--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - O’Gorman, H. M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 8 published: 1918-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'O’Gorman, H. M., "Why Boys Should Not Smoke," *Improvement Era* 21, no. 8 (June 1918): 691–694.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2108unse 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: improvementera2108unse start_page: 691 end_page: 694 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2108unse publication_year: 1918 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 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Why Boys Should Not Smoke Why Boys Should (Not Smoke By H. M. O'Gorman When I think of the many blessings I have received during my life through abstaining from the use of tobacco, I feel a certain responsibility resting upon me, to write a few words of advice and warning to the youth of Zion, in the hope that those who are addicted to the injurious tobacco habit may be led to give up the use of a poison which slowly but surely undermines the constitutions of many of our promising men and boys. I offer no apology for quoting from such well-known authorities as Thomas Cartwright, B. A., London; "The Case Against the Little White Slaver," by Henry Ford; President Heber J. Grant and Elder David 0. McKay, in their conference addresses, delivered in the Tabernacle, October, 1917. I would like to call attention briefly to the most vital organs of the body which are affected by the use of tobacco: the heart and the blood, the brain and the nerves, the stomach, the eyes, general growth of the body, etc. It is well known that one of the functions of the heart is to pump blood through the arteries and veins of the body. The arteries carry blood from the heart to nourish the body; the veins carry worn-out blood to the heart for purification through the lungs. The heart acts as a never-resting organ, for the distribution of blood, or river of life, to all parts of the body. The heart in a healthy person beats regularly. Tobacco is a stimulant to the heart, making it beat much faster than it should, and causing the heart to be greatly overworked, and it is likely to become diseased if the habit is persisted in. The interference by tobacco with the heart's action is, like all other ill-effects of tobacco, worse by far in the case of weak, unformed boys, than it is in the case of strong men who are much more robust and able to withstand the effects of tobacco. The blood is poisoned by tobacco, and becomes thin and watery, and it is evident that this poisoned blood cannot properly nourish the body, so that in time every part of the body becomes unhealthy. The stomach is the organ through which foods are digested by the action of gastric juice; tobacco irritates the coating of the stomach and greatly impairs digestion, causing the stomach to work much harder than is good for it. The supply of gastric 692 IMPROVEMENT ERA juice becomes small, and the food, being very imperfectly mixed up with the small amount of gastric juice that is so supplied, is digested by the stomach in smaller and smaller quantity. In other words, the smoker suffers from indigestion, a serious and painful complaint that wears the sufferer out. He loses his appetite, and becomes thin, weak, and worn out, so that even if indigestion does not kill him, it certainly so weakens him as to make it easy for other complaints to do this. The liver is also impaired by tobacco, and cannot keep up the proper supply of bile, the fatty matters are not properly digested in the bowels, and the smoker's indigestion becomes worse than if it were due to the weak action of the stomach alone. The eye is a contrivance as beautiful as it is wonderful. It isso greatly injured by even small matters that it is protected by the eyebrows, the eyelids, the eyelashes, etc., but even these protections are not able to shield it from the evil that tobacco does it. Tobacco is above all a nerve poison, and the optic nerve is the part of the eye that suffers from the tobacco poison. But perhaps the most frightful disease that tobacco may bring upon the smoker is cancer of the tongue or lips. For this deadly disease there is no cure. The end of it is death, and most doctors agree that by far the greater number of cases of cancer of the tongue or lips are directly due to smoking. Every young man and boy naturally desires to grow up strong and healthy; it is impossible to do this if smoking is persisted in for any length of time. • have already shown that tobacco injures the stomach I and makes it impossible for the food to be turned properly into blood; that it injures the heart and the blood, and so prevents the body from being properly nourished. A great doctor says: Tobacco-smoking induces a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state of mind, produces indolence and incapacity for mental exertion, and sinks the victim into a state of careless or maudlin inactivity and selfish enjoyment of his vice. — In the British Medical Journal a paper written by the — wisest doctors in the land the following statement appeared: Noticing the large number of smokers not yet fifteen years of age, a doctor made an examination into the health of thirty-eight of these foolish boys, whose ages ranged from nine to fifteen. And what did he find? In twenty-two cases he found poor blood, and bad digestion, together with a craving for strong drink. Twelve of the boys suffered from bleeding of the nose; ten could not sleep soundly; twelve had sores in their mouths, which soon healed up, however, when the tobacco was given up. : WHY BOYS SHOULD NOT SMOKE 693 Hudson Maxim, the world-renowned inventor, comes out squarely against the cigarette, in this fashion: The wreath of cigarette smoke which curls about the head of the growing lad holds his brain in an iron grip which prevents it from growing, and his mind from developing just as surely as the iron shoe does the foot of the Chinese girl. In the terrible struggle for survival against the deadly cigarette smoke, development and growth are sacrificed by nature, which, in the fight for very life itself, must yield up every vital luxury, such as healthy body growth, and growth of brain and mind. If all boys could be made to know that with every breath of cigarette smoke they inhale inbecility and exhale manhood, that they are tapping their arteries as surely and letting their life's blood out as truly as though their veins and arteries were severed, and that the cigarette is a maker of invalids, criminals and — fools not men, it ought to deter them some. The yellow finger stain is an emblem of deeper degradation and enslavement than the ball and chain. Luther Burbank, the wizard of the plant and vegetable kingdom, whose experiments have caused the civilized world to wonder, declares: There is no question whatever that cigarettes alone were the cause of the death of several of my young friends who gave promise of making happy and useful citizens. No boy living would commence the use of cigarettes if he knew what a useless, soulless, worthless thing they would make of him. W. H. Coppins, Dixon, 111., writes: Twenty-three years of my life have been spent in business college work, and I say without hesitation that the cigarette has been the one thing which has caused more failures on the part of the boys using them than any other thing I can mention. I have labored with boys to give them up — successfully with some; with others I failed. And not one that I know today who has continued in the habit amounts to anything. President Heber J. Grant, in an address in the Tabernacle, warned the Latter-day Saints against the use of tobacco, and said, in substance: As Latter-day Saints we have received a revelation from Almighty God not to use tobacco, and it behooves us each one to use his or her influence to the uttermost to see that our boys keep this commandment of the Lord, and pay no attention to the sophistries and the ideas and reasoning of men in favor of the use of tobacco. The end of all controversy has been reached for every true Latter-day Saint. The Lord has said, "Tobacco is not good for man." I want to read to you what the Lord promises if you and I will refrain from hot drinks (which the prophet of God said were tea and coffee,) and from liquor nd strong drinks of all kinds, and from tobacco "And all Saints who remember to keep and to do these sayings, walk- navals ing in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their and marrow to their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures, and shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint; and I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that Israel, and not the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of slay them." 694 IMPROVEMENT ERA Elder David O. McKay, in his address in the Tabernacle, highly commended the foregoing remarks of President Grant, and added his testimony as to the injurious effects of tobacco on the human body, and in a practical and carefully thoughtout discourse, clearly proved that those who abstained from the use of tobacco were morally and physically superior to those who indulged in this vice, and this he proved by convincing statistics. To one passage of his address I desire to call attention: The nation today has appointed medical men everywhere to test the physical strength of your sons and brothers, before they are entitled to ;:iter the army. Tobacco, the cigarette particularly, is a menace to manhood. It weakens the body. It unnerves men, where they need to have steady nerves. God forbid that our boys who have enlisted in one of the noblest causes that ever a nation sought to serve, may ever have it reported truthfully of them that any of them were unfit to serve their country because of their indulgence in these pernicious habits, or indulgence in passion. In conclusion, I would again urge all men and boys addicted to the tobacco habit to give it up before it destroys their use- fulness in the world, and probably blights a promising career, by undermining the health, and rendering the organs of the body unfit to perform in a satisfactory manner what nature demands. Bear in mind the wise words of Solomon: "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."