HEAVY SMOKER'S DEATH.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

HEAVY SMOKER'S DEATH.

An inquest was held last week at Beaufort (Victoria), touching the death of Andrew Lambert M'Oracken, aged 21, who died suddenly m a- paddock where he had been woodcutting. He was boiling a billy for dinner, and after smoking a cigarette (not having eaten or drunk anything) he fell over on his left side and expired. His father told the acting-coroner that his son was an inveterate cigarette smoker, having smoked six packets of cigarettes and a 4oz tin of cut tobacco between Saturday and Monday last. Young M'Cracken was apparently well on Sunday, when he last saw him alive, but had had.a cold for two month.. He had never consulted a doctor m his life. Dr. A. G. Jackson, who made the port-moriem, said there were evidenc.s that deceased was suffering from an acute attack of pleurisy. The heart was enormously enlarged, weighing 240z, the usual weight being from lOoz to 12oz. Tlie org ins of the uod" were healthy. In his opinion the cause of death was heart paralyns. probably tlie result of some exertion affecting the greatly enlarged heart. The pleuritic condition would probably have contributed to the sudden death. To I anyone with heart trouble smoking was injurious. It wat. a kind of heart that did not show any symptoms, deceased be- I ing m just that "condition that any exert- j k'ii was risky to him, and death would luive occurred sooner or later.