POISON IN THE CIGARETTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9202, 3 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

POISON IN THE CIGARETTE.

" Medicus" writes from the Middlesex Hospital to the Times us follows " Having found in the course of my private practice and that of the hospital a marked increase in cases of malignant throat diseases, I, together with some of my colleagues, have made some very careful researches into the causes of this, and finding that males were almost exclusively affected led us on the track that smoking was, in a great many instances, the primary cause. lam not by any means one of those who consider the pipe, a cigar, or the ordinary cigarette injurious, but am persuaded that the cigarette imported from Egypt or Turkey is mixed, presumably to give it a peculiar taste or flavour, with some insidious poison. I am led to this conclusion by a careful analysis of both the home manufacture and that of the foreign ; in the latter a large proportion of opium and an unclassified alkaloid was manifest, which was totally absent in the former, and it will be obvious that an irritant poison constantly brought into contact with the region of, perhaps, the most sensitive part of the human organisation is calculated to bring about trouble. I venture to address you in order to caution the public against a serious danger that lurks in their midst." ' .