Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-12
AMERICAN CIGARETTE.
World and Should Be Prohibited-Moder-
ate Smoking Not Hurtful.
Philadelphia Press.

| neaus OF pipes cigars ana Cigarettes. III
my opinion the moderate use of
tobacco by an adult person is not
4 injurious, no matter in what
form it is used. The question as to what
| is moderation is one relative TO which no
| positive rules can be laid down. Proba-
| bly, three cigars day, one after each
| meal, or their equivalent, might be in
| obliged i'll with impunity and perhaps
! even with benefit by most persons of ma
ture age. But for children the smallest
| quantity is certainly harmful. In fact,
nobody who has not reached manhood
should smoke at all. The nervous sys-
TEN of young people is sure TO be impaired
| if this precept be disregarded.
AS to cigarette smoking properly prac-
| ticed and with due regard to moderation,
and provided also that pure tobacco be
| used, | cannot see how ii is more in
| furious than cigars or pipes. But no
| speedier method for rendering existence
| painful is more efficacious than to smoke
| cigarettes and to inhale the fumes into
the lungs. BY this practice very large
| absorbing surface is exposed to the action
| of the nicotine and other poisonous prod
| ucts which are evolved when tobacco Is
burned. The action of the brain is i'm
| paired thereby, the ability to think and,
! i'll fact, all mental concentration are
| weakened.
| Neuralgia, especially about the face,
throat diseases, nasal catarrh, serious
affections of the eyes, dyspepsia, and,
above all, interruption in the normal ac-
| ton of the heart, are among the conse-
! quences resulting from the inOrdinate use
of tobacco, and especially the inhalation
! of cigarette smoke.
Investigation shows that the cigarettes
sold i'll this country are, as rule, Wiley
adulterated, and with substances even
more injurious than tobacco. Something
might be done, perhaps, by the passage
of laws preventing the manufacture or
sale of cigarettes. Surely, if the law
can interfere to stop the production of
oleomargarine on the ground of its
being prejudical to the health of the pub.
lie, it might properly be invoked on the
same plea for the prevention Of the man
ufacture of cigarettes. Some states do
not allow alcohol i'll any form to be pro-
duced or sold within their limits, and yet
I am inclined to believe that more injury
can be inflicted on the human race by the
excessive use of tobacco by young persons
than by immoderate liquor drinking The
latter would probably kill more quickly
and before the subject would have an OPP
portunity of procreating the species, but
the former would not only destroy the
health and eventually the life OF the orig
ina! offender, bat would impair the
health and the vitality of those who
might descend from him.
THE NEED OF PURE AIR.
There is not an adult person in the
world, save an absolute idiot, who does
not know that the most essential requisite
Of life is fresh air. Yet there is probably
no person, nOtwiths landing his or her
knowledge of the fact, that takes suffi-
Gent care to preserve the purity of the
atmosphere that goes into the lungs.
The sources of poisoning are many, even
under the most favorable conditions of
existence, but civilization, with its at
attendant vicious modes of living, has
added thousand methods of contamina-
ton, until, to one who knows how dan
gerous are the morbid vapors and gases
that are inspired, it seems strange that
the bills of mortality are not greater than
they are.
Let lis take, for instance, the means
used for lighting our dwellings, and the
most common substance employed, eS-
pecially in our large illuminating
gas As originally produced, gas is too
impure to be burned without injury to
those subjected to the influence of the
matters given off by it during its COM
buStiOn. These matters vary with the
nature of the substances from which the
gas is derived. Coal gas contains car
bonic acid, carbonic oxide, sulphurretted
hydrogen, ammonia and cyanOgen.
These are removed i'll great part by caus-
ing the gas to pass through vessels con-
tanning lime When every care is taken
Il small quantity of carbonic oxide, vapor
eel IF
still remain.
The heat produced by gas is an Obiec-
ton to its use, especially in small rooms.
| have found the flame from single
burner to raise the temperature of room
containing 1000 cubic feet of air from
fifty-fiYe degrees to sixty-three degrees
in one hour and to maintain it at this
point for several hours.
In one hour | found a sperm candle
burn away to the extent Of l35 grains. In
this amount are contained los grains of
carbon, absorbing from the atmosphere
2S5 grains of oxygen to form 500 grains of
carbonlc acid, equivalent to S4l cubic
inches. The room contained 1900
cubic feet of air, aud had it
been perfectly alright and the
candle had continued to burn for
about forty-five hours, all the oxygen
been converted into carbonic acid. Elk
pertinent has shown, however, that air
containing as much as ten parts of carbonic
acid i'll 1000 is not fit to be inspired; S4l
cubic inches of carbonic acid were formed |
in one hour, and consequently 81 100 |
cubic inches of air, or 5S:4 cubic feet, |
were so far deteriorated as to be unfit for |
the purposes of respiration. In twenty |
Ave hours the whole air of the room
would have been rendered injurious to |
health if respired, even if fresh oxygen |
had been supposed to take the place of
that uniting with the carbon.
TIE CoTAMINATIoN FROM GAS.
Ny own experience goes to show that
about II 600 grains of carbonic acid are
exhaled from the lungs of an adult man
i'll twenty-four hours.
A single candle in the same time forms
$500 grains of carbon, or about $500
grains less than the respiration of an
adult man during the same period. 1t is
within the bounds of truth to say that a
candle, while burning, i'll the main causes
as great a deterioration in the atmos-
phere as does al adult person breathing
in it during the same length of time.
But gas poisons the atmosphere to a