Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-04-11

II = u,
| pleasure which one experiences then ;s
| more ecstatic than at any other time of the
day. For certain smokers a pipe or a ci-
gar is an essential condition of good diees-
| ton, but there are others with whom eth
er causes gastric troubles. Nervous peo-
pie who lead a sedentary life-those espe-
cially who do an Office business-if they
smoke before their meals lose, little by lit
tie, their appetite. A painful anxiety and
nausea takes its place. There are certain
smokers who cannot light q cigar at GER
tain times of the day without feeling q
sensation of heat which accompanies the
action.
Nearly all smokers who are inveterate in
the habit are dyspeptics, which is ex-
planned by the fact of an oyer-abundsuce
of saliva, the diminution of gastric Juices
and stoppage of the ordinary functions
of the stomach. But IN addition to the
accidents of digestion there are others
which visit the lungs and the hearts of
smokers. Pharypgeal troubles are very
common with people who smoke TO excess.
Irritation of the throat often eommuni-
Gates itselt to the larnyx and q dry, hack
ing cough frequently follows. Others ex-
perience at night passing depression IL
they have smoked too much during the
day. A certain kind of asthma has also
been noticed, caused by the abuse of to-
bacco. but this, l am certain, is quite rare,
for l have never met it, though my life has
bren passed among smokers. Accidents
TO the heart are. much more frequent.
Certain doctors even pretend that a quar-
ter of the smokers show irregularities in
the heart beats and pulse. do not know
where their observations have been gath
cred, for l have never seen such a thing.
l. like other doctors, have met with cases
IF angina pectoris, especially among peo-
pie who have passed their lives in an at
mosphere saturated with tobacco, and
those also who have acquired the habit of
swallowing the smoke of their cigarettes.
[ have not been surprised in the latter
case, because the smoke has been carried
by breathing even to the remotest rsmif-
cations of the bronchial tubes, where it
has directly affected the nervous MEM
branes about the heart and lungs, bring
ing on a sort of spffocation common with
this disease.
Women and children, more Impressions
ble by nature than men. are also subject
TO troubles of the blood, and do not have
TO abuse tobacco in order to experience
them. DR.. Decsisne, in a public paper,
read certain observations of his which
proved this: Out of lightweight children,
from nine to fifteen years, given to the use
Of tobacco, twenty seven of them showed
unmistakable palpitations and intermit-
tent actions of the pulse. They further
more showed certain lsziness and taste
for strong liquors. The picture is little
overdrawn. Decaisne was one of the
most passionate of anti -tobacconists, and
one must beware of his assertions. New
-rtheless, it is certain that accidents from
nicotine are more easily produced among
children than grown persons. They also
succumb more readily in an atmosphere
saturated with tobacco smoke. Doctors
Liebault and Desloges have each recorded
case of death among young people from
fifteen to seventeen years old who had fall
len asleep in room filed with tobacco
smoke. These, however, are very excep-
tional cases, as were those mentioned by
tbs Medical Record of New York of three
young persons who died recently, victims
of their passion, one of whom had hanged
himself because his father refused to give
him money wherewith to purchase tobac-
co. This was carrying things little too
far, but then everything Is exaggerated in
America, even the belief in unlikely things.
Remaining in closed rooms in which
smoke is sometimes SO thick that one can
not see is particularly to be avoided by
people who are subject to weakness of the
heart, even If they do not smoke. DR..
Vallin has recited before the Society of
Medicine three conclusive facts in this re-
spect. One told of q young officer who
had given up the use of tobacco three
months before. and who was overcome
with n suffocation similar to angina after
having passed two or three nights in his
room where his friends had been in the
habit of coming to smoke. The case re-
calls an epidemic of the same disease OBJ
served by DR.. Gelineau among some sail
ors who were crowded in the hold of
tramp steamer. They Were obliged during
a storm to cover the hatchways and smoked
to excess in order to have something to do.
Even those who themselves did not smoke
were stricken like the others, for they had
inhaled the same poisonous air and sub
jected themselves tn the action of nicotine
upon the lungs, as / have described 1t In q
case of cigarette smoking.
But il the cigarette smoker Is especially
subject to accidents of the heart, those
who use the pipe have 10 fear epithelioms,
otherwise called the cancer of the lips and
of the tongue. The irst OF these is par
ticularl y common among those who smoke
short clay pipes. The cancer of smokers
shows itself generally at the point where
the stem of the heated pipe is carried upon
the lower lip. That of the tongue appears
on the side where a stream of smoke ia
likely to strike the tongue at each inhAls-
ton. These two forms of horrible dis
ease are without doubt the most serious
that smokers can meet with. 1t is the fear
of these formidable accidents that has con-
verted many. The frequency of them,
however, should not be overrated. Stats
tics alone can give US an idea of the truth
Those of the city of Paris show that there
are one hundred and fifty-tive cases each
year of d-aths caused by cancer of the
mouth, while the number of smokers In
Paris itself estimate tu be at least three
hundred aud fifty five thousand. Admit
ting that half of these make use of the
pipe, and that all of the cases of cancer
can be attributed to them, there is but one
victim to every thousand pipe-smokers.n