STIMULANTS AND NARCOTICS 77 



" Whatever difference of opinion there may be regarding 

 the effect of tobacco on adults — and much difference of 

 opinion exists — there is almost complete agreement among 

 those best quaUfied to know that the use of tobacco is in a 

 high degree harmful to children and youths. Physicians, 

 teachers, and others who have much to do with boys very 

 generally remark that those who begin to smoke at an early 

 age very seldom amount to much." 



Dr. Andrew D. White, for twenty years President of 

 Cornell University, out of his wide experience in education, 

 sums up the matter as follows : " I never knew a student 

 to smoke cigarettes who did not disappoint expectations, 

 or to use a vernacular expression, ' kinder peter out.' I con- 

 sider a student in college who smokes as actually handicap- 

 ping himself for his whole future career. I am not fanatical in 

 regard to smoking. It seems to me possible that men who 

 have attained their growth and are in full health and strength 

 may not be injured by moderate smoking at times. I will 

 confess to you that at one period of my life I was a smoker 

 myself, though in a very moderate degree. And should you 

 feel a strong desire to smoke, thinking it may rest you and 

 change happily at times the current of your thought, I may 

 perhaps commend to you my own example ; for I began my 

 smoking at the age of forty-five and ended it ten years 'ago 

 at the age of seventy." 



104. Tobacco and athletics. — One of the rules rigidly 

 enforced in athletic contests is that all candidates must 

 abstain from the use of tobacco while in training. The 

 reason for this insistence is the fact that tobacco seriously 

 interferes with the action of the lungs and heart ; therefore, 

 those who smoke are found to be easily "winded" in the 

 games. 



