Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн

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Of the different faulty habits there is probably none that would produce so rapidly the premature appearance of old age in young women as smoking.

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If excessive smoking is deleterious to man, in the woman moderate smoking may cause serious alterations. We must not forget that the tissues of women are more delicate and tender than those of men, and especially young women can in this respect be put in the same class with children. The woman is not so well protected against the influence of poisons such as nicotine as the man, for in her some of those glands whose duty is to destroy such poisons, as, for instance, the thyroid, are kept in much greater activity on account of the frequent changes in the ovaries with each menstruation, pregnancy, the climacteric, etc., and with their consequent repercussion upon the thyroid gland, with which the ovaries are closely related. If to this comes such extra work by the daily introduction of poisonous substances, although even in small quantities, the gland may the more readily lose its efficiency. After my own observations which I made upon my patients in Carlsbad coming from eastern countries in Europe, I know that smoking women present a much older aspect, if they have indulged in this habit to a large extent and for years. They soon fade, the cheeks are pale, as a rule, and sunk in. The general nutrition suffers, there is loss of appetite, frequently a catarrh of the stomach and very often pains in the stomach; indeed there is often neurasthenia with sleeplessness. With more excessive smoking there will appear all the symptoms which are common to the chronic nicotine poisoning of men.