PLEASURES OF SMOKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18566, 26 November 1923, Page 11

PLEASURES OF SMOKING.

TOBACCO INNOCUOUS. Arguments against- smoking were recently reviewed by the medical correspondent of the London Times, who declared that there was no satisfactory evidence that the use of tobacco is injurious to health, but that it is " a mild and innocuous antidote " against the physical and mental stresses of modern life. Health ,is no mere affair of the body. Everything which makes for happiness, for contentment, for the equus animus, deserves to be classed as a health agency. Tobacco emphatically belongs to this category. Nor does it #apyear to matter much what' form of smoking is indulged in.. There is a tradition in favour of cigars and pipes and against cigarettes but it is very difficult to find on what evidence this tradition is b?sed.< Vast numbers of men and most women who smoke at all are cigarette smokers. There is no reason to think that thev fare worse than. those who do not indulge in this manner of consuming tobacco. The truth is that our world abounds in theories which have a plausible appearance but are quite unsupported by actual observation.' The subject of health' ii specially attractive to the makers of these bogeys. Any custom or habit is sure, sooner or later, to be denounced by them. Those of us who like to be presented with evidence are not beloved of this section of the community. We can afford to ignore, them and to persist in our enjoyment until it has been proved that we must Ray too heavy a price for it. _^