smoke on certain occasions only. This researcher reviewed the new studies on the effect of smoke and arrived at the statement that science has proved the habit of smoking to be a habit harmful to the healthy — how much more so, then, to the sick. He believes, and we share his opinion, that this habit must be absolutely forbidden to those suffering from diseases of the chest.
Fourth — 'Smoking and its effect on the heart and arteries.' Researchers agree on the existence of one kind of choking constrictive seizure that arises from smoking. The well-known researcher 'Clifford Allbutt' described the first incident of this kind, saying... 'He writhes with pain... he battles an unseen enemy... now he climbs upon his chair, and it overturns with him to the ground.'
Researchers have found an increase in blood pressure and a quickening of the heartbeat, an increase in the quantity of sugar in the blood, and changes in the heart muscle registered by the machine that records the heart's pulse, together with effects on the temperature of the extremities, in the hands and the feet. These changes last for about half an hour; but if our friend is a heavy smoker, these changes become a permanent condition — and in that lies harm indeed.
Fifth — 'Smoking and its effect on the muscles.' 'Jacobson' found no effect of smoke on the contraction of the muscles in a hundred smokers. That means that the theory which holds that smoking removes bodily fatigue by easing the contraction of the muscles is a mistaken theory that science has not confirmed.
Sixth — 'Smoking and its relation to sexual fertility.' Science has established the occurrence of important effects on the reproductive system, which may be a significant cause of diminished fertility.
Seventh — 'Smoking and length of life.' Professor 'Pearl' compared, by the statistical method, the proportion of those who reach the age of seventy among some six thousand persons, from the time they were thirty years of age, and found that 66 percent of nonsmokers lived to seventy, as against 46 percent of moderate smokers and only 30 percent of heavy smokers.
Eighth — 'Smoking and its psychological effects.' I pointed earlier
to the action of nicotine in rousing the body from the physiological side, while it releases it from the mental side by means of narcosis. Thus the smoker contents himself with sitting without any work. He retreats for a time before the difficulties and troubles of life, to hide behind a cloud of his smoke. Then this habit becomes a part of his very self, which he may find it hard to do without. And the greatest proof of the degree of degradation a smoker may reach if tobacco is cut off from him is what happened in Germany in wartime — you could see men who held a place of standing in society raking through the streets of Berlin for cigarette butts, to pick them up.
These are sick men in pain... and medicine must extend a helping hand to them; then it must prevent the spread of this disease to the healthy... it must fight smoking with all the power and resolve it possesses. And I cannot but salute here the memory of Dr. 'Shakhashiri,' God rest his soul, founder of the Egyptian League Against Smoking, for he was one of the leaders of this revolution.
How weak we are, searching for freedom when we have thrown it away with our own hands... How weak we are, hiding from the difficulties of life behind a cloud of smoke... And how foolish we are, straining every nerve to satisfy the desires of an enemy who works to degrade our bodily and spiritual powers.
Yes — smoking is that unseen enemy.
"Al-Abhath" is a journal published by the American University of Beirut in four parts a year. It is a free platform for thinkers, regardless of the intellectual tendency they adopt; for this reason the editorial committee, in its choice of articles, is bound by purely scholarly considerations alone: it regards the studies according to their scholarly level, and it does not adopt the views of their authors, who alone bear the responsibility for what they write. And it invites men of thought and of specialization to cooperate with it in making these studies the best that thought produces in the Arab East.
The editorial committee: Said Himadeh (chairman), Anis Freiha (secretary), Jibrail Jabbur, Zaki Shakhashiri, Nabih Faris, Habib Kurani, Jean Merhej, William West (members).
Address for correspondence: Editorial correspondence: Dr. Anis Freiha — the American University, Beirut, Lebanon. Administrative and financial correspondence: Dar al-Kitab, P.O. Box 1284, Beirut, Lebanon.
Annual subscription: In Lebanon and Syria: 9 liras. Abroad: one pound sterling or its equivalent.
Publisher: Dar al-Kitab Beirut — Lebanon
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