94 ST NICOTINE 



Germany. Werke saturated a cigar with a liquid fully 

 impregnated with cholera bacilli and found that in twenty- 

 four hours every germ was destroyed. He next placed 

 bacilli upon dry tobacco leaves ; in this case they were 

 rendered harmless in half an hour. In other trials a 

 contact with the leaf of three hours was required for their 

 destruction. Strange to say, damp tobacco was the least 

 effective ; the germs struggled hard for existence, and held 

 out for three days before yielding up their lives to the 

 superior genius of the weed. A fifty per cent, solution of 

 tobacco over-mastered them in twenty-four hours. But it 

 is in burning tobacco, when its elements are liberated from 

 their confinement, that the battle is most decisive. Werke 

 says, that when he tested them with the smoke of tobacco 

 every germ was rendered incapable of propagating disease 

 in less than five minutes. 



Though the medical man whom duty calls to densely- 

 crowded, unwholesome districts fortifies himself against 

 attack from the invisible foe with a Manila or Cuban leaf, 

 he protests emphatically against the smoking habit which 

 has recently cropped up among boys. The boy-smoker, 

 besides being a nuisance, is rendering himself physically 

 and mentally unfit for the duties of life. 



