--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Peterson, Elmer G. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 10 published: 1912-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Elmer G. Peterson, "The Use of Nicotine," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 10 (August 1912): 901–905.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15010unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera15010unse start_page: 901 end_page: 905 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15010unse publication_year: 1912 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Use of Nicotine The Use of Nicotine BY ELMER G. PETERSON, A. M., PH. D., DEPARTMENT OF BACTERIOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY, ('TALI AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE Smoking is objected to for social, religious and physiological reasons. There is room for difference of opinion in regard to the social evil of smoking. I recall in this connection an incident which impresses me with this fact. I had just heard the statement of President Jacob Gould Schurman, of Cornell, to two thousand undergraduates, that he hoped the day would come in Cornell University when the cigarette smoker would be an object of as much curiosity and questioning as the person who does not smoke is today. President Schurman was passing his opinion, probably on the prevalence of the habit, on the statement alleged to have been recently made that every undergraduate in a certain eastern university smoked cigarettes. A person who heard this statement doubted it, and is alleged to have conducted an investigation. He stood on the steps of the main building and watched the students as they came out. He announced a little later that as a result of a rather extended survey of the Situation extended over a period of days, he was prepared to refute the accusation against the university— he had noticed two men who did not smoke ! I had also read the statement of Andrew D. White, and had seen many times the aged gentleman, well beyond his allotted three score and ten years but still virile and dominated by an inflexible will, a will which has made its impression in a quiet unobtrusive way upon a nation. I had read his statement that he had never known a student who smoked cigarettes who did not disappoint expectations. He states : I have watched this class of men for thirty years, and cannot recall an exception to this rule. Cigarette smoking serves not only to weaken a young man's body, but undermine his will, weakening his ambition. In colleges having a large percent;,-.- of these futile per sonages they often set the fashion, a fashion of over-expenditure and carelessness as to the real aim and glory of college life. 902 IMPROVEMENT ERA. I then had the exceptional good fortune to ride between two cities in the same car with one of England's most eminent statesmen, the Hon. James Bryce, and in a journey of over a hundred miles, his pipe very seldom left his lips. So it is conceded that there are two sides to the question of smoking from a social standpoint, although it seems entirely probable that the arguments on the merits of the case, using this as a basis, is fallacious. It is true that from olden times up to the present the person's conception of personal liberty is gradually decreasing, and his conception of social duty is increasing. It is conceivable that the edicts of law may ultimately extend to cover the nicotine habit. This, in fact, is true in many localities. The time was when people maintained that they had a perfect right to use any drug in any form ; consequently, the smoking of opium, the morphine habit, and alcoholism, were prevalent much more so than they are today. However, laws have gradually been enforced to cover the use of these drugs. Now it is only an outcast socially who uses opium and morphine, and the same statement will undoubtedly be true in a very few years of the alcohol habit. We can all recall the time when there was violent opposition to the enforcement of prohibition laws, but this is gradually decreasing, and very many sane men maintain that it is a legitimate function of government to regulate the sale of, alcohol in one form or another. Tobacco is not essentially different. Here we have merely a statement of facts which must appeal to the intelligent person. And the fallacy of argument by example falls down in the face of the preponderant testimony of science. Students who properly appreciate this situation must overcome this first fallacy, in regard to the use of the drug, and base their reasonable opinion upon facts. There is taken into the body various groups of substances, what are called food-stuffs, such as water, inorganic salts, proteins, albuminoids, carbohydrates, and fats. These all either supply a substance absolutely necessary to the normal composition of the body, or a substance which may yield energy, heat for example, or a substance which furnishes material for the production of livingtissue. The complete withdrawal of any of these constituents would ultimately cause death to the organism. There are acces- THE USE OF NICOTINE. 903 sory articles which are not foods, variously classed as flavors, condiments, stimulants, such things as pepper, mustard, and among the stimulants alcohol, tea, coffee. In addition to these there is a group of substances called narcotics. The stimulants are substances which produce a feeling of increased vigor; the narcotics are substances which produce partial or complete insensibility. The narcotics include opium, morphine, chloral, cocaine, and tobacco. These have their medicinal value, only, however, when administered to weak and suffering persons by a cautious physician. They are then used only for a time to tide over a physical emergency. They are used always as the choice of the lesser evil, because all of their future effects are disastrous, yet these effects are not so injurious as the conditions present which they correct. A person in extreme pain causing sleeplessness would be injured more by the sleeplessness than through the administration of the drug which dulls pain. There must, however, even in this case, be exercised extreme caution, and their chronic use avoided under whatever pretext. Many people become chronic users of these drugs by unwise administering of physicians. In such cases headache, nervous depression, and exhaustion, constipation, weakness of the heart and blood vessels, which always follow their continued use, may easily become so serious that the original trouble seems trivial in comparison. The body is in a truly tragic condition when it demands these drugs. These more dangerous narcotics have been regulated by law, because their victims have run into so many thousands. It is a part of medicinal practice that the patient to whom is administered these drugs is kept unaware, through the wording of the prescription, that he is taking a drug. It is a fact that tobacco is a much weaker drug than these other drugs mentioned, but nevertheless is essentially of the same nature, and its physiological effects may become quite pronounced. In smoking, the nicotine, which is volatilized by the heat, is condensed upon the surface of the mouth, or, in the case of inhalation, upon the throat and in the lung passages as well. In chewing, the drug is dissolved by the saliva and absorbed by the mouth membrane and taken into the blood. In snuff-taking, it is dissolved by the secretions of the nose. There is very little difference in the results of these habits. In addition to the direct action of nicotine, carbon monoxide, one of the most deadly of the gases, is gener- y<>4 IMPROVEMENT ERA. atcd by the low temperature of the burning tobacco and is responsible in many cases for the great weakness and deranged heart action, which confirmed smokers, especially of cigarettes, experience. The use of nicotine forms a habit very autocratic in its nature. Its continued use leads to larger doses. I quote from the U. S. Dispensatory, a book of official and authoritative nature, in regard to the effects which may be produced: The use of tobacco was adopted by the Spaniards from the American Indians. In the year 1560, it was introduced into France by the ambassador of that country at the court of Lisbon, whose name — Nicot — has been perpetuated in the generic title of the plant. Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have introduced the practice of smoking into England. In the various modes of smoking, chewing, and snuffing, the drug is now largely consumed in every country on the globe. It must have properties peculiarly adapted to the propensities of our nature, to have thus surmounted the first repugnance to its odor and taste, and to have come the passion of so man}' millions. When employed in excess, it enfeebles the digestion, produces emaciation and general debility, and lays the foundation of serious nervous disorders. The most common of these is undoubtedly disturbance of the innervation of the heart, with consequent palpitations and cardiac distress. Amaurosis and even color-blindness are occasionally produced, and even insanity has been ascribed to chronic tobacco poisoning. In many cases of "nervous break-down attributed to overwork," the excessive use of tobacco has certainly been an important etiological factor. In the form of snuff, tobacco is sometimes so much contaminated with lead, in consequence of being kept in leaden boxes, as to produce the poisonous effects of that metal. In different kinds of snuff Dr. A. Vogel found from .014 per cent to .025 per cent of lead. It may be stated, in conclusion, that the use of this drug places before the student of immature years a question to be settled. Will he or will he not use a drug which will ultimately injure his efficiency ? Probably no more illuminating statement can be made than that of President Eliot, a man of great soundness of judgment, broadness of conception, and a man illustrating probably the highest type of citizenship, at once aggressive, wonderfully evenlybalanced mentally, and conservative, "that he attributes his great virility in old age to the fact that among other things, he has totally abstained from subjecting himself to the use of stimulants or narcotics in any form whatever." THE USE OF NICOTINE. 905 The Assistant Professor of physiology and hygiene in Harvard University states : The injury which the use of tobacco causes varies greatly with individuals. This holds true, however, only of those who have passed the developing period. During youth all are highly susceptible. The poison of tobacco is especially injurious to the developing system, the heart, the blood vessels, the lungs and stomach. It not only tends to interfere with their normal growth, but exerts an irritating, then a paralyzing, influence upon their function. As a result, the boy who smokes is apt to be stunted in growth, nervous and lazy. He is poor in his studies, and of little use in athletics. He is indifferent to the wholesome ambitions of boyhood, and tends to seek the companionship of those who, like himself, are principally occupied in trying to have a good time in a rather questionable way. In short, he is taking the quickest and surest way of ruining his health and future prospects, and of cheating his children of their right to wholesome bodies and minds. In the face of this and the physiological facts produced, there is only one judgment left to a sensible man. LOGAN, UTAH.