THE EVIL CIGARETTE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10215, 18 April 1911, Page 4

THE EVIL CIGARETTE.

Under the heading "Diseases of the Heart," the report on the health of the British Army for 1909, just issued, says:—"The rejection ratio, under this heading, is 33.06, an increase of twenty-three per 1000 inspected, while the ratio for rejection within three months of enlistment is 1.15, a decrease of .12 as compared with 1908, and .31 under the decennial average. Many of these later rejections are caused .by disordered action of the heart, which in the case of young soldiers is greatly aggravated, if nob induced, by excessive cig-arette-smoking." The report proceeds:—"The increase of this pernicious habit year by year has been the subject of remark in ' several r commands, and there,is if not .an actual probability, that future year's may not witness any further marked diminution in these affections

as a whole, but that the disease itself, and the cause, will be changed to another in the same category." In former years the high rate of invalidating from heart affections was largely attributed to an unsuitable ■and injurious system of gymnastic training, but there is now a fairly general consensus of opinion amongst medical inspectors of recruits that of the lads who are discharged medically unfit within three months of enlistment for such diseases, practically in all cases the smoking of cheap and injurious cigarettes to excess is the i cause. The report, it is gratifying to i note, states that the improvement in [the health of the troops, which was remarked upon in the preceding report, has continued.