The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1902-06-25
Tobacco Traditions.

The belief that tobacco smoke is q
disinfectant has long been popularly
held. AS long ago as 1883 DR.. Paul
Tassinari of Pisa subjected the germs
Of various deadly diseases (such AS an
shrax, chc!e.a and :yrA1s es7s7j TO
the action Of dense clouds Of impris-
oned tobacco smoke during periods Of
100 to $50 hours and he came to the
conclusion that In most cases, and es-
pecially when large cigars had been
employed 90 generators, the develop
ment Of pathogenio bacteria was either
partially or wholly arrested. But no.
body retains smoke in tho mouth for
100 hours at o time! An occasional
pipe, indeed, scarcely counts in COM
parison with DR.. Tassinerils intense
soaking process. Besides, under the
conditions imposed by the Italian in
vestigator, would not the smoke of
coal or wood produce the same results
as that Of cigars?
1tis recorded that during the great
plague children were told to smoke in
their schoolrooms. The idea was
probably borrowed from the custom of
the buriers of the dead Oh their way,
in charge Of dead d-carts, to Holy we'll
Mount. We read in "a Brief Alb
stract Of the Virtues Of the American
Tobacco Plant published in 1873,
that at first these persons only used
tobacco as deodorizer, little think
ing that what they used for momen-
tary relief would prove a constant pre-
ventive. When the plague was hap
PLY stayed, the virtues Of tobacco
began to be investigated; it was found
that those persons who plentifully
used it, either in smoking OF snufiug,
had most wonderfully escaped the
dire contagion; for though they visit
ed the chambers Of the sick; attend
ed the funerals Of cart-loads at time,
they Unexpectedly avoided the infec-
tion." The writer even goes SO Far GO
to advance the theory that since Eu-
rope took to smoking, epidemics had
greatly decreased and we find him
stating the belief chat dealers in to-.
bacco were secure from plague.infec-
tion. Yet he can assign no reason
why tobacco should prove SO valuable
as disinfectant except in so fer as
it fortifies the head against "exhala-
tions."
Workmen in tobacco factories are
often cited as being immune from
cholera and other epidemics. 1t is
interesting to trace this belief back.
Abroad it probably received it's first
impetus in Toulouse, where shortly
before the Revolution the workmen in
the State tobacco factory are said to
have remained immune during dead
ly epidemic of suette (sweating sick
ness.) The belief may, perhaps, be
of the nature of folklore. The medi-
cal ran attached TO the Bordeau State
factory thought that this local indus
try was veritable blessing to damp
and foggy town. "The piquant and
ammoniacal emanations arising from
the tobacco quelify and diminish its
insalubrity. Before the establish
ment Of this factory the poorer parts
of Bordeaux had been ravaged by cpl
demics and contagious now unknown.
The death rate among the tobacco
workmen is, he adds, very low, while
very sew cases of illness occur among
them, although they are in general
ill-lodged and clothed and even worse
fed"
We have no new facts to add in
evidence Of the value of tobacco smok-
lug in epidemic disease. AS yet, at
any rate, there is nothing authorize
tive to be said.