Juvenile smoking.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Juvenile smoking. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    welfare, who eat with moderation, and do not drink to excesswho attend to ventilation and use frequent ablutions ; who make annual excursions, and have the greater medical knowledge. —we are continually breaking down under our work. Paying considerable attention to the laws of health, we seem to be weaker than our grandfathers, who in many respects defied the laws of health. And judging from the appear¬ ance and frequent ailments of the rising generation, they are likely to be even less robust than ourselves.” If this is the case with the well-to-do classes, their poor brethren are not likely to be exempt; and Dr. Rumsey has on various occasions spoken of the progressive physical degeneracy of our town populations. For that there are unhappily many causes. The shocking overcrowding, the miserable homes, drunkenness, waste, and ignorance, of some por¬ tions of the working classes, have combined to produce a result of physical and moral evil, which must sadden the heart of every thinking man who walks through the narrow alleys or dark wynds of any large town. In Dr. Morgan’s description of patients among the lower classes of Manchester, he mentions the singular want of stamina which character¬ ises them as a class. Thus :—“ Instances in which the muscular system is fully developed or well strung are remarkably rare. Few are men of that calibre from which we might expect either vigorous and healthy off¬ spring, or arduous and sustained labour. Cases of deformity, accom¬ panied by actual distortion, are not uncommon, while minor physical defects, denoting constitutional ailments, are deplorably frequent.” Their weak, excitable, irregular, and rapid circuladons, cold extremities, blanched lips, and colourless cheeks, indicated to Dr. Morgan the im¬ poverished state of their blood. Their liability to neuralgia and involuntary convulsive movements, showed an enfeebled nervous system. “ In others, again,” he observes, “ the teeth are no sooner developed than they begin to decay, enlarged glands protrude from the neck, the skin looks dry and parched, the hair scanty and withered.”* These are serious testimonies, and demand earnest attention. It would be foolish to attribute this lowering of physical stamina to the sole influence of tobacco. The causes which have produced this result are no doubt manifold and complex; but, for the reasons we shall adduce, we think it would be equally foolish to say that the Indian weed has had no share in it. The physiological action of tobacco is well-known, and Science has given her verdict against it. Its effects are easily tested, and even amongst its users there is a conviction that it is not compatible with the highest physical health and capacity for exertion. It is a well-known fact, that in training for those muscular exertions which tax the powers to their utmost, regular smokers have to abandon the use of the weed. The athlete knows that the functional disturbances to which it gives rise detract from his strength and power of endurance. * Dr. Rumsey, in ‘‘ Food Journal,” Dec. I, 1871.