly known as a tonic, and accompanied with flatulence. Diarrhoea, as a rule, is made worse by smoking. One of the commonest and earliest effects of excessive or untimely smoking is to make the hand shake. This gives the clue to another class of persons who ought not to smoke—persons, name]}', who have weak unsteady nerves, and suffer from giddiness, confusion of sight, tremulous hands, tendency to stammer, or anj- such symptoms. And if tobacco does harm in mere functional weakness, still less allowable is it in actual organic disease of the system.; as, for instances, where there exists any degree of paralysis or other sign of degenerative change in the brain or spinal chord. The improper use of tobacao does beyond question somewhat inteifere with due nutrition of nerve substance. An illustration of this, familiar to occulists and medical men, is the so-called tobacco amaurosis, a failure of vision occurring in excessive smokers from mal-nutrition of the retina. Another class of persons who ought not to smoke are those who hare weak or unsteady circulations and complain of such troubles as palpitation, cardiac pain, intermittent pulse, habitually cold hands or feet, and chronic languor.

Lastly, there is reason for believing that the habitual use of tobacco is Likely to retard the due growth and development of the body. If so, no one should become a smoker till he is well past the period of puberty. Boys, moreover, hare no excuse for smoking, for they are spared the wear and tear of adult life. Now, after eliminating those who from idiosyncrasy cannot, and those who fiom bodily ailment or from tender years should not smoke, there will still always be a large residuin of happy folk who can

smoke, enjoy smoking, and indeed are the better for it. These are they who use tobacco without abusing it—use it, that is to say, in moderate quantity, in due season, and honestly for the sake of the comfort which it gives them —a comfort every bit as legitimate as that which drinkers of tea, coffee, or wine extract in each case from their favourite beverage.