To Smoke or Not to Smoke? 313 



mind and body. It is innocuous as compared witii 

 alcohol, it does infinitely less harm than opium, it 

 is in no sense worse than tea, and by the side of 

 high living altogether it contrasts most favourably.' 



Dr. Lankester has said : ' If you will not give up 

 this habit of smoking from motives of economy, 

 from a sense of its uncleanliness, from its making 

 the breath smell bad and your clothes filthy, from its 

 polluting your hands and your house and driving 

 women from you who do not smoke, I dare not, as a 

 physiologist or a statist, tell you that there exists any 

 proof of its injurious influence when used in modera- 

 tion, I know how difficult it is to define moderation, 

 and yet in my heart I believe that every one of 

 you has an internal monitor that will guide you to 

 the true explanation of it in your case. The first 

 symptoms of giddiness, of sickness, of palpitation, of 

 weakness, of indolence, of uneasiness, whilst smoking 

 should induce you to lay it aside. These are the 

 physiological indications of its disagreement, which 

 if you neglect you may find increase upon you and 

 seriously embarrass your health.' 



In answer to the question, ' Is tobacco-smoking 

 injurious ?' Dr. Andrew Wilson has written : 



' I should say that to certain persons tobacco acts 

 as a subtle poison, but these are exceptional cases ; 

 they rank with cases in which mutton or salmon, 

 otherwise healthy foods, make certain people very ill 

 indeed. The vast majority of smokers who smoke 

 in moderation do not, I believe, derive any ill-effects 

 from their enjoyment of the weed. If tobacco be 

 smoked to excess it will produce tobacco blindness. 



