Tobacco and the diseases it produces / by Charles R. Drysdale ; being the substance of an address delivered at Exeter Hall, London, May, 1873, at Manchester Free Trade Hall, March 27, 1873, and at Guildford, on March 6, 1875.

  • Charles Robert Drysdale
Date:
[1875?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tobacco and the diseases it produces / by Charles R. Drysdale ; being the substance of an address delivered at Exeter Hall, London, May, 1873, at Manchester Free Trade Hall, March 27, 1873, and at Guildford, on March 6, 1875. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    exposed to an atmosphere charged with the dust of tobacco and the vapour of nicotine. This is found to be especially noxious to young workers recently entering, or to those convalescent from sickness. Thus the majority of deaths among the children and work-girls in the first month is attributed to narcotic poisoning. Of a hundred boys, from twelve to sixteen, recently entering the works, seventy-two fell sick in the first six months. Their sick¬ ness lasted from two to twenty-eight days, and consisted especially in congestion of the brain, different nervous affections, pains in the region of the heart, palpitation, pallor, inflammation of the stomach, intestines, and lining membrane of the eyelids, with fever, lassitude, cold sweats, want of appetite, and sleeplessness. Some kinds of tobacco, very rich in nicotine, are found very hurtful to the workers in the Iglau factory. Ulcers on the limbs favour such poisonings; and old workers in the factory have a yellowish hue and white gums, with the colour of tongue and flabbiness of that organ described by Erlenmayer as peculiar to smokers. The work-girls have frequent perturbations in their menstrual func¬ tions : and are frequently affected with chlorosis (green sickness). Among the mothers there is often noticed inflammation of the breasts, and the milk has a marked odour of tobacco. Abortions are common among these women. Of 506 births which took place in three years. Dr. Kostral found that 11 children were born dead, and 206 of them died afterwards: of these 101 died of disease of the brain with convulsions: 110 died in the first three months of life, 160 in the first six months, and 181 in the first year. It was a notable fact, that the majority of these deaths among infants occurred from two to four months old, at the time when their mothers recommenced work, and gave their children milk impregnated with nicotine. It is such facts that tempt one to say in the words of Brodie and others, that if a community of both sexes, whose progenitors were healthy, were to take to smoking early, and intermarry only with smokers, the race would be sure to deteriorate greatly. I am convinced that