BEVERAGES, ALCOHOL, AND TOBACCO
The Popularity of Beverages. For some curious reason, the habit has
grown up of taking a large part of the six glasses of water that we
require daily in the form of mixtures known as beverages. These
beverages are always much more expensive than pure water; are often
quite troublesome to secure and prepare; have little, or no, food value;
are of doubtful value even in small amounts; and injurious in large
ones. Why they should ever have come into such universal use, in all
races and in all ages of the world, is one of the standing puzzles of
human nature. They practically _all consist of from ninety to
ninety-eight per cent_ of water, the food elements that may be added to
them being in such trifling amounts as to be practically of no value.
They serve no known useful purpose in the body, save as a means of
introducing the water which they contain; and yet mankind has used them
ever since the dawn of history.
We Have no Natural Appetite for Beverages. It is a most striking fact
that, although these beverages have been drunk by the race for
centuries, we _have never developed an instinct or natural appetite for
them_! No child ever yet was born with an appetite or natural liking for
beer or whiskey; and very few children really like the taste of tea or
coffee the first time, although they soon learn to drink them on account
of the sugar and cream in them. Thus, nature has clearly marked them off
from all the _real_ foods on our tables, showing that they are not
essential to either life or health; and that they are absolutely
unnecessary, and almost always harmful in childhood and during the
period of growth. If no child ever drank alcohol until he really craved
it, as he craves milk, sugar, and bread and butter, there would be no
drunkards in the world. Our other food-instincts have shown themselves
worthy to be trusted--why not trust this one, and let these beverages,
especially alcohol, absolutely alone?
Statistics from the alcoholic wards of our great hospitals show that of
those who become drunkards, nearly ninety per cent _begin to drink
before they are twenty years old_. Of that ninety per cent, over
two-thirds took their first drink, not because they felt any craving for
it, or even thought it would taste good, but because they saw others
doing it; or thought it would be a "manly" thing to do; or were afraid
that they would be laughed at if they didn't! Whatever vices and bad
habits our natural appetites, and so-called "animal instincts," may lead
us into, drunkenness is not one of them.
This striking hint on the part of nature, that alcoholic beverages are
unnecessary, is fully confirmed by the overwhelming majority of hundreds
of tests which have been made in the laboratory, showing clearly that,
while these beverages may give off trifling amounts of energy in the
body, their real effects and the sole reason for their use are their
stimulating, or their discomfort-deadening (_narcotic_) effect. And the
more carefully we study them, the heavier we find the price that has to
be paid for any temporary relief or enjoyment which they may seem to
give.
Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa. The "weakest" and most commonly used of these
beverages or amusement foods, are tea, coffee, and cocoa. These have an
agreeable taste, mildly stimulate the nervous system, and, when used in
moderation by adults, seldom do much harm. To a small percentage of
individuals, who are specially sensitive to their effects, they seem to
act as mild poison-foods, much in the same way as strawberries, cheese,
or lobsters do to others.
Tea is made from the green leaves of a shrub growing in hilly districts
in China, Japan, and Southern India. The finer and more delicately
flavored brands are from the young leaves, shoots, and flowers of the
plant; while the coarser and cheaper are from the old leaves, stalks,
and even twigs--the latter containing the most _tannin_, which, as we
shall see, is the most injurious element in tea.
Coffee is made from the seeds of a cherry-like berry growing upon a
shrub, or low tree, on tropical hillsides. The bulk of our supply comes
from South America, and is known as "Rio" coffee, from Rio Janeiro, the
port in Brazil from which most of it is shipped. That from the East
Indies is known as Java, and that from Arabia as Mocha; though these
last two are now but little more than trade-names for certain finer
varieties of coffee, no matter where grown.
Cocoa and chocolate are made from the bean-like seeds of a small tree
growing in the tropics and, in cake, or solid, form, contain
considerable amounts of fat, and usually sugar and vanilla, which have
been added to them to improve their flavor. As, however, only a
teaspoonful or so of the powdered cocoa, or chocolate, goes to make a
cupful, the actual food value of cocoa or chocolate, unless made with
milk, is not much greater than that of tea or coffee with cream and
sugar. They contain less _caffein_ than either tea or coffee, but are
liable to clog rather than to increase the appetite for other foods.
Effects of Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa. Though the flavors of tea, coffee,
and cocoa are so different, they all depend for their effect upon a
spicy-tasting substance, called caffein from its having been first
separated out of coffee. The caffein of tea is sometimes called _thein_,
and that of cocoa _theobromin_; but they are all practically the same
substance. Part of the taste of these beverages is due to the caffein,
but the special flavor of each is given by spicy oils and other
substances which it contains. Caffein acts as a mild stimulant both to
the nervous system and brain, and to the heart; as is shown by the way
in which tea or coffee will wake us up or refresh us when tired, or, if
drunk too late at night, keep us from going to sleep. If used in large
amounts, especially if taken as a substitute for food, tea and coffee
upset the nervous system and disturb the heart, and produce an
unwholesome craving for more.
[Illustration: A MILK STATION IN A CITY PARK
Many cities have established such stations, where people can buy, for a
cent or two, a drink that is far better than soda water or any other
beverage.]
Their chief value lies in the hot water they contain, which has been
sterilized by boiling, while its heat assists the process of digestion;
and in the fact that their agreeable taste sometimes gives us an
appetite and enables us to eat more of less highly flavored foods, like
bread, crackers, potatoes, or rice, than we would without them. They
are, also, usually taken with cream, or milk, or sugar, which are real
foods and bring their fuel value up to about half that of skimmed milk.
So far as they stimulate the appetite and increase the amount of food
eaten, they are beneficial; but when taken as a substitute for real
food, they are most injurious. A cup of coffee, for instance, makes a
very poor breakfast to start the day on; for although it gives you a
comforting sense of having eaten something warm and satisfying, it
contains very little real food, and soon leaves you feeling empty and
tired; just as an engine would give out if you put a handful of shavings
into its fire-box, and expected it to do four hours' work on them.
The most disturbing effects of tea and coffee upon the digestion are due
to the tannin which they contain if boiled too long, especially in the
case of tea. This tannin, fortunately, will not dissolve in water except
by prolonged boiling or steeping; so that if tea is made by pouring
boiling water over the tea leaves and pouring it off again as soon as it
has reached the desired strength and flavor, and coffee by being just
brought to a boil and then not allowed to stand more than ten or fifteen
minutes before use, no injurious amounts of tannin will be found in
them. Tea, made by prolonged stewing on the back of the stove, owes its
bitter, puckery taste to tannin, and is better suited for tanning
leather than for putting into the human stomach.
Boys and girls up to fifteen or sixteen years of age are much better off
without tea, coffee, or cocoa; for they need no artificial stimulants to
their appetites, while at the same time their nervous systems are more
liable to injury from the harmful effects of over-stimulation. If the
beverages are taken at all, they should be taken very weak, and with
plenty of milk and cream as well as sugar.
ALCOHOL
How Alcohol is Made. The most dangerous addition that man has ever
made to the water which he drinks is alcohol. It is made by the action
of the yeast plant on wet sugar or starch--a process called
_fermentation_. Usually the sugar or starch is in the form of the juice
of fruits; or is a pulp, or mash, made from crushed grains like barley,
corn, or rye. As the spores of this yeast plant are floating about
almost everywhere in the air, all that is usually necessary is to let
some fruit juice or grain pulp stand at moderate warmth, exposed to the
air, when it will begin to "sour," or ferment.
Wine. When the yeast plant is set to work in a tub or vat of grape
juice, it attacks the fruit sugar contained in the juice, and splits it
up into alcohol and carbon dioxid, so that the juice becomes bubbly and
frothy from the gas. When from seven to fifteen per cent of alcohol has
been produced, the liquid is called wine. It contains, besides alcohol,
some unchanged fruit sugar, fruit acids, and some other products of
fermentation (known as _ethers_ and _aldehydes_), which give each kind
of wine its special flavor.
Beer, Ale, and Cider. If the yeast germ be set to work in a pulp or
mash of crushed barley or wheat, the starch of which has been partly
turned into sugar by malting, it breaks up the sugar into alcohol and
carbon dioxid. When it has brewed enough of the starch to produce
somewhere from four to eight per cent of alcohol, then the liquid, which
still contains about three or four per cent of a starch-sugar called
_maltose_, is called beer, or ale. It is usually flavored with hops to
give it a bitter taste and make it keep better. If the same process be
carried out in apple juice, we get the well known hard cider with its
biting taste.
Whiskey, Brandy, and Rum. When left to itself, the process of
fermentation in most of these sugary or starchy liquids will come to a
standstill after a while, because the alcohol, when it reaches a certain
strength in the liquid, is, like all other toxins, or poisons produced
by germs, a poison also to the germ that produces it. The yeast-bacteria
probably produce alcohol as a poison to kill off other germs which
compete with them for their share of the sugar or starch. So even the
origin of this curious drug-food shows its harmful character. We should
hardly pick out the poison produced by one germ to kill another germ as
likely to make a useful and wholesome food.
[Illustration: PROPORTION OF ALCOHOL
IN LIGHT WINE IN BEER IN WHISKEY
The liquid shows what part of a tumblerful of each is alcohol.]
If man had been content to leave this fermentation process to nature, it
is probable that many of the worst effects of alcohol would never have
been heard of. But these lighter forms of alcoholic drinks did not
satisfy the unnatural cravings which they had themselves created. Some
people never can leave even bad-enough alone. So man, with an ingenuity
which might have been much better used, sought a way of getting a liquor
which would contain more alcohol than nature, unaided, could be made to
brew in it. A little experimenting showed that the alcohol in fermenting
juices was lighter than water; so that by gently heating the fermenting
mass, the alcohol would evaporate and pass off as vapor, with a little
of the steam from the water. Then, by catching this vapor in a closed
vessel and pouring cold water over the outside of the vessel, it could
be condensed again in the form of a clear, brownish fluid of burning
taste, containing nearly fifty per cent of alcohol, instead of the
original five or six.
This evaporated or distilled mixture of alcohol and water, if made from
a mash of corn, wheat, rye, or potatoes, is called whiskey; if from
fruit-juice, brandy. A similar liquor, made out of fermented rice, is
known as _arrack_ in India, or _saké_ in Japan; and the liquor made from
fermented molasses is called rum.
Alcohol not a True Food, but a Drug. The much disputed question as to
whether alcohol is a food or not, is really of little or no practical
importance. It is quite true, as might be expected, from its close
relation to sugar and the readiness, for instance, with which it will
burn in an alcohol lamp or stove, that alcohol, in small amounts, is
capable of being burned in the body, thus giving it energy. This may
give it a certain limited value in some forms of sickness, as, for
instance, in certain fevers and infections, when the stomach does not
seem to be able to digest food. But here it acts as a medicine rather
than as a true food and, like all other medicines, should be used only
under skilled medical advice and control. For practical purposes, any
trifling food value it may have is more than offset by its later
poisonous and disturbing effects and, secondly, by its enormous
expensiveness.
The greatest amount of alcohol that could be consumed in the body at all
safely would barely supply one-tenth of the total fuel value needed; and
if any one were to attempt to supply the body with energy by the use of
alcohol, he would be blind drunk before he had taken one-third of the
amount required. From the point of view of expense alone, to take
alcohol for food is like killing buffalos for their tongues and letting
the rest of the carcass go to waste, as the Indians and pioneer hunters
of the plains used to do. It never has more than a fraction of the food
value of the grain or fruit out of which it was made; and the amount of
nutriment that it contains costs ten times as much as it would in any of
the staple foods.
Moreover, when it is taken with an ordinary supply of food, it is found
that, for every ounce of alcohol burned in the body, a similar amount of
the other food is prevented from being consumed, and probably goes to
waste, owing to the harmful effects of alcohol upon digestion.
Therefore, to talk of alcohol as a food is really absurd.
The Effect of Alcohol on Digestion. It has been urged by some that
alcohol increases the appetite, and enables one to digest larger amounts
of food. The early experiments seemed to support this claim by showing
that alcohol, well diluted, and in moderate amounts, increased appetite
and the flow of the gastric juice. When the experiments were carried a
little further, however, it was clearly shown that its presence in the
stomach and intestines, in such amounts as would result from a glass of
beer, or one or two glasses of claret-wine with a meal, interfered with
the later stages of digestion, so that the later harmful effects
overbalanced any earlier good effects.
Its Effect on the Temperature of the Body. Another claim urged in its
favor was that it warmed the body and protected it against cold. It
ought to have been easy for any one with a sense of humor to judge the
value of this claim by the fact that it was equally highly commended by
its users as a means of keeping them cool in hot weather. Its supposed
effects in the case of both heat and cold were due to the same fact: it
deadened the nerves for a time to whatever sense of discomfort one might
then be suffering from, but made no change whatever in the condition of
the body that caused the discomfort. Any drug which has this deadening
effect on the nerves is called a narcotic; and it is in this class that
alcohol belongs, together with the stronger narcotics, _opium_,
_chloroform_, _ether_, and _chloral_.
In fact, it was quickly found in the bitter school of experience that
alcohol, though producing an apparent glow of warmth for the time,
instead of increasing our power to resist cold, rapidly and markedly
lessens it; so that those who drink heavily are much more likely to die
from cold and exposure than those who let alcohol alone. Nowadays,
Arctic explorers, explorers in the tropics, officers of armies upon
forced marches, and those who have to train themselves for the most
severe strains on their powers of endurance, all bear testimony to the
fact that the use of alcohol is harmful instead of helpful under these
conditions, and that it is not for a moment to be compared to real
foods, like meat, sugar, or fat.
Its Effects on Working Power. Then it was claimed that alcohol
increased the working power of the body; that more work and better work
would be done by men at hard labor, if a little beer, or wine, was taken
with their meals. Indeed, most of those who take alcohol believe that
they work faster and better, and with less effort with it than without
it. But the moment that this _feeling_ of increased power and strength
was submitted to careful tests in the laboratory and in the workshop, it
was found that instead of _more_ being accomplished when alcohol was
taken, even in very moderate amounts, _less_ was accomplished by from
six to twelve per cent. The false sense of increased vigor and power was
due to the narcotic power of alcohol to deaden the sensations of fatigue
and discomfort.
It was discovered long ago, almost as soon as men began to put
themselves into training for athletic feats or contests, that alcohol
was not only useless, but very injurious. Any champion who, on the eve
of a contest, "breaks training" by "taking a drink," knows that he is
endangering his record and giving his competitors an advantage over him.
Its Deadening Effect. In short, we must conclude that the so-called
stimulating effects of alcohol are really due to its power of deadening
us to sensations of discomfort or fatigue. Its boasted power of making
men more "sociable" by loosening their tongues is due to precisely the
same effect: it takes off the balance-wheels of custom, reserve, and
propriety--too often of decency, as well. This is where the greatest
and most serious danger of alcohol comes in, that even in the smallest
doses, it begins to deaden us both mentally and morally, and thus
lessens our power of control. This loss of control steadily increases
with each successive drink until finally the man, completely under the
influence of liquor, reaches a stage when he can neither think
rationally nor speak intelligently, nor even walk straight or stand
upright--making the most humiliating and disgusting spectacle which
humanity can present.
Harmful Effects on the Body. All doctors and scientists and thoughtful
men are now practically agreed: First, that alcohol in excess is
exceedingly dangerous and injurious, and one of the most serious enemies
that modern civilization has to face.
Second, that even in the smallest doses, as a deadener of the sense of
discomfort, it blinds the man who takes it to the harm it is doing and,
as soon as its temporary comforting effects begin to pass off, naturally
leads its victim to resort to it again in increasing doses. In fact,
unlike a true food which quickly satisfies, the use of alcohol too often
creates an appetite that grows by what it feeds on, and is never
satisfied. For every natural appetite or instinct, nature provides a
check; but she provides none for tastes that must be acquired. The last
man to find out that he is taking too much is the drinker himself. Taken
first to relieve discomfort, its own poisonous after-effects create a
new and permanent demand for it.
The third point on which agreement is almost unanimous among scientists
and physicians is that, as will be seen in later chapters, there are a
considerable number of diseases of the liver, of the heart and blood
vessels, of the kidneys, and of the nervous system, which are produced
by, or almost always associated with, alcohol. There are, for instance,
three different kinds of alcoholic insanity. It is true that these
disease-changes most commonly occur in the tissues of those who use
alcohol to excess; and it is also probably true that what the alcoholic
poison is doing in these cases, is picking out the weak spots in the
body and the weaker individuals in the community. Even the strongest and
best of us have our little weaknesses of digestion, of nerves, and of
disposition that we know of, as well as others that we are not
acquainted with. And what is the use of running the risk of having these
picked out and made worse in this dangerous and unpleasant manner, just
for the sake of a little temporary indulgence?
Moreover, while it is admitted that most of these harmful effects of
alcohol are produced by its use in excess, it is daily becoming a more
and more difficult matter to decide just how much is "excess." It
certainly differs widely in different individuals, and in different
organs and parts in the same body. An amount of alcohol which one man
might possibly take without harm may greatly injure another; and its
frequent use, though it does not produce the slightest sign of
intoxication, or even of discomfort, or headache, may be slowly and
fatally damaging the cells of the liver or kidney. In fact, the
conviction is growing among scientists that alcohol does the greatest
harm in this slow, insidious way without its user's realizing it in any
way until too late to break the fearful habit.
It may even be perfectly true that alcohol seriously injures not more
than ten or fifteen per cent of those who take it in small quantities;
but how can you tell whether you, or your liver, or kidney, or nerve
cells, belong in the ten per cent or the ninety per cent class? On
general principles, it would hardly seem worth while making the test
simply for the sake of finding out. You never can _quite_ tell what
alcohol has done to you, until the _post mortem_ (after death)
examination--and then the question will not interest you very much.
Its Effect upon Character. Just as alcohol deadens the body and the
senses, especially the higher ones--so it has a terrible effect upon the
mental and moral sides of our natures. The results of the use of alcohol
are so well known that it is unnecessary here to either describe or
picture them. All that is needed is to keep our eyes open upon the
street, and read the police reports. What good effects upon man's better
nature has alcohol to show as an offset for this dreadful tendency to
bring out the worst and lowest in man?
Increasing Knowledge of the Bad Effects of Alcohol is Decreasing its
Use. It is most impressive that almost everything we have found out
about alcohol in the short time that we have been studying it carefully
has been to its discredit. Fifty years ago beer and wine, all over the
civilized world, were commonly regarded as foods. Now they are not
considered true foods, but harmful beverages. Fifty years ago alcohol
was believed to improve the digestion and increase the appetite. Now we
know that it does neither. It was believed to increase working power,
and has now been clearly shown to diminish it. It was supposed to
increase the thinking power and stimulate the imagination, and now we
know that it dulls and muddles both.
Fifty years ago it was freely used as medicine for all sorts of
illnesses, both by doctor and patient; it was supposed to stimulate the
heart, to sustain the strength, to increase the power of the body to
resist disease, and to sustain and support life in emergencies. Now we
know that practically all these claims are unfounded, and that such
value as it has in medicine is chiefly as a narcotic, as a deadener of
the sense of discomfort. As a result, it is already used in medicine
only about one-fourth as much as it was fifty years ago, and its use is
still steadily decreasing.
Fifty years ago, in this country, in England, and on the continent of
Europe, farm laborers and servants living in the house, expected so many
pints or quarts of ale or beer a day, as part of their regular food
rations, just as they now would expect milk or tea or coffee. It was
only a few years ago that the great steamship companies stopped issuing
_grog_, or raw spirits, to the sailors in their employ, as part of their
daily ration, because they at last came to realize how harmful were its
effects. And a score of similar instances could be mentioned, showing
that the unthinking and general use of alcohol as a beverage at our
tables is steadily and constantly diminishing. Great temperance
societies are springing up in this and other civilized countries and are
having a powerful influence in showing the harm of the use of alcohol
and in inducing people to abstain from using it.
This movement is only fairly started, but is being hastened by such
practical and important influences as the experience of many of the
great business corporations, such as railroads, steamship companies,
insurance companies, banks, and trust companies, which support the
findings of science against alcohol in almost every respect. On account
of the manner in which alcohol unconsciously dulls the senses and blurs
the judgment, these companies began long ago weeding out from their
employ all men who were known to drink to excess; then they began to
reject those who were likely to occasionally over-indulge, or take it
too freely; and now, finally, many of them, particularly the railway and
steamship companies, will not employ--except in the lowest and poorest
paid classes of their service--and will not promote to any position
which puts men in charge of human life and limb, those who use alcohol
in any form or amount.
Nearly all the captains, for instance, of our great trans-atlantic
liners, whose duties in storm or fog keep them on the bridge on
continuous duty for forty-eight, sixty, and even seventy-two hours at a
stretch, with thousands of lives depending upon their courage and their
judgment, are total abstainers. And while twenty-five years ago they
used to think that they could not go through these long sieges of storm
duty without plenty of wine or whiskey, they now find that they are far
better off without any alcoholic drink.
Another powerful force in the same direction is our insurance companies,
practically all of whom now will refuse to insure any man known
habitually to use alcohol to excess, because where lists have been kept
of their policy-holders showing which were users of alcohol and which
total abstainers, their records show that the death rate among the users
of alcohol is some twenty per cent greater than among the total
abstainers. A similar result has also been reached in the companies that
insure against sickness, whose drinking members average nearly twice as
many weeks of sickness during the year as the abstaining ones. So both
of these two great groups of business corporations are becoming powerful
agencies for the promotion of temperance.
Within fifty years from now the habitual use of alcohol will probably
have become quite rare. It is already becoming "good form" among the
best people not to drink; and the fashion will spread, as the bad
effects of alcohol become more generally understood.
TOBACCO
Smoking, a Senseless Habit. Smoking is the curious act of drawing
smoke into the mouth and puffing it out again. Why this custom should
have become so widespread is even a greater puzzle than is the drinking
of alcohol. In civilized countries at least, it is a custom of much more
recent growth than "drinking," as it was introduced into Europe from
America by the early explorers, notably those sent out by Sir Walter
Raleigh. As tobacco-smoke is neither a solid nor a liquid, but only a
gas, no one could even pretend that it is of any value, either as food
or drink. All that can be said of smoking, even by the most inveterate
smoker, is that it is a habit, of no possible use or value to body or
mind, and of great possibilities of harm.
Another singular thing about smoking is that its effects vary so greatly
according to the individual who practices it, that scarcely any two
smokers can agree as to the exact reason why they smoke, except that in
some vague way smoking gives them pleasure. The only thing that they do
agree upon is that they miss it greatly, and crave it keenly whenever
they stop it. The only thing that stands out clearly about smoking is
that while it does no good, and does not even give one definite and
uniform kind of pleasure, it does form a powerful and over-mastering
habit, which is exceedingly difficult to break, and develops a craving
which can be satisfied only by continuing, or returning, to it.
It is Very Difficult to Break the Habit of Smoking. As a matter of
practical experience, not one smoker in fifty who tries to swear off
ever succeeds in doing so permanently. Why then should any one form a
habit, which is of no benefit whatever, which is expensive, unpleasant
to others, and which may become exceedingly injurious, simply for the
sake of saddling one's self with a craving which will probably never be
got rid of all the rest of one's life? The strongest and most positive
thing that a smoker can say about his pipe, or cigar, or cigarette, is
that he could not get along without it; and he will usually add that he
wishes he had never begun to use it. You are better off in every way by
letting tobacco strictly alone, and never teaching yourself to like it.
Tobacco is Not a Natural Taste. As might be expected, in the case of
such an utterly useless drug, we have no natural liking or instinct for
it; and the taste for it has to be acquired just as in the case of
alcohol, only as a rule with greater difficulty and with more painful
experiences of headache, nausea, and other discomforts.
[Illustration: A BOARD OF HEALTH EXAMINATION FOR WORKING PAPERS
The Board of Health of the City of New York requires that all children
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen shall have certificates of good
health before they can be employed in business. Any employer who hires a
child without such a certificate is liable to a heavy fine. This law is
to protect the health of both the worker and the public.]
Nicotine, a Powerful Poison. Tobacco contains and depends largely for
its effects upon considerable amounts of a substance called _nicotine_.
This is a powerful poison, even in very small doses, with only feeble
narcotic, or pain-deadening, powers; but fortunately, the larger part of
it is destroyed in the process of burning. Enough, however, is carried
over in the smoke, or absorbed through the butt of the cigar or
cigarette, or the mouth-piece of the pipe, to injure the nervous system,
especially in youth. As will be seen in the chapter upon the "Care of
the Heart," it especially attacks the nerves supplying the heart, and is
thus most harmful to growing boys.
On account of its injurious effects upon the nerves of the heart,
smoking has long been forbidden by trainers and coachers to all athletes
who are training for a contest or race. In addition to its poisonous
effects upon the nervous system, tobacco also does great harm to boys
and young men by providing them with an attractive means of filling up
their time and keeping themselves amused without either bodily or mental
effort. The boy who smokes habitually will find it much easier to waste
his time in day-dreams and gossip, and tends to become a loafer and an
idler.
The Advantage that Non-Smokers have over Smokers. When both of these
influences are taken together, it is little wonder that the
investigations of Dr. Seaver, the medical director of Yale, showed that
out of the 187 men in the class of 1881, those not using tobacco during
their college course had gained, over the users of tobacco, twenty-two
per cent in weight, twenty-nine per cent in height, nineteen per cent in
growth of chest, and sixty-six per cent in increase of lung capacity.
[Illustration: A TEST OF CLEAR HEAD AND STEADY NERVES
The boy who smokes cigarettes finds it increasingly difficult to obtain
a position in a bank or other large commercial house.]
In the Amherst graduating class for the same year, the non-users of
tobacco had gained twenty-four per cent more in weight, thirty-seven per
cent more in height, and forty-two per cent more in growth of chest than
had the smokers. In lung capacity, the tobacco users had lost two cubic
inches, while the abstainers had gained six cubic inches.
As a wet-blanket upon ambition, a drag upon development, and a handicap
upon success in life, the cigarette has few equals and no superiors. The
stained fingers and sallow complexion of the youthful cigarette smoker
will generally result in his being rejected when applying for a
position. The employer knows that the non-smoking boy is much more
likely to succeed in his work and win his way to a position of trust and
influence than is the "cigarette fiend." Especially in these days of
sharp competition, no boy can afford to contract a habit which will so
handicap him in making his way as will the cigarette habit.