DO WOMEN SMOKE TOO MUCH?

Dunstan Times, Issue 3149, 25 December 1922, Page 2

DO WOMEN SMOKE TOO MUCH?

(Hy Elizabeth Sloan Chesser, M.D.) There is- certainly an increase, of smoking among the rank and file of women of the middle and upper classes in thus country. The day has passed when any sensible parson would object to women smoking on ethical grounds. It is no more “wrong" for a woman to smoke a sigarette than it is for her to drink her morning tea. It has ceased to he remarkable for women to smoke in public places, and, for my part, I consider that women should smoke openly when and where they wish, without prejudice, without criticism from those who hold a conventional code that is out of date. Moderation is the keystone of conduct. Women ought not to smoke to excess, nor should men. Too much smoking injures the health, often irreparably, because tobacco contains an alkaloid, nicotine, which has a very definite physiological effect upon the heart, causing irregular action and what is called “smoker’s heart.” It is a nerve poison also, and most heavy smokers suffer from diminished power of mental concent ration, lack of emotional tone, “nerves.” and impaired sleep. That smoking, unless in strict moderation, is especially harmful to women, is very probable. While I believe that far more men smoke to excess than women. J admit that the habit may justly i>o considered more injurious to women, and particularly io young girls, than to men. It is not that woman’s nervous system is more “delicate” than man’s, hut her motherhood function makes her health of more value from the eugenic -standpoint. A woman’s chief importance, to the community, unless she is of outstanding intellectual worth, is to provide healthy babies, to bear and rear efficient men and women for the next generation. It is. therefore, a national loss if women injure their health' by heavy smoking. There is no more pathetic; figure than the type of modern young girl who, with her perpetual cigarette, degenerates in a few years into the irritable, nenrot : c woman with cold, moist hands, stained finger-tips, and furtive nervous movements. Smoking hi her case has become a vice. .Many women say that smoking soothes the nerves, but in such cases tobacco is being used as a drug, a narcotic which bas to be taken in larger and larger doses to obtain the desired effect. A great deal depends upon whether or not the tobacco is inhaled. The woman who inhales cannot afford to smoke one quarter of the cigarettes consumed by the woman whose smoking is confined to the upper air passages. Never inhale, never smoke more than three, at most four, cigarettes a day. The observance of these two rules would prevent a. good deal of ill-health at present caused by cigarettes.