The St. Johns herald., 1898-06-11
TOBACCO PIPES.
A Medical Authority That Says Clay Is
 Preferable to Wood.

Medical Authority That Says Clay Is Preferable to Wood.
 If tobacco smoking is justifable at all on hygienio grounds, says The Lancet, it is generally conceded that the pipe is the least injurious means. But tobacco pipes differ considerably in material and shapes, both of which must be inn portant factors in determining the char acter of the smoke. Thus there are the clay, the meerschaum and the various wooden pipes, the brier, cherry or my all. Next to the tobacco, therefore, which should always be pure and free from added favoring, an expedient which is resorted to far too commonly nowadays, probably in many instances to cover an inferior quality of tobacco, the best kind of pipe is point to be considered. Even assuming that he IS smoking good tobacco, the smoker knows how different in character the smoke is when drawn from a clay or wooden bowl. There is probably scientific ex- plantation of this fact which must have some bearing on the noxious or innocu- ous character of the smoke associated with other products of combustion.
 A soft clay is invariably cool smok ing because the acid oils obtained on the destructive distillation of the tobao- co are absorbed instead of collecting in a little pool, which must eventually either by the volatilization or by me- chanical conveyance reach the mouth. A particular pipe "smokes hot" not necessarily because the temperature of the smoke is high, but because it favors the passage by one of these means of the oils into the mouth. Meerschaum is another porous material. Again, an old wooden pipe or brier, so dear to invet- crate smokers, becomes "smooth smok- ing" because the pores of the wood widen and so absorb. as is the case with clay or meerschaum, large proportion of the tobacco oil.
 Thus an old pipe "sweats," as it is termed-that is, the oil intrudes into the expanded pores of the wooden bowl and at length exudes. Similarly hook shaped pipe must be better than pipe
 
 with the mouth, for the simple reason that in the former a considerable quan- tity of the oil is kept back in the U shaped part of the pipe, while in the latter the oil travels easily down the stem. Ebonite stems are in general ob jectionable because they commonly spoil the true flavor of tobacco smoke. This is most probably due to the sulphur of the ebonite combining with the volatile oils in the smoke. We know instances where ebonite stems have produced dis tinctly objectionable symptoms in the throat, most probably for the reason just given.
 Bone or real amber makes @ much more satisfactory stem, or the pipes should be of wood throughout. Amber substitutes, and especially oelluloid, should be discarded entirely as danger ous, while the flavor of camphor which these invariably communicate to the smoke forms a very unpleasant combi- nation. Pipes of special construction cannot be regarded with much favor, such as those which are said to be hy- gienic and usually contain so called nicotine absorber. Those smokers who require such auxiliary attachments had better not smoke at all. AS matter of fact tobacco yields little nicotine in the smoke produced on it's partial oombus- tiOn. It is mainly to oils of tarry and aorid character that the toxic symptoms of tobacco smoking are due.