SEARCHING FOR HEALTH

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 13 September 1930, Page 3

SEARCHING FOR HEALTH

{INCREASE IN NEURASTHENIA

THE TOBACCO HABIT

(By “Physical Culturist,’.’)

(All Rights Reserved.)

Last week I quoted the opinions expressed by Dr. D. B. Robins, an actuary and insurance examiner of many years’ experience, in which he made some pertinent remarks concerning the tooaeco habit. Although the article in question was published ais far back as 22 years, the opinions expressed are as applicable to-day as then. The doctor told us that "these persons who shorten their lives by known had habits, or cut themselves off in youth or middle age by the use of alcohol, tobacco and other narcotic drugs, are morally as culpable as though they had ended their career by the pistol or the rope. The tobacco habit causes a physical; moral and financial deterioration of our race, second only to the one great destroyer alcohol.” hor nearly 40 years this authority had been examiner to old line and fraternal insurance companies. Amongst many applicants lie had examined he found tour-fifth.s of them used tobacco, and more than half of the tobacco users were percipt-ibly injured by it. One-fourth of tobacco users were dangerously poisoned by nicotine, and at least one-eighth had irregular or .intermittent valvular action, commonly known as ‘•smoker’s heart.” This weakened condition of the human pump allowed slight regurgitation of the blood through the T improperly closed valves, preventing complete oxydisation in the lungs, and thereby retaining the poisonous gases in the system. This eventually resulted in dropsy or some other systematic breakdown. Deleterious effects in-! crease with continual use, and in time many who are slaves to nicotine become physical wrecks, unless sooner removed bv acute diseases to which the weakened vitality predisposes. As is well known to all chemists, nicotine is a deadly poison, and it is truly wonderful that the human system with this, as in the case of opium, strychnine, and other drugs, will tolerate more from time to time until the constant user may take, with apparent impunity, what would inevitably produce death in a much stronger person who had not gradually been brought under its deadly influence. This immunity, however, is only apparent, for the excessive and continued use of any narcotic must, with certainty, undermine the vital powers, exhaust the nerve forces, and make tlie user an easy prey to a host cf other diseases. The point more particularly claiming the attention of medical men is the intense strain and waste upon the physical system, which, in time not only destroys the user, but, prior to complete impotency. makes him unfit to beget orogeny. Tn commenting on the above in an article written 22 years ago I said : J “Dr. Robins advanced so many argnX merits against the tobacco evil that T Vy ma Ice no excuse for using the foregoing extract. What 1 wish to emphasise is this: We are fast getting a bigger population in our Dominion ; our cities and towns are getting more dense!'• packed together; factories are springing up, our girls, ns well as our young men, are living and working under far worse hygienic conditions than many of onr parents before us, and it is a recognised fact- that as onr cities grow greater the -stature of its citizens grows less. Tobacco, and especially the cigarette habit, is

'contributing cause, also the excessive use of alcohol, plus our unhygienic ways of living.” It must be remembered this was published some 22 ago, and I was discussing conditions as they existed then. Since then working conditions in shops and factories have vastly improved; the same may be claimed for housing conditions, combined with improved fresh air conditions in our public schools, to which end this writer with others laboured long and assiduously. In those days also Dr. Trubv King, whose work in the interest of the babies was only beginning to attract attention, was laying the foundation of a work which has meant much to the national life of the Dominion. With the combination pulling its weight, the average physique of both sexes has considerably increased in the last decade. It is- admitted the. dreaded “white - plague” tuberculosis has been considerably checked, but metliinks neurasthenia has increased during the same period, for which the steady increase of cigarette smoking is largely responsible