Tobacco and the diseases it produces / by Charles R. Drysdale ; being the substance of an address delivered at Exeter Hall, London, May, 1873, at Manchester Free Trade Hall, March 27, 1873, and at Guildford, on March 6, 1875.

  • Drysdale, Charles R. (Charles Robert), 1829-1907.
Date:
[1875?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tobacco and the diseases it produces / by Charles R. Drysdale ; being the substance of an address delivered at Exeter Hall, London, May, 1873, at Manchester Free Trade Hall, March 27, 1873, and at Guildford, on March 6, 1875. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/18
    THE DISEASES PRODUCED BY TOBACCO. What is called the Science of Hygiene is divided by authors into two sections. In the one are considered all those points, where collective or governmental interference can effect something towards improving the health of the masses. Much has of late been said upon this subject, under the name of Public Health, and most praiseworthy laws have recently been passed, for improving the water- supply and the dwellings of citizens in towns, as well as in protecting them from the dangerous adulterations of the necessaries of life, such as milk, bread, &c. My task this evening is to refer to a topic of that section of Hygiene which relates to the habits of private individuals; this section has been called private Hygiene, a far more ex¬ tensive subject, of course, than that of Public Health. Governments, alas ! can do but little to improve the daily habits of the people. It remains for scientific observers and moralists to enlighten their fellow-countrymen and women on subjects so momentous to their health, as are many of those contained in the section of private Hygiene. My desire this evening is to examine, whether the use of tobacco, in any shape, is, or is not, injurious or bene¬ ficial to the human race. It appears that in the United Kingdom at this present time, we are supposed to pay an¬ nually somewhere about fourteen millions sterling for cigars, pipes, and tobacco. Thus, in the year 1841, (Pall Mall Gazette, June 16, 1871,) we consumed about twenty-three millions of pounds of tobacco, or 11b. 3f ounces a head of the population; and, in 1869, we consumed about forty-two millions of pounds, or 11b. of ounces per head. Hr. Smiles, in his “ Companion to the Almanack,” 1870, thinks that we spent some eleven and a-half millions on tobacco alone; and, what with