SMOKING DENOUNCED

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 61, 15 March 1924, Page 13

SMOKING DENOUNCED

• A well-known Brisbane Congregational minister, the Rev. H. Gainsford, has satisfied himself that the tobacco habit is an unmitigated evil. In it he sees the root of much degeneracy and wrong-doing and a potent influence for harm to the general health of the community. In launching a determined attack upon the seductive weed from his pulpit, he declared that its serious results compelled him to emphasise the .baneful habit of cigarette smoking among boys, youth, and young women. Medical science testified to the detrimental effect of cigarette smoking upon our youth. Of the thousands of candidates for the American Navy, 80 to 90 per cent, failed to pass the medical t<*-t through the effect of cigarette smoking on the heart. For the army, nine-tenths failed for the same reason. If this was the effect on our youths, what must it be upon our young women ? Experts declared that nicotine acts upon the nerve cells first as a stimulant, and then as a depressent, and also "exercise a definite effect upon the spinal cord," and interfered with the function of the eye, heart, and- kidneys. The cigarette habit interfered with- the normal action of the brain, as an organ of thought, impaired the: memory, and-lessened the power of concentration. Medical experts further declared that a large amount of insanity among foxing men between the ages of 16 and 23 was due to the cigarette habit.. "Is cigarette-smoking a moral elevation?" he asks. "Is it not rather a ■ development of the lower "than of the higher nature? , Crime statistics go to show that nearly all young criminals are cigarette smokers." The testimony of degeneracy in youths caused by cigar-ette-smoking was intensified in smoking girls. Could words be strong enough to condenmn the insane craze that possessed so many, of our young women to smoke cigarettes and drink wines and cocktails? Without a moment's forethought they were cultivating a. pernicious habit to the detriment of those finer .instincts that should characterise noble womanhood.