TOBACCO AND MENTAL EFFICIENCY.
Tobacco and Mental Efficiency. By M. V. O'Shea. (New York : the Macmillan Company. 12s. net.)
ToE definition of life as "Just one damn thing after another" has always been of universal application. The curse of civilization is that it brings with it an alternative definition : "Just one damn problem after another." As we complicate Our lives, so do we add to the burden of our problems, until we are faced with the most complex problem of all, that of the simple life, the problem there being to make a suitable selection of problems with which to dispense. These rather wandering reflections on problems in general and the simplifi- cation of life result from the reading of a book called Tobacco and Mental Efficiency, which is the forerunner of a series of monographs on the Tobacco Problem. Now, it had never occurred to me that there is a Tobacco Problem, nor has this book convinced me that there is such a one. And yet, in the prefatory note we are treated to a list of fifty-nine distinguished Americans who form the Committee to study the Tobacco Problem.
Tobacco is a drug of rather obscure pharmacology, and any original research into the action of this drug on the central nervous system is of real, if of circumscribed, interest. A series of clever experiments which were undertaken in America to demonstrate the action of tobacco upon cerebration are described in Part III. of the book under consideration. Unfor- tunately, these investigations were able to prove very little one way or another, but as a piece of well-conducted scientific research recognition must be accorded them. But the author -tells us that the pharmacology of tobacco is really not his province and that that side of the problem is reserved for further monographs from other investigators ; his object is merely to investigate the effect of tobacco upon menta efficiency. His method may be best demonstrated by trau-1 scribing the contents of the first two parts of the book. Part I. contains Data Derived from Observation, Introspection and Biography," and the chapter-headings are : "Conflicting Opinions," "The Habits of Prominent Persons of the Past Respecting the Use of Tobacco," "Testimonies of Men and Women of Distinction" (two chapters), and "The Verdict of Observation, Introspection and Biography." One may sum up the whole of the evidence supplied by Part I. as Some says one thing, others says another." It is possible by juxta- posing almost any two nouns to conduct a scientific investiga- tion along these lines. One is reminded of the device of a writer in a certain esteemed contemporary weekly, who con- trives to provide himself with an inexhaustible supply of literary articles by linking up anything-you-please with the works of the nineteenth-century novelists. Thus, mention thimbles to him, and next week he will oblige with an article called "Thimbles in Literature."
Part II. of the book contains "Data Derived from School and College Records." The result of this laborious investiga- tion is to confirm the generally accepted opinion that smoking is bad for growing children, or perhaps, let us say, The best boys and girls do not smoke." The chief reason, I think, why Mr. O'Shea has failed to give us anything of value is that he has completely disregarded the psychological side of his subject. He has neglected to ask himself the question, "Why do people smoke ? " But perhaps the psychology of smoking is reserved for yet another monograph. The psycho-analyst sees in the pipe, cigarette or cigar, which dangles continually from the mouth of the confirmed smoker, an implicit return to the infantile state in which sucking something is a matter of some import. He may or may not be right ; but he is approaching his subject in a promising manner. Other psychologists maintain that the soothing vision of the up- curling smoke-spiral combined with the mildly narcotic action of the inhalations gives rise to an "outcropping of the Uncon- scious," and all which that implies. Such a view, if shown to be correct, would throw snore light on the Tobacco Problem than all the "Testimonies of Men and Women of Distinction" put together.
To conclude my remarks by a return to my earlier observa- tions, I regard the Committee of fifty-nine distinguished Americans as guilty of raising tobacco to the rank of Prob- lems-with-a-capital-P, when it should not have been so raised ; and I indict Mr. O'Shea of bungling his particular share in the investigation. What is more, I fear that from time to time we shall be treated to the extravagances of problem-mongers "until the coming of the Cocqcigrues." E. B. Suss.
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