TOBACCO POISONS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 1 September 1928, Page 26

TOBACCO POISONS

CIGABS LEAST HABMFUL. Discussing a paper by Professor W. E Dixon on the effects of tobacco smoking on the human system, Dr. Leonard Williams, in the "Empire Keview" for Juno, remarks that the evils arising from tobacco are usually referred to in terms of nicotine. This assumption that nicotine is the sale cause of ill-effects ia not correct. There are at least two other ingredients of tobacco smoke which .deserve serious attention, and there may be more. One is pyridine, and the other is carbon monoxide. Pynaine is oce.-ionally used in medicine, and at one time it enjoyed an ill-de-served reputation as a cure for asthma. It is more useful, however; as an insecticide. Pyridine is the element-in tobacco smoke which causes intense irritation to the throat and other mucous surfaces, and compels some people to discontinue smoking altogether. Car-, bon monoxide is the poisonous element in fumes emitted from charcoa stoves, ■which confers lethU power upon ordinary coal gas. It owes its poisonous character to the fact that when inhaled it enters into direct combination •with the colouring matter of the blood \ and forms with it a compound which renders the corpuscles incapable of carrying oxygen to the tissues. Dr. "Williams quotes Sir Thomas Oliver as saying that 1 per cent, of carbon monoxide in a room is sufficient to cause unpleasant symptoms. Other experts, he says, authoritatively claim that even smaller quantities are harmful. The amount of Tbon monoxide in a cigarette is .5 to 1 per cent.; the pipe yields 1 per cent., or more; and the cigar 6 to 8 per cent. This last is the proportion of carbon monoxide in ordinary coal gas. There is a saving clause in the risk from this carbon monoxide, in that it is only dangerous when inhaled. For this reason the cigar smoker receives very little into his system, and in practice less than does the cigarette smoker who inhales the fumes into his lungs. The contention of those who regard the cigarette as the least wholesome form of tobacco is thus borne out. It was at one time stated that the paper of the cigarette was the deleterious clement, but Dr. Williams regards that idea as "pure nonsense." He believes that headaches from which some people suffer after banquets are due largely to the amount of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere from tobacco fumes. It has always been recognised that smoking out of doors is less harmful than in the house, and the fact given above supplies the reason. Though not despising the 111-eflects. of pyridino and carbon monoxide, Dr. Williams refers to nicotine as the really# dangerous poison in tobacco. Professor Dixon discovered that the drier the tobacco the greater the destruction of nicotine in smoking. If the tobacco be moist the evil from nicotine is much greater.' This is a very strong point n. favour of cigars, and to a .less extent of cigarettes. It is in pipes that moist tobacco is-iusunlly smokod. It has been found, too, that the.moisture and volatile substances condense immediately behind the point of combustion, so that the gases aru drawn through this hot moist arcn, and carry with them the volatile principles of which nicotine is the most important. Therefore, a small combustion area is nn advantage to the Bmoker. For this reason a cigarette or a thin ci'jar produces far loss effective nicotine than a fat cigar or a widebowled pipe. Pure nicotine is one of the most fatal and rapid poisons in existence, and it acts as quickly as prussic acid. Two drops placed on the tongue of a dog will kill it almost instantly. The nicotine in one cigar injected into the human veins would represent two fatal doses. Professor Dixon relates the. case of a child suffering .from ringworm, to whose head the leaves of tobacco were applfe.di ■ "The child . died as a consequerifee. Against this the statistical Tetuins show that the death rate from cancer among tobacco operatives is lower than that of any other occupation.