Thanks for reading it. Here's the rest of it if you're interested. I love the way he explains things. "This is easily explained. Any one, on going, on a hot sum- mer's day, from the stifling stenches of an uncleaned city, to the purer breezes of the open country, may have a realizing sense of the principle involved. His lungs will expand spontane- ously. They seem to open full and deep to take in as much vital air as possible. It is a luxury to breathe. But in the dirty city, the accumulated impurities of the atmosphere are resisted by the pulmonary structures. The glottis partially closes to keep them out, and all of the respiratory muscles contract spasmodically to prevent their entrance. Breathing is, therefore, imperfect. And when the atmosphere is very impure, breathing is not only imperfect but painful; and in extreme cases it is entirely suspended. "Now, nothing is more offensive to the vital instincts of the respiratory organs than the odor and fumes of tobacco. Talk about stenches, miasms, contagions, infections, from gutters, cess-pools, markets, stables, distilleries, tenement houses, offal gatherings, &c.! All of them combined (let me gently hint to the Board of Health) do not equal tobacco in intrinsic repul- siveness, nor in their injurious effects on the lungs. "Let any one, uncontaminated by its use, enter a close room where several persons are smoking, or a crowd in the street where fashionable young men most do congregate, and, in a moment, he will find himself breathing short and laboriously. He will experience a sense of suffocation, and perhaps feel an inclination to sneeze, retch, or vomit. His lungs expand with difficulty. They do not kindly receive the particles of the deadly narcotic. Inhalation is feeble and imperfect, while ex- piration is more forcible and complete. And thus the lungs are exercised in just the manner gradually and surely to contract the diameter of the chest and permanently diminish the respi- ratory capacity. And as our whole population is more or less exposed to an atmosphere strongly impregnated with tobacco effluvia, the vital function of respiration cannot fail to suffer a continual deterioration.
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