SMOKING AFTER FORTY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 884, 14 February 1907, Page 21

SMOKING AFTER FORTY.

Dr. C. Stanford Read, in his book, “How to Keep Well,’ has something to say concerning smoking. That tobacco used moderately is generally injurious seems improbable; at any rate, the mischief of it, he says, is not proved. But smokers do not altogether escape the effects of the nicotine. Among the slighter consequences are decay of the teeth, and this few escape; a tendency to a chronic inflammatory condition of the back of the throat and slight muscular tremor. In respect of severer consequences, “tobacco blindness” stands out prominently. ... Dizziness is not an uncommon sign of excess or intolerance of tobacco. This symptom is seen more in cigarette smokers, perhaps, because in this practice the smoke is generally inhaled. . . Tobacco hearts are very common in young men who smoke freely before becoming thoroughly seasoned, the main feature being palpitation, accompanied by a sense .of discomfort in the cardiac region. Dr. Read also points out that tobacco, in common with most kinds of chronic poisoning, tends to produce anaemia. “Up to the age of 40 years much excess may be indulged in without permanent harm being wrought; but over that age much greater caution must be exercised. The continued inhalation of smoke is certain deleterious, for thereby more of the active constituents of tobacco tend to enter the system, and predisposition to catarrh of the respiratory passages is set up. Excessive smoking I believe to be prejudicial to the efficient working of the intellectual faculties. It tends to turn thought into reverie, and woe betide him whose work is of the mind and who allows himself to fall from thought into mere reverie.”