THE MEDICAL EFFECTS OF 'SMOKING.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,— " Do I sleep ? do I dream ?
Do I wander and doubt ?
Are things what they seem ?
Or is visions about ? "
These lines are recalled to mind by a passage in the Spectator's short review of Sir Humphrey Rolleston's Linacre lecture, "Some Medical Aspects of Old Age." The passage is :L- " Alcohol is a cell-poison, and over-indulgence in alcohol certainly shortens life ; but there is no evidence that smoking has any evil effects."
In these days, when it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the baby is born in the smoking-room (every room is a smoking- room), such a statement may be very comforting, but I feel that it departs so largely from the truth that, until a perusal of Sir Humphrey Rolleston's lecture should convince me to the contrary, I shall decline to believe that he ever made this statement. The occurrence of tobacco blindness, the known effects of smoking on heart and blood pressure, the develop- ment of a craving far more intense than that for alcohol, all appear to negative the pleasing assumption that smoking has no harmful effects. In physiological experiments nicotine is used because " in small doses it paralyses nerye-cells, but not nerve-fibres " (Halliburton, Handbook of Physiology).
. No, let not those who, like the present writer, indulge in smoking deceive themselves into the belief that such indul- gence can do them no possible harm. There may be com- pensating advantages, but careful investigation will probably show that there is much over-indulgence in the use of tobacco and that such over-indulgence is doing more harm to the community than we are aware of.—I am, Sir, 8re.,
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