The Falls City tribune., 1910-06-10

fGIi5gENipzI
TOBACCO AMONG THE INSANE
Its Continued Use Incites Many to Be-
come QuarreIcome, Tease and Mo-
lest Fellow Patients.

That the majority of the insane
smoke or chew is too w~ell-known to
deserve special mention. Some alien
lists have been of the opinion that this
habit ought not to be discouraged, that
it has a calming and pacifying effect
especially on the chronic insane. | be-
lieve this to be the case in some of
the secondary dement's. but ordinarily,
though calming at first, it has an eX-
citing effect later on, writes Doctor l..
Bremen of St. Louis. True, If the
temporary contentment resulting from
the qualification of the craving of the
patient is looked upon as the action
of tobacco, ! agree that its effects are
calming. But this quieting down, in
my opinion, takes place on the same
principle that a child gets quiet and
stops crying when its wish, even
though most unreasonable, is gratified.
The rule is that smoking causes or pro-
longs excitement in the insane. Many
become absolutely un~manageable as
soon as they touch tobacco. They
get -quarrelsome, tease and modest
their fellow-patients and render them
selves obnoxious generally.
That tobacco really does cause in
sanity is evidenced by the magic eff
feet seer in some cases after the dis,
continuance of the drug, when the pa
tents condition is still such that he
is not wholly inaccessible to reason
onl hos will nnNp6p pnnT1Oh IN ahQn.
don the habit. Thus | have seen that
beginning melancholia with suicidal
impulses, Authorizations of various
kinds, forced actions, besides, the pre-
cursory symptoms of insanity, such
as insomnia, crying spells, |praecordial
anxiety, fears of impending evil, that
something is going to happen" impo-
teney, vertigo, beginning impairment
of memory and judging power and
even the lowering of the moral tone,
all of which, and a host of other symp-
toms were attributable to chronic to-
bacco ~intoxieation, disappeared after
freedom from the habit was estab-
lished.
But whenever a case has gotten so
far, that commitment to an institution
has become necessary, the prospects
are not so good, because such persons,
as a rule, cannot be convinced that
tobacco is, or has been, the cause of
their mental trouble. Their argu-
ment is that almost everybody
smokes, that all their friends and ac-
quaintances chew or smoke, without
showing any symptoms of insanity.
The alcoholic insane when leaving the
institution to enter active life again,
generally knows and admits that al
cohol has been the cause of his men
tai breakdown, the nicotine-victim
does not admit anything.
There has been a movement on foot
in the medical press, and to some eX-
tent in the daily papers, which latter
chronicle the few cases that come to
public knowledge under the head:
Gone insane from cigarette smoking"
etc, to counteract the spread of this
fatal habit, fatal to the individual him,
self and pernicious to the coming gen.
Grafton; but so far, apparently with
out any appreciate result.
French medical observers are of the
opinion that one of the factors caus-
ing the depopulation of France is the
excessive use of tobacco by its in
%habitants; for the offspring of invet,
crate tobacco Il is notorious
ly puny and stunted in stature and
lacks the normal power of resistance,
especially on the part of the nervous
system; again, in our county it is a
significant fact that an astounding
percentage of the candidates for ad.
mission to West Point and other mill.
tary schools are rejected on account
of tobacco hearts; from all countries
and from all classes of society come
reports in increasing numbers of the
baneful effects of the tobacco heart.
But the consumption goes on and
will do so, until an example is set by
those who, above all others, can esti-
mate the disastrous effect of the habit.