322 The Book of Woodcraft 



He agrees heartily with the first part of it, but asserts that no 

 respectable medical authority will be found to endorse the other 

 half of it. Has the editor of American Medicine, he asks, never 

 heard of tobacco blindness? And how about cancer of the lip 

 and of the throat, diseases almost confined to smokers? Bou- 

 chard, of Paris, an authority on diseases of the heart and blood- 

 vessels, names tobacco, the writer goes on to say, as one of the 

 leading causes of this deadly class of maladies. And this is 

 by no means a new idea. Medical examiners tell us that nine 

 tenths of the rejected applicants for the Army are refused on 

 account of tobacco-heart. We read further: 



"King Edward died of tobacco-heart. Mark Twain was 

 another victim of this disease. A king of Hungary fell off his 

 horse some time ago and lost his life because of defective vision 

 due to smoking. The death-rate from disease of the heart and 

 blood-vessels has increased, within the last ten years, from 6 

 per 100,000 to 24 per 100,000 or 400 per cent. Is there no 

 evidence from these facts that it is not 'harmless to adults'? 



"No experienced coach will allow men in training for athletic 

 events to make use of tobacco, so well known are its effects upon 

 the heart. A well-known physician said to the writer just before 

 the Yale-Harvard boat-race : ' I am sure Yale will be beaten, for 

 the coach permits the men to use tobacco,' 



"The ill effects of tobacco upon the kidneys are familiar to all 

 physicians. Statistics gathered some years ago showed that 

 10 per cent, of all smokers have albumen in the urine. The 

 physician forbids the use of tobacco or very greatly restricts its 

 use in cases of Bright's disease. 



"But even on a priori grounds it may be safely said that 

 tobacco is anything but harmless. The deadly effects of 

 tobacco are well enough known. In very minute doses nicotin 

 produces deadly effects. One tenth of a grain killed a goat, and 

 a much smaller dose killed a frog. The farmer uses tobacco 

 leaves and stems to kill ticks on sheep. An eminent German 

 botanist has recently shown that tobacco, even in minute 

 quantities, produces pernicious effects on plants. 



"Numerous investigators have shown that pigeons are proof 

 against anthrax, a disease very deadly to sheep. Charrin 

 showed that after giving to a pigeon a very small dose of nicotin 

 the creature quickly dies when infected with the anthrax germ. 



