PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL VIEW. 95 



report to the surgeon-general contains a graphic 

 portraiture of the effects of tobacco, more espe- 

 cially on the young. Some extracts from this 

 report will make a fitting close of this chapter. 



"Unquestionably the most important matter 

 in the health history of the students at this acad- 

 emy is that relating to the use of tobacco. I have 

 urged upon the superintendent, as my last official 

 utterance, the fact, of the truth of which five years' 

 experience as health-officer of this station has sat- 

 isfied me, that, beyond all other things, the future 

 health and usefulness of the lads educated at this 

 school require the absolute interdiction of tobacco. 



"In this opinion I have been sustained, not only 

 by all my colleagues, but by all other sanitarians 

 in military and civil life whose views I have been 

 able to learn ; while I know it to be the belief of 

 the officer who is to succeed me in the charge of 

 this department, and who was one of the Board of 

 Medical Officers which, in 1875, reported that 

 * the regulations against the use of tobacco in any 

 form could not be too stringent.' Since then, 

 three successive annual Boards of Visitors have 

 indorsed the prohibition of tobacco, as a wise sani- 

 tary provision ; and the last of these Boards, on 

 being informed that the regulation against its use 

 was not then in operation (June, 1879), emphatic- 

 ally recommended that f its strict enforcement be 

 at once restored.' 



"With a sense of the serious responsibility 

 which devolves on the sanitary officer of this estab- 



