Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1918 — Cigarettes as Anesthetic For the Wounded Soldiers [ARTICLE]

Cigarettes as Anesthetic For the Wounded Soldiers

There is much difference of opinion as to the effect of cigarettes upon the soldiers who smoke them. A scientific investigation is said to show that cigarette smoking has direct effect on the heart, decreasing the smoker’s ability to do hard work and to resist fatigue. On tile other hand there is evidence that cigarettes keep the men up to their tasks. Mrs. Charles H. Farnam, a Long Island womaq, who has just returned from Serbia, where she spent several years in hospital work and where she earned the rank of sergeant, delivered a lecture one night recently in Brooklyn, in the course of which she said! “The soul of life in the Serbian army is a cigarette. The men go through the greatest agonies if they have cigarettes in their mouths and never think of the pain. In most of x the hospitals there is a’shortage of anesthetWhen a soldier is brought in to be operated on they simply give him a cigarette to smoke during the ordeal and he goes through it happily.” It is probable that both views as to the effect are correct; the excessive smoking being bad for the heart, and the use of the cigarette being soothing and strengthening. In time of excitement, trial and pain. The wounded soldier is always given a cigarette, and seems to be helped thereby to bear his trouble with patience—Mobile Register.