17© TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE EFFECTS OF SMOKING ON COLLEGE STUDENTS 



Br De. GEORGE L. MEYLAN 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



THE question of the effects of tobacco upon the smoker has re- 

 ceived much attention from moralists, educators, physicians and 

 scientists. The literature on the subject is voluminous. Numerous 

 investigators have experimented upon animals, mainly to determine 

 the effects produced by nicotine. The results of these experiments 

 show that nicotine when injected in animals acts as a strong poison, 

 causing disturbances of the nervous, circulatory and respiratory func- 

 tions. The problem of determining the effects of smoking upon human 

 beings presents far greater difficulties than the effects of nicotine in- 

 jections on animals. There is very little agreement in the conclusions 

 reached by the many physiologists and physicians, who have investi- 

 gated this problem. 



Professor Lombard, of the University of Michigan, has shown that 

 in from five to ten minutes after beginning to smoke an ordinary cigar 

 muscular power began to diminish, and in an hour when the cigar was 

 burned, it had fallen to about 25 per cent, of its initial value. The 

 total work of the time of depression compared with a similar normal 

 period was as 24.2 is to 44.8. 



According to Dr. Woodhead, of Cambridge University: 



Cigarette smoking in the case of boys, partly paralyzes the nerve cells at 

 the base of the brain and this interferes with the breathing and heart action. 

 The end organs of the motor nerves lose their excitability, next the trunks of 

 the nerves and then the spinal cord. In those accustomed to smoking, it has 

 a soothing effect upon the nervous system, but often acts as a nervous stimulant 

 to mental work, as in reading. In those cases the effect is not due to nicotine 

 itself but to the stimulus of the smoke on the sensory nerves of the mouth, 

 which reflexly stimulate the vaso-motor system and dilate the vessels of the 

 brain. There appears to be less irritation of the brain structure and motor 

 nerves than of the sensory nerves, but the power of fine coordination is de- 

 cidedly lost. 



Dr. Clouston, the eminent English physician, writes on tobacco as 



follows : 



The use of tobacco has become the rule rather than the exception among 

 the grown men of Europe and America and of some parts of Asia. If its use is 

 restricted to full-grown men, if only good tobacco is used, not of too great 

 strength, and if it is not used to excess, then there are no scientific proofs that 

 it has any injurious effects, if there is no idiosyncrasy against it. Speaking 

 generally, it exercises a soothing influence when the nervous system is in any 



