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up smoking and enjoyed a roomful of tobacco smoke. He did not know 

 until I examined that he had developed a high blood pressure. When I tell 

 you that my own pressure under good air conditions runs from 100 to 110 

 m. m. while his under bad air runs about 200, you will realize that the life 

 of such a man hangs on a mere thread and that at any time he may break 

 a blood vessel, resulting in an apoplexy, or, if that does not occur, the kidneys 

 will give out. Such men die suddenly as a rule and prematurely. 



But the most interesting phase of the subject is the mental reactions, 

 especially such as go under the terms irritability, nervousness and overwork. 

 The efforts some men make to feel better are pathetic. For instance, I have 

 in mind a captain of industry who did his planning in the early morning 

 hours, usually from four to five, in bed. He saw things very clearly at that 

 time. Then he would go down town and soon begin to feel dull and irritable, 

 but would feel better by smoking, and he smoked one cigar after another. 

 The single evening cigar and the postprandial cigar in time increased in 

 number (as the blood pressure went up) until he wanted to smoke all the 

 time. If alcohol were not taboo he would of course use that. When I 

 examined I found he had a blood pressure of nearly 200 m. m. I pointed 

 out that his pressure was due to the life down town, and that if he would 

 reduce that to a minimum, and offset bad air by good air, likely he would 

 have twenty-four hours a day for mental work, so to speak, rather than only 

 one or two hours in the early morning, and that instead of tobacco being a 

 stimulant to him during the day, which enab'ed him to think, it really did 

 nothing of the sort; what it did was to lower the tension and the mind no 

 longer ran riot. It enables him to pick out thoughts and ideas that he had 

 seen very clearly in the early morning, after he had had no tobacco at all 

 for a number cf hours. 



The newspaper cartoons, &u:;h as of "Abe Martin" and "Roger Bean," 

 are interesting. The one might represent the low pressure type in the 

 country with a family of children; he is seen only occasionally with a cigar. 

 The other, Roger Bean, might represent the high pressure city man, with a 

 cigar in his mouth almost constantly and usually childless. Race suicide 

 and the use of tobacco under crowded conditions go hand in hand. 



In early days Uncle Sam was represented as a lean, lank country man. 

 The cartoonists nowadays are filling him out, in other words, making a hearty, 

 robust Uncle, one is almost inclined to say grandfather. To the initiated he 

 is a "high blood pressure case," with attendant ills, including race suicide. 



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