38 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



ANTISEPTIC QUALITIES OF TOBACCO 



Recent investigations showing tobacco's 

 higli value as an antiseptic agent are sum- 

 marized in Le Correspondant of Paris, from 

 which we quote: 



The researches of Tassinari and ]Molisch 

 have now demonstrated the actual antiseptic 

 value of tobacco with regard both to verte 

 brates and to inferior creatures. 



Tobacco smoke serves to retard or arrest 

 the development of certain bacteria which 

 soon die if a single puff of tobacco smoke is 

 injected upon them. It seems to act upon 

 them as an anesthetic, exactly as do the 

 vapors of ether and chloroform. 



This bacterecidal and antiseptic action 

 has not yet been fully eludicated, but the 

 Italian physiologist Cavarallo has proved 

 that smoking not only increases the flow of 

 shva, which probably explains the uneasiness 

 of smokers after eating until they are able 

 to indulge in pipe or cigar, but also sterihzes 

 it. He also declares that tobacco is never 

 the cause of mouth inflammation and the 

 tumors of mouth and tongue, though it may 

 be the determining agent wliich makes such 

 causes, which are manj' and complex in 

 character, active. 



When these statements of Cavarallo were 

 published they roused much controversy, 

 being bitterly attcked by the enemies of 



tobacco, though they were supported by a 

 series of clinical experiments. His conclu- 

 sions, however, have been brilliantly con- 

 firmed by the work of Professor Wencke, of 

 the Imperial Institute, of Berlin, who made 

 many experiments during the recent cholera 

 epidemic at Hanibm-g. 



Professor Wencke was struck by the fact 

 that the workers in the cigar factories of 

 that city were not attacked by the scourge, 

 even when living in surroundings similar 

 or identical with those of its victims. 



On making investigation he found that the 

 water employed in one of these factories 

 contained considerable numbers of germs, 

 yet none of these was found alive on the 

 finished cigars,. This led him to definite 

 experiments. Some of the tobacco leaves 

 were moistened with water containing the 

 bacilli of cholera in the number of 1,500,- 

 000,000 to the cubic centimeter. At the 

 end of twenty-four hours these were all found 

 to be dead. 



A second experiment was made with saliva 

 containing cholera germs, placed on a glass 

 plate and exposed for five minutes to tobacco 

 smoke, which completely sterilized it. 



It is believed that other harmful microbes 

 will be shown by future experiments to be 

 similarly destroyed. 



The garden of San Carlos' Church in Matanzas. 



