The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-01-05

CHRISTIAN UNION Ot OCI. Il
Nicotine, the essential principle of tobacco,
is so deadly an alkaloid, that what Is contained IN
one cigar, if extracted and administered in a pure
state, would cause a persons speady death. To-
bacco belongs to the narcotic and exciting sub
stances which have no food value. Its stimulat-
ing power adds no vital force, but abstracts or
takes it away. 1t involves the narcotic paralysis
of a portion of the functions, whose activity
| is essential to healthy life. Let it be understood
that the temporary stimulus and soothing power
of tobacco are gained by destroying ritdl force
and that the drug contains absolutely nothing OF
use to the tissues of a healthy body. Nor is the
poison easily expelled from the system. Indeed,
nicotine has been detected in the tissues of the
lungs and loins after death.
Medical authorities agree in teaching that one of
the effects of smoking, soonest noticeable, is par
tial paralysis of the nerves distributed to the
heart; whence comes hurried and enteebled action
of that organ. This sometimes reduces the pulse
from 60 to 40 a minute. 1t also induces paPita-
tiOnS, and not seldom is a chief cause OF those
organic arrangements ending In fatal heart dis
ease.
Vertigo or dizziness of the head, caused by IL
regular supply of arterial blood in the brain,
which the laboring heart can but intermittingly
furnish, is a common result of the free use Of to-
bacco.
Injury of the retina and nervous tissues of the
eye is another effect. An eminent English physi-
clan states that out of thirty-seven patients suf-
fe1ing from amauroSiS, Gloss of sight by paralysis
of the optic nerve twenty-three were inveterate
smokers.
DIR. Willard Parker, an eminent authority, New
York city, says, " 1t is now many years since my
attention was called to the insidious, but positive
destructive effects of tobacco on the human sys-
tenn. l have seen a great deal of its influence
upon those who use it and work in it. Cigar and
snuff manufacturers have come under my care in
hospitals, and in private Practice; and such per-
SONS cannot recover soon and in a healthy manner
from cases of injury or fever. They are more apt
to die in epidemics, and more prone to apoplexy
and paralysis. The same is also true OF those
who smoke or chew much"
DIR. Richardson, of London, sums up the effects
of tobacco thus: Smoking produces disturb
ances an the blood, causing undue fuidity and
change in the red corpuscles; an the stomach, Civ
ing rise to debility, nausea, ETC.; an the heart, pro-
ducing debility of that organ and irregular ac-
ton; in the organ Of sense. causing in an ex-
treme degree dilatiOn of the pupils of the eye,
confusion of vision with other analogous symp-
toms affecting the ear; in the BRAN, impairing
the activity of that organ, and depressing it, if
it be duly nourished, but soothing it if it be ex-
hausted."
Perhaps the worst thing to be said of tobacco
is the medical testimony which follows: "The
parent whose blood and secretions are saturated
with tobacco, and whose brain and nervous sys-
tenn are semi-narcotized by it, must transmit to
his child elements of a dIstempered body and En-
ratio mind; a deranged condition Of organic at
oms, which elevates the animalism of the future
being at the expense of the moral and intellectual
nature. And here is the law of hereditary trans
mission or penalty; visiting the ~iniquity of the ia
theirs upon the children to the third and fourth GEN
~erations of them that hate me-" EXODUS 2O:5.)
Thus innocent ones are often made lifelong sui
ferers by their drinking, smoking, or l~icentious
parents. And it is coming now to be further
known, that persons inheriting good constitutions,
of laborious life in the open air, will manifest
for years comparatively little conscious injury for
their vices, while their children grow up from
birth, weakly, nervous, with the hereditary taints,
and sometimes epileptics, or imbecile; and these
known results might be inferred from the fact
that tobacco chewed is quickly absorbed into the
system from the mouth, derangcs the action eff the
heart, is an energetic depressant Of the nervous
system, while habitual smoking carries the deadly
nicotine through the lungs into the %arterial blood,
depraving the very springs of life. Were it not
that mothers are generally of purer life and purer
blood than fathers, these deplorable results would
be far more widely manifest than now.
The money wasted yearly in the United States
on tobacco, cigars, and snuff is estimated at
$3.50, 900 900, and this enormous burden is one
chief cause of Astounding pauperism and yaga-
bondage, as well as of those sharp necessities
among railroad men and miners, which precipi-
tated the recent bloody riots in several States.
ALIQUIs.
ALTHOUGH we cannot subscribe fully to the
foregoing, still we are quite willing to give it
publicity. What a treasure it would have been
to King James, when composing his countcrblast
to toba cco!-ED. p. &. Al