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> No Tobacco Day - Build a green society
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No Tobacco Day - Build a green society
Introduction
Since 1988, World No Tobacco Day has been held on May 31, initiated by the World Health Assembly. It is the only global event to call worldwide attention to the impact of tobacco on public
health. All over the world, World No Tobacco Day is celebrated with media campaigns and special occasions. Past themes have included tobacco-free workplaces, media and tobacco, and tobacco-free sports.
For 2005, the theme is 'Health professionals against tobacco-- action and answers', and the slogan is 'The role of health professionals on tobacco'.
World No Tobacco Day 2005
The Tobacco Free Initiative proposes that World No Tobacco Day 2005 focus on the role of health professionals on tobacco control.Health Professionals are in an excellent position that allows them to have a prominent role on tobacco control.They reach a high percentage of the population and have the opportunity to help people change their behaviour and they can give advice, guidance and answers to questions related to the consequences of tobacco use, they can help patients to stop smoking and forewarn children and adolescents of the dangers of tobacco.
Prediction of WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that by 2020, tobacco will become the leading cause of death and disability, killing more than 10 million people each year and causing more deaths than HIV, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, car accidents, suicide and homicide combined.
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Tobacco and you
It is a sin to do anything that will injure the physical system of you. God has given us our powers to make our planet more beautiful. If we injure or weaken them unnecessarily, we do a worse thing than he who squanders his patrimony and thereby becomes dependent upon the charity of others. Those who have been accustomed to its use testify that it exhilarates, and when its influence is withdrawn there is a depression, such as results from abstaining from dram-drinking. These results are produced by the poisonous elements of the narcotic. One of these is called nicotianin, and another nicotine. They belong to the same class of poisons as strychnine, arsenic and prussic acid. If either of these could be mixed with other elements, so as not to be immediately fatal, no one would be so foolish as to advocate their continued use. There would be danger of their entering into the circulation and destroying, or at least diminishing, the vital
energy. There can be no less danger to one, who uses Tobacco in any form, of taking the poison nicotine into the system; and the effect would be as injurious. When separated from the other elements of Tobacco this poison is as deadly as either of those
mentioned. Tobacco causes a gnawing sensation in the stomach and ulceration of the stomach often results from it. The fluids of the system being disturbed by this poison, the gastric juice does not properly act upon the food, and the individual becomes dyspeptic. The food, as it is separated into chyle and chyme, being saturated with this poison, conveys its poisonous influence to every part of the system. It may be observed how precarious is the appetite of the habitual user of the weed. And it may also be noticed how lank and lean he is, unless, by other means, he has attained an unnatural
corpulence. This irregular appetite does not give regular action to the intestines, which results sometimes in one form of disease and sometimes in another. LACTEALS takes up those portions of the food which the system needs for its growth, and if their operations are interfered with, either directly or through sympathy with other parts, an unhealthy state of growth will result. The thoracic duct carries the elements of the blood to the heart, will also be disturbed in its work. The Liver and its associates operates in two ways, are not only disturbed by not having their proper work to do in aiding digestion, but also refuse to do their work in separating impurities from the venous blood. No one can fail to notice the dingy, sallow appearance of the man who constantly uses this narcotic. In such persons the blood is not properly
purified. The whole digestive process is disturbed by the habit of using Tobacco. The circulation of the blood is also impeded as the nutrient portions of the food have been traced to the heart through the thoracic duct, calling the circulatory
process. The Heart, the great propelling power of the blood and throws out the impure blood to be purified, and, receiving it back, throws it out again purified to the whole system, for its strength and growth. Now, if this organ does not have the proper materials to work upon, it will itself be injured and not do its work thoroughly. The impure material, received from the digestive organs in a healthy person, passes through the heart to the lungs, where it is purified by the air and returned to the other side of the heart, from which the propelling power of this engine of the human system throws it to every part of the body. Now, if this organ be out of repair, by working on improper materials, it will not expel all the impure blood to the lungs; or, at least, in the proper way, and when it receives it back purified, if this were possible, it would fail to throw this pure blood to the parts needing it. Its contractile power would not be strong enough. Here we may see a reaction on the digestive organs. No organ of the body is more seriously affected by this narcotic than the heart. There may be other things that cause heart disease, but this is the most common and the most potent. Not being able to perform its functions in throwing the blood to other parts, those parts are affected with various diseases. This sluggish circulation predisposes to almost every disease to which the human system is subject. THE ARTERIES convey the pure blood from the heart. If the heart have not proper action, these channels will be correspondingly impeded. Here and there will lodge impurities which must result in evil. THE VEINS return the blood again to the heart, loaded with natural impurities. We shall subsequently see that
not only he who uses Tobacco, but those who are brought into contact with him, are liable to have its poison taken up by the veins and conveyed to the heart. The system requires pure blood, and if it does not receive it, disease must follow, as inevitably as famine follows drought.
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| Respiratory Organs require pure air. If the air we breathe contain impurities, they will be inhaled and carried into the system. Tobacco poisons the air. THE
diaphragm and ribs works as the bellows of respiration. The diaphragm is depressed and the ribs are elevated, producing a vacuum in the
chest, to which the air rushes in to fill. If the digestive and circulatory processes are not properly
performed, these bellows will not properly work, and there will not be sufficient oxygen inhaled from the air to purify the blood. The mouth and nose receive every noxious vapor they may contain. If you have a quid of Tobacco in your mouth, the air catches its poisonous effluvia and conveys it to the lungs. If you smoke, these cavities take up a portion of the poisonous element. If you take snuff there is a like result. There is also an exciting element in Tobacco which inflames the lining membranes. Sore mouth and cancerous humors result from these inflammations. The trachea is the passage for the air towards the lungs, and is very liable to be excited by foreign substances. Nothing agrees with it so well as pure air. When you swallow anything "the wrong way" you well know how it excites this organ and causes violent coughing. It is also known how inhaling ammonia excites its membrane. This membrane is in some people excited by inhaling smoke. Snuff is taken for the purpose of irritating it. Individuals who work where it is found, though they may not use it, are liable to contract pulmonary disease, through its influence on this organ. The Bronchia are the branches of the trachea, communicating with the lungs, and partake of its inflammation, causing the afflictive disease, bronchitis. Most of the coughing peculiar to Tobacco-users arises from this influence at first. Through the influence of Tobacco the lubricating fluid is exhausted, and there is a dry cough. This is sometimes called a "gin cough," and there is some philosophy in the name. This dryness requires something more than pure, cold water to overcome it. The little cells containing The Lungs are workshops for purifying the blood. This purification depends upon two circumstances. In the first place, the blood must not contain anything upon which the air cannot work. If no doctor had ever proved that the material given from the heart to the lungs, which had been received from the stomach, contained any of the poison of Tobacco, analogy would indicate it to any one conversant with the common affairs of life. We know that other things received into the stomach have an effect upon the blood. It may be purified or vitiated. If you were to analyze the blood of a Tobacco-user before it goes to the lungs, you would find nicotine in it. Analogy, to say nothing of facts, indicating this, the question may arise: "Will not the air purify it of this poison?" the process of purification in a healthy person is-- The blood owes its normal impurity to the presence of carbonic acid. The atmosphere is composed of twenty-one parts of oxygen and about seventy-nine parts of nitrogen. Water will mix more readily with some other things than with oil, simply because it has a greater affinity for them On the same principle the oxygen of the air has a greater affinity for some elements of this dark colored blood than for nitrogen, and so leaves the latter and unites with the former. On the other hand, the carbonic acid has a greater affinity for the air than the blood, and so leaves the latter and unites with the air, the same as a toper would leave a church and go to a saloon, because he has a greater affinity for the latter. The oxygen taken up by the blood, changes its color and it is then returned to the heart. The remaining portions of air, vitiated with carbonic acid, are expelled from the lungs and may be seen in a cold morning in the form of
vapor. Things that are taken into the stomach to affect the blood do not pass into the air So nicotine, as any other poison, instead of going with the carbonic acid into the air, is returned to the heart, to be thrown out to vitiate the system. The other circumstance essential to a proper purification is, that the air inhaled be pure. There are many things that corrupt the air. Some of them cannot be avoided. Contagious diseases are taken in this way. The air of the Tobacco-room is vitiated, and its poison is taken into the lungs of those found there, and its deadly influence enters into the circulation. It is true you may smell the breath of the Tobacco-user, which may seem to indicate that he breathes off this poison, but if what he breathes himself, and he is the nearest to it, affect him half as sensibly as it does him who stands by, it would convince many a martyr to public convenience that enough is imbibed to seriously injure him. You may also smell the breath of those who have eaten various articles of food, or taken certain kinds of medicine. Does, therefore, the food or medicine have no influence on the system? Not only in the circulation is the influence felt, but the lungs themselves become diseased by particles of the narcotic lodging in the cells, producing irritation and disease. This must be especially the case with the snuff-taker. Perhaps it may have been further observed that the Tobacco-chewer, and especially the smoker, has a short breath. It is sometimes amusing to see persons afflicted with asthma or phthisic resort to the pipe as though that were their only safety. Wheeze and smoke, wheeze and smoke, like an engine out of repair. Long and full respirations of heaven's pure air would do much more good. They say smoking relieves them. No doubt of it, yet each succeeding dose only creates a demand for more. Diseases of the respira- tory organs cannot be removed by this vitiating poison. Better sing than smoke, for that is a normal action for which the lungs were made, but God never designed them for breathing poisonous gases. The mind is intimately connected with the body, and so close is this intimacy, that whatever disturbs one, to a greater or less extent disturbs the other. Even continued pain in any part of the body may bring the mind to premature weakness. There are many grave questions concerning the nature of the mind. Mental philosophy cannot be understood, as physical philosophy can, by visual examination. No microscopic power can decide its character. We know it only by its developments. The common view is that beasts have simply an instinct connected with their physical organism, while man has a mind which distinguishes him from the brute creation. Despite of having Tobacco its direct or material influences, but there is an immaterial or moral aspect of the question which claims our attention. As physiologists and metaphysicians cannot describe the mind, much less are moralists able to describe the soul; yet every man's consciousness or spiritual intuitions convince him that he has a moral nature. While philosophers tell us that the reasoning powers, or mind, constitute the difference between man and beast, our own natures seem to speak. |
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