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Greymouth Evening Star, 12 January 1928, Page 9

TOBACCO HABIT DANGERS OF EXCESS. Professor W. E. Dixon, F.R.S., Assessor to the Regius Professor of Medicine and Reader in Pharmacology at Cambridge, in his Norman Kerr Memorial Lecture to the Society for the Study of Inebriety, dealt with “The Tobacco Habit.” The lecture will be published in the January issue of the “Journal” of the society. In this lecture, after reviewing the history of the habit, Professor Dixon marshals a vast amount of statistical and other observations as- to the effects of smoking and other modes of using nicotine, and he says: “The action of tobacco on the central nervous system, when used in moderation, on the whole, does no harm, and in subjects showing deviations from the normal it makes for good.” After an exhaustive examination of the chemical and other properties of nicotine, he lays emphasis on the importance of the wise selection and blending of tobaccos and their proper curing, and on the exercise of intelligence in the choice of the mode of using tobacco and on moderation aftei - these requisites have been met. A long review of the results of experiments on dogs and rabbits to determine the degree of tolerance of nicotine, closes with a warning of the risks of tobacco amblyopia, and of epithelioma of the mouth, as well as of some other serious troubles, mostly, however, he explains, attributable to excess and injudicious methods of using tobacco. He states: —“It may well be that living in a civilisation such as ours, under the strained conditions imposed by residence in cities, the ordinary man shows in his nervous responses variations from the normal, and on such tobacco exerts a beneficial function. To what extent strict moderation in the use of tobacco leads to vascular degeneration is uncertain; is it the rule or is it the exception? This is the vital question to which we require an answer, and upon this answer something of the well-being of the nation depends.”