96 TOBACCO. 



lishment, conscious that the bodily welfare and 

 happiness of these young men and of their future 

 offspring may be permanently influenced by this 

 vicious indulgence, I have most earnestly ad- 

 vised that the strongest efforts of the authorities 

 of the academy shall be directed towards the pre- 

 vention of this pernicious, indefensible, and wholly 

 unnecessary habit. 



" By the continued excitation of the optic nerve, 

 tobacco produces amaurosis, — a fact demonstrated 

 by Wordsworth, Mackenzie, Hutchinson, Sichel, 

 and Chisholm. 



"I have myself several times rejected candidates 

 for admission into the academy on account of defec- 

 tive vision, who confessed to the premature use of 

 tobacco, one of them from the age of seven. 



"The irregularity in the heart's action, which 

 tobacco causes, is one of its most conspicuous 

 effects. Candidates are annually rejected for car- 

 diac disturbances, who have subsequently admitted 

 the use of tobacco : and the annual physical exam- 

 inations of cadets reveal a large number of irrita- 

 ble hearts ('tobacco hearts') among boys, who 

 had no such trouble when they entered the school. 

 Among the applicants for enlistment as appren- 

 tices in the navy during the year 1879, ten in a 

 thousand were rejected for functional lesions of the 

 heart, indicating tobacco-poisoning. 



" Finally, the antidotal effect of tobacco makes 

 drinking of stimulating liquors the natural conse^ 

 quence of smoking." 



