Tobacco Use Habits Research Articles

NICOTINE POISONING IN A CHILD

Nicotine is one of the most lethal poisons known to man. Some conception of its extreme toxicity may be gained by comparing it with hydrocyanic acid, which is of approximately equal potency. Nicotine is present in appreciable quantities in tobacco (ranging from 0.6 to 8 per cent),¹the poorer grades containing relatively more than the better grades. Since tobacco is used so widely both for smoking and for chewing (including snuff), it is amazing that so few instances of fatal poisoning from nicotine have been recorded. As far as smoking is concerned, a possible explanation may be the destruction of the drug by combustion and also its expulsion with the smoke. Then too, marked tolerance acquired by the habitual use of tobacco is undoubtedly an important factor. Consequently, in a majority of instances nicotine poisoning among adults has been traced to the ingestion of some strong solution of the

Why Withhold Tobacco?

Toledo, Sept. 25, 1901. To the Editor: —This question, whether he should be permitted to smoke or not, came up in the treatment of our late President, and possibly has in it a lesson which should be considered on account of the applicability which it may have to the treatment of surgical cases generally. Does the sudden stopping of the habitual use of tobacco make the bodily functions more resistant to the processes of disease, and more efficient in the healing of wounds? Does the nervous system, suffer and lose its balance by withholding its accustomed sedative? Are the secretory system, the excretory system, in fact all of the systems of the body, by the sudden taking from them of the load to which they have learned to adapt themselves, made stronger, or are they left stagnated because the stimulus which has been prompting them to their abnormal action has