PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT SMOKE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 75, 17 January 1872, Page 4

PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT SMOKE.

ir In an article on the medical aspect of smoking >r j tobacco in the Food Journal, Dr. E. B. Gray asks : — 8m "Is smoking injurious ?" This is an every-day question apt to be put by patients to their doctors. 16 Like most broad questions of the kind, it involves ie far too many considerations to admit of being ie answered by a plain yes or no. A medical man ie who has long been a moderate smoker, and . watched the effect of the habit on himself and ' l - others, here offers what he believes to be the true rt anßwer to the question. ■ a First of all there must be an understanding about the quality of the tobacco to be smoked. Bad— namely, rank, quickly intoxicating, and ie prostrating tobacco (certain kinds of shag and ia cavendish, for instance) must always be injurious, it Few can smoke them at all— none, habitually at 3t least — with impunity. So too with regard to i- quantity, even good tobacco smoked to excess ■ii will to a certainty be injurious to the smoker, ie sooner or later, in some way or other. Of the >t various evil effects of excessive smoking, more y will be said presently. :t Next, as to the smokers. There are people to whom any tobacco, however smoked, is simply p poison, causing, even in Bmall doses, vomiting, ? pallor, and alarming prostration. Such people c never get seasoned to itß effects, even after re;r peated trials ; and if they are wise, they will fore ever let it alone. They will display still further d wisdom by not presuming to make laws for a others who have not the Bame idiosyncrasy. d No one can enjoy smoking, or smoke with imr punity when out of health. The phrase " out of s health" though it may sound vague, is definite t enough to frame a general rule. At the same s time it is useful enough to know what, if any, are i. the particular disorders and conditions of health c in which tobacco does special harm. As far as ■ the writer's knowledge goes, these have never >- been specified by medical writers as clearly as is s desirable. 1 To begin, a man with a bad appetite will, if he l smoke, most assuredly eat still less— a note3 worthy fact for smokers or others recovering from i a wasting illness or " off their feed " from what- ) ever cause. This effect of tobacco, by the way, t while an evil to the sick man who cannot eat 1 enough, becomes a boon to the starved man who } cannot get enough to eat; and ample illustration j of this was furnished among the French and Gerl man soldiers in the recent war. Again no man ' should smoke who has a dirty tongue, a bad • taste in his mouth, or a weak or disordered digesi tion. In any such case he cannot relish his tOi bacco. It should be a golden rule with smokers i that the pipe or cigar which is not smoked with • relish had better not be smoked at all. Indigesi tion in every shape is aggravated by smokfng, but most especially that form of it commonly known as a tonic, and accompanied with flatulence. Diarrhoea, as a rule, is made worse by smoking. One of the commonest and earliest effects of ex1 cessive or untimely Bmoking is to make the hand shake. This gives the clue to another class of persons who ought not to smoke— persons, namely, who have weak unsteady nerves, and suffer from giddiness, confusion of sight, tremulous hands, tendency to stammer, or any such, symptons. And if tobacco does harm in mere functional weakness, still less allowable is it in actual organic disease of the system ; as, for instances, where there exists any degree of paralysis or other sign of degenerative change in the brain or spinal chord. The improper use of tobacco does beyond question somewhat interfere with due nutrition of nerve substance. An illustration of this, familiar to occulists and medical men, is the so-called tobacco amaurosis, a failure of vision occurring in successive smokers from mal-nutri-tion of the retina. Another class of persons who ought not to smoke are those who have weak or unsteady circulatons and complain of such troubles as palpitatition, cardiac pain, intermittent pulse, habitually cold hands or feet, and chronic languor. Lastly, there is reason for believing that the habitual use of tobacco is likely to retard the due groth aud development of the body. If so, no one should become a smoker till he is well past the period of puberty. Boys, moreover, have no excuse for smoking, for they are spared the wear and tear of adult life. Now, after eliminating those who from idiosyncrasy cannot, and those who from bodily ailment or from tender years should not Bmoke, there will still always be a large residura of happy folk who can smoke, enjoy smoking, and indeed are the better for it. These are they who use tobacco without abusing it— use it, that is to say, in moderate quantity, in due season, and honestly for the sake of the comfort which it gives them — a comfort every bit ag legitimate as that which drinkers of tea, coffee, or wine extract in each case from their favourite beverage.

Fat Men.— lt is a striking fact that most people want to weigh more than they do, and measure their health by their weight, us if a man were a pig, valuable in" proportion to its heaviness. The racer is not fat, and a good plough horse has but a moderate amount of flesh. Heavy men are not those which experienced contractors employ to build railroads and dig ditches. Thin men, the world over, are the men for enduraucu and are wiry and hardy. Thin men live the longest. The truth is, fat is a disease, and as a proof, fat people are never well a day at a time, and are not euifed for hard work. Still, there is a medium between as fat as a butter-ball, and as thin and juiceless as a fence rail. For mere looks, moderate rotundity is moßt desirable, to have enough, flesh to cover all angularities. To accomplish this in the shortest time, a man should work but little, sleep a great part of the time, allow nothing to worry him, keep in a joyous, laughing mood, and live chiefly on albuminates, such as boiled cracked wheat, and rye, and oats, and corn, and barley, with sweet milk, and butter-milk, and fat meats. Sugar is the best fattener known.