olarship and
prodigious mental achievement by heavy smokers. Such exceptions,
however, do not affect conclusions derived from the study of average
groups.

Hitherto figures on smoking and athletics have been open to question
because comparisons were made between groups that are not of necessity
of the same physical and mental type, having no important difference
except in the use of tobacco. But Prof. Pack has sought to avoid this
objection. As he points out, the football squad is probably as nearly a
homogeneous group as it is possible to find. It seems reasonable to
account for the inferior physical and mental work of these particular
groups of smokers on the theory that in the main the well known toxic
effects of tobacco are sufficient to create this difference.

Dr. George J. Fisher,[47] in a series of careful tests found:

1. Cigaret smoking caused an increase in the heart rate.

2. Cigaret smoking maintained a blood pressure which, under the
circumstances of the experiment, would otherwise have dropped.

3. Cigar smoking caused a considerable increase in heart rate and
blood pressure.

4. In a number of instances, in the cigar test, the heart was
unable to maintain, with a vertical position, the increased blood
pressure found in the horizontal position, showing a disturbance of
the control of the blood vessels. This latter effect was more
pronounced in tests taken on non-smokers.

5. It was also noted that smoking was not conducive to concentration
upon the reading, which the men attempted during the tests.

Bush,[48] in a series of tests on each of 15 men in several different
psychic fields found the following conditions among smoking students
immediately after the period of smoking was completed:

1. A 101/2 per cent. decrease in mental efficiency.

2. The greatest actual loss was in the field of imagery,
22 per cent.

3. The three greatest losses were in the fields of imagery,
perception and association.

4. The greatest loss, in these experiments, occurred with cigarets.

Bush ascribed these effects to pyridin, claiming that his experiments
failed to reveal nicotin in the tobacco smoke, except in a very small
proportion in that of cigarets.

Tests for nicotin in smoke are beset with many difficulties and possible
fallacies which have in the past misled investigators into apparently
determining th