Cigaret smoking is the most dangerous form in which tobacco can
be used, because combustion goes on so near the mouth that all
the products of burning are drawn into the mouth without change
and are absorbed by the blood-vessels and carried to the brain.
In the pipe and cigar many of the products from burning are
condensed in the stem of the pipe and body of the cigar, and
never reach the mouth. In the cigaret these poison products,
small in amount, are constantly taken by the blood-vessels of
the mouth and affect the senses. The sight, the smell and the
hearing are all diminished and enfeebled, later the power of
reason and muscular control. No form of tobacco is so cumulative
in its action as the products from cigaret smoking; the quantity
is small, the absorption is more rapid, and the resistance
by nature is less active. The cigaret-smoker is slowly and
surely poisoning himself, and is largely unconscious of it. In
the young the poisoning is very acute and active; in elderly
persons it is less prominent, but that it is equally dangerous,
in the effects on the nerves, on the brain and on the senses,
enfeebling them and destroying their activity, is beyond all
question. The pipe- or cigar-smoker may not seem much worse for
his addiction, but the cigaret-smoker is always markedly damaged
by it.--T. D. CROTHERS.
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