Smoking and Risks

Risks caused by smoking

Smoking raises blood pressure, which can cause hypertension - a risk factor for heart attacks and stroke.
• Couples who smoke are more likely to have fertility problems than couples who are non-smokers.
• Smoking worsens asthma and counteracts asthma medication by worsening the inflammation of the airways that the medicine tries to ease.
• The blood vessels in the eye are sensitive and can be easily damaged by smoke, causing a bloodshot appearance and itchiness.
• Heavy smokers are twice as likely to get macular degeneration, resulting in the gradual loss of eyesight.
• Smokers run an increased risk of cataracts.
• Smokers take 25 per cent more sick days year than non-smokers.
• Smoking stains your teeth and gums.
• Smoking increases your risk of periodontal disease, which causes swollen gums, bad breath and teeth to fall out.
• Smoking causes an acid taste in the mouth and contributes to the development of ulcers.
• Smoking also affects your looks: smokers have paler skin and more wrinkles. This is because smoking reduces the blood supply to the skin and lowers levels of vitamin A.

JOHANNESBURG - A South African zoo is trying to persuade its star chimpanzee to kick a bad smoking habit.

Charlie, a grown male chimp and the Bloemfontein Zoo, has been picking up cigarettes thrown to him by visitors and smoking them — a habit he probably picked up by observing humans, zoo officials told the SAPA news agency on Thursday.

"Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," spokesman Daryl Barnes told SAPA.

Barnes said Charlie was already showing the signs of a true nicotine addict.

"He even acts like a naughty schoolboy by hiding the cigarette when staff approach the area," Barnes said, adding that the zoo was determined to help him quit.

Barnes said the most important thing was that people stop providing Charlie with cigarettes or any other treats, noting the chimp already had three bad teeth because of all the cans of sweet soft drinks that people throw at him.

Charlie is not the only smoking chimpanzee. A zoo in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou reported last year that one of its chimps had taken up smoking and was desperately cadging cigarette butts off visitors.

Advice to all smokers of tobacco

Advice to all smokers of tobacco.
Sage old friend! with judgment ripe; Come and join me in a pipe.

Brother student! brother joker, Thee I greet, O! brother smoker.

Smoke, O! men of every station, Every climate, every nation.

East and West, and South and North, Recognize Tobacco's worth.

Red man! let thy warfare cease: Smoke the calumet of peace.

Chinaman! shun opium-grief: Use the pure Tobacco leaf.

Frenchmen! no more foes provoke: Follow arts of peace--and smoke!

German victors! crowned with laurel, Smoke, content; and seek no quarrel.

Americans no one needs bid To blow a cloud, or take a quid.

Though rows shake Dame Europa's school, Johnny Bull smokes, calm and cool.

Toffy, it will ease thy brain, man! Smoke and snuff, and smoke again, man!

Paddy, light of heart and gay, Smoke thy dhudeen: short black clay.

Sawney, on thy Hielen' hill, Tak' thy sneishin'; tak' thy gill!

Tourist, thou hast journey'd far; Rest, and light a mild cigar.

Sailor, from the stormy seas, Take a quid, and take thine ease.

"Soldier tired," put off thy shako; Prepare to fire, and burn tobacco.

Workman, prize thine honest labor; Burn thy weed, and love thy neighbor!

Evil-doers, when ye burn The weed; think how soon 'twill be your turn.

Artist, let thy "coloring" be Of a pipe; thy "drawing," free!

Miser, moderate thy greed! Mend thy life, and take a weed.

Lawyer, loose thy bitter gripe! Burn thy writ--to light a pipe.

Statesman, harassed night and day, Blow a cloud; puff care away!

Hardy tiller of the soil! Light a pipe; 'twill lighten toil.

Usurer, we surely know Thou wilt have thy quid pro quo.

Merchant, smoke thy pipe; hang care! Draughts are always honored there.

Gentle friend, whom troubles fret! Smoke a soothing cigarette.

Preacher! take a pinch with me: Snuff is dust, and so are we.

Hence with moralizings musty! I say life is "not so dusty."

Smoke in gladness; smoke in trouble; Soothe the last, the former double!

Teach the Fiji Indians, then, To chew their quids, instead of men.

Pain from heart and brain to wipe, Pass the weed, and fill your pipe!

Prince and peasant, lord and lackey, All in some form take their 'Baccy.

The Russians also are great lovers of the weed

The Russians also are great lovers of the weed. A writer says:--
"Everybody smokes, men, women, and children. They smoke Turkish tobacco, rolled in silk paper--seldom
cigars or pipes. These rolls are called parporos. The ladies almost all smoke, but they smoke the small,
delicate sizes of parporos, while the gentlemen smoke larger ones. Always at morning, noon and night, comes
the inevitable box of parporos, and everybody at the table smokes and drinks their coffee at the same time. On
the cars are fixed little cups for cigar ashes in every seat. Ladies frequently take out their part parporos, and
hand them to the gentlemen with a pretty invitation to smoke. Instead of having a smoking car as we do, they
have a car for those who are so 'pokey' as not to smoke."
Throughout the German States the custom of smoking is universal and tobacco enters largely into their list of
expenditures. A writer says of smoking in Austria:--
"We have been rather surprised to find so few persons smoking pipes in Austria. Indeed, a pipe is seldom seen
except among the laboring classes. The most favorite mode of using the weed here is in cigarettes, almost
every gentleman being provided with a silver box, in which they have Turkish tobacco and small slips of
paper, with mucilage on them ready for rolling. They make them as they use them, and are very expert in the
handling of the tobacco. The chewing of tobacco is universally repudiated, being regarded as the height of
vulgarity. The Turkish tobacco is of fine flavor, and commands high prices. It is very much in appearance like
the fine cut chewing tobacco so extensively used at home."
The cigars made by the Austrian Government, which are the only description to be had are very inferior, and
it is not to be wondered that the cigarette is so generally used in preference.
The smoking of cigarettes by the ladies is quite common, especially among the higher classes. In no part ofthe world is smoking so common as in South America; here all classes and all ages use the weed. Smoking is
encouraged in the family and the children are early taught the custom. A traveler who has observed this
custom more particularly than any other, says of the use of tobacco in Peru:--
"Scarcely in any regions of the world is smoking so common as in Peru. The rich as well as the poor, the old
man as well as the boy, the master as well as the servant, the lady as well as the negroes who wait on her, the
young maiden as well as the mother--all smoke and never cease smoking, except when eating, or sleeping, or
in church. Social distinctions are as numerous and as marked in Peru as anywhere else, and there is the most
exclusive pride of color and of blood. But differences of color and of rank are wholly disregarded when a light
for a cigar is requested, a favor which it is not considered a liberty to ask, and which it would be deemed a
gross act of incivility to refuse. It is chiefly cigarritos which are smoked.
"The cigarrito, as is well known, is tobacco cut fine and dexterously wrapped in moist maize leaves, in paper,
or in straw. Only the laborers on the plantations smoke small clay pipes. Dearer than the cigarritos are the
cigars, which are not inferior to the best Havanna. Everywhere are met the cigarrito-twisters. Cleverly though
they manipulate, cleanliness is not their besetting weakness. But in Peru, and in other parts of South America,
cleanliness is not held in more esteem than in Portugal and Spain."
The Turks have long been noted as among the largest consumers of tobacco as well as using the most
magnificent of smoking implements. The hookah is in all respects the most expensive and elaborate machine
(for so it may be called) used for smoking tobacco. A traveler gives the following graphic description of
smoking among them.

Tobacco capsule

As soon as the flowers drop from the fruit bud the capsules grow very rapidly until they have attained full
size--which occurs only in those plants which have been left for seed and remain untopped. When topped they
are not usually full grown--as some growers top the plants when just coming into blossom, while others prefer
to top the plants when in full bloom and others still when the blossoms begin to fall. The fruit is described by
Wheeler "as a capsule of a nearly oval figure. There is a line on each side of it, and it contains two cells, and
opens at the top. The receptacles one of a half-oval figure, punctuated and affixed to the separating body. The
seeds are numerous, kidney-shaped, and rugose."
Most growers of the plant would describe the fruit bud as follows: In form resembling an acorn though more
pointed at the top; in some species, of a dark brown in others of a light brown color, containing two cells filled
with seeds similar in shape to the fruit bud, but not rugose as described by some botanists. Some writers state
that each cell contains about one thousand seeds. The fruit buds of Connecticut, Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio
Tobacco as well as of most of the varieties grown within the limits of the United States are much larger than
those of Havana, Yara, Syrian, and numerous other species of the plant, while the color of these last named
varieties is a lighter shade of brown. The color of the seed also varies according to the varieties of the plant.
The seeds of some species are of a dark brown while others are of a lighter shade. The seeds, however, are so
small that the variety to which they belong cannot be determined except by planting or sowing them.

ABOUT TOBACCO PLANT

An old English writer in describing tobacco says:--"When at its just height, it is as tall as an ordinary sized man."

Tobacco is a hardy flowering annual plant, growing freely in a moist fertile soil and requiring the most thorough culture in order to secure the finest form and quality of leaf. It is a native of the tropics and under the intense rays of a vertical sun develops its finest and most remarkable flavor which far surpasses the varieties grown in a temperate region. It however readily adapts itself to soil and climate growing through a wide range of temperature from the Equator to Moscow in Russia in latitude 56°, and through all the intervening range of climate.
The plant varies in height according to species and locality; the largest varieties reaching an altitude of ten or twelve feet, in others not growing more than two or three feet from the ground.
Botanists have enumerated between forty and fifty varieties of the tobacco plant who class them all among the narcotic poisons.
When properly cultivated the plant ripens in a few weeks growing with a rapidity hardly equaled by any product either temperate or tropical. Of the large number of varieties cultivated scarcely more than one-half are grown to any great extent while many of them are hardly known outside of the limit of cultivation.


Tobacco is a strong growing plant resisting heat and drought to a far greater extent than most plants.

It is a native of America, the discovery of the continent and the plant occurring almost simultaneously. It succeeds best in a deep rich loam in a climate ranging from forty to fifty degrees of latitude.

After having been introduced and cultivated in nearly all parts of the world, America enjoys the reputation of growing the finest varieties known to commerce. European tobacco is lacking in flavor and is less powerful than the tobacco of America.

The botanical account of tobacco is as follows:--"Nicotiana, the tobacco plant is a genus of plants of the order of Monogynia, belonging to the pentandria class, order 1, of class V. It bears a tubular 5-cleft calyx; a funnel-formed corolla, with a plaited 5-cleft border; the stamina inclined; the stigma capitate; the capsule 2-celled, and 2 to 4 valved."

A more general description of the plant is given by an American writer:--"The tobacco plant is an annual growing from eighteen inches (dwarf tobacco) to seven or eight feet in height.
It bears numerous leaves of a pale green color sessile, ovate lanceolate and pointed in form, which come out alternately from two to three inches apart. The flowers grow in loose panicles at the extremity of the stalks, and the calyx is bell-shaped, and divided at its summit into five pointed segments.
The tube of the corolla expands at the top into an oblong cup terminating in a 5-lobed plaited rose-colored border. The pistil consists of an oval germ, a slender style longer than the stamen, and a cleft stigma. The flowers are succeeded by capsules of 2 cells opening at the summit and containing numerous kidney-shaped seeds."
Two of the finest varieties of Nicotiana Tobacum that are cultivated are the Oronoco and the Sweet Scented;
they differ only in the form of the leaves, those of the latter variety being shorter and broader than the other.
They are annual herbaceous plants, rising with strong erect stems to the height of from six to nine feet, withfine handsome foliage. The stalk near the root is often an inch or more in diameter, and surrounded by a hairy clammy substance, of a greenish yellow color. The leaves are of a light green; they grow alternately, at intervals of two or three inches on the stalk; they are oblong and spear-shaped; those lowest on the stalk are about twenty inches in length, and they decrease as they ascend.
The young leaves when about six inches, are of a deep green color and rather smooth, and as they approach maturity they become yellowish and rougher on the surface. The flowers grow in clusters from the extremities of the stalk; they are yellow externally and of a delicate red within. They are succeeded by kidney shaped capsules of a brown color.


Tobacco leaves

Typical mosaic pattern on flue-cured tobacco leaves systematically infected with Tobacco mosaic virus.

Photograph courtesy H. D. Shew,
from the Compendium of Tobacco Diseases

The Plant bears from eight to twenty leaves according to the species of the plant. They have various forms, ovate, lanceolate, and pointed. Leaves of a lanceolate form are the largest, and the shape of those found on most varieties of the American plant. The color of the leaves when growing, as well as after curing and sweating, varies, and is frequently caused by the condition of the soil. The color while growing may be either a light or dark green, which changes to a yellowish cast as the plant matures and ripens.
The ground leaves are of a lighter color and ripen earlier than the rest--sometimes turning yellow, and during damp weather rotting and dropping from the stalk. Some varieties of the plant, like Latakia, bear small but thick leaves, which after cutting are very thin and fine in texture; while others, like Connecticut seed leaf and Havana, bear leaves of a
medium thickness, which are also fine and silky after curing. But while the color of the plant when growing is either a light or dark green, it rapidly changes during curing, and especially after passing through the sweat, changing to a light or dark cinnamon like Connecticut seed leaf, black like Holland and Perique tobacco, bright yellow of the finest shade of Virginia and Carolina leaf, brown like Sumatra, or dark red like that known by the name of "Boshibaghli," grown in Asia Minor.

The leaves are covered with glandular hairs
containing a glutinous substance of an unpleasant odor, which characterizes all varieties as well as nearly all parts of the plant.
The leaves of all varieties of tobacco grow the entire length of the stem and clasp the stalk, excepting those ofSyrian, which are attached by a long stem. The size of the leaves, as well as the entire plant, is now muchlarger than when first discovered. One of the early voyagers describes the plant as short and bearing leaves ofabout the size and shape of the walnut. In many varieties the leaves grow in a semi-circular form while inothers they grow almost straight and still others growing erect presenting a singular appearance.
The stem or mid-rib running through the leaf is large and fibrous and its numerous smaller veins proportionally larger which on curing become smaller and particularly in those kinds best adapted for cigar wrappers.
The leaves from the base to the center of the plant are of about equal size but are smaller as they reach the summit, but after topping attain about the same size as the others. The color of the leaf after curing may be determined by the color of the leaf while growing--if dark green while maturing in the field, the color will be dark after curing and sweating and the reverse if of a lighter shade of green.
If the soil be dark the color of the leaf will be darker than if grown upon a light loam. Some varieties of the plant have leaves of a smooth glossy appearance while others are rough and the surface uneven--more like a cabbage leaf, a peculiar feature of the tobacco of Syria. The kind of fertilizers applied to the soil also in a measure as well as the soil itself has much to do with the texture or body of the leaf and should be duly considered by all growers of the plant.
A light moist loam should be chosen for the tobacco field if a leaf of
light color and texture is desired while if a dark leaf is preferred the soil chosen should be a moist heavy loam.