94 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



except it may be in youth." And this is the most favor- 

 able utterance we have found; for even in the periodical 

 from which we take the above extract, we find, in close 

 connection with Dr. Parke's utterance, the following : " If 

 we are willing to accept the opinions which sanitarians in 

 other nations have formed, we have a very decided one 

 ready to our hand in Switzerland. That intelligent repub- 

 lic enacted a law last year (1880) prohibiting the sale of 

 tobacco to minors under fifteen years of age, and making 

 it an offence against the law for such to smoke. Hence a 

 boy of twelve or fourteen, who parades the streets of 

 Geneva or Berne with a cigar in his mouth, is liable to be 

 arrested and committed to the police-station ; and, as they 

 have a disagreeable habit in that republic of enforcing the 

 laws they enact, such would pretty certainly be the juve- 

 nile smoker's fate. We recommend to our fellow-country- 

 men their manner of dealing with the habit, which, 

 whether harmless or not to most adults, is unquestionably 

 of great injury to young boysJ" And another periodical, 

 of equal prominence in medical science, says : "" It is the 

 duty of our public-school instructors to make the facts in 

 regard to tobacco known and impressively felt by their 

 scholars, and we hope that this field of sanitary mission- 

 work will be actively occupied. Sewer-gas is bad enough, 

 but a boy had better learn his Latin over a trap than get 

 the habit of smoking cigarettes ; for we may lay it down 

 as certain that tobacco is a bane to youth, though it may 

 be the proper indulgence of manhood and a solace to old 

 age." To both of which we think it may be added, that 

 if the habit be not acquired in youth, there is no very 

 great probability that it will be taken up by many in later 

 life. If no tobacco is used except such as may prove " a 



