---------------------------+-----------+------------- Number of | Highest | Lowest Men. | Marks. | Marks. ---------------------------+-----------+------------- 101 non-smokers furnish | 11 | 6 101 smokers would furnish | 5 | 15 ---------------------------+-----------+------------- ------------+------------+----------------+---------- | Number | Total | | of Men. | Conditions | Average. | | and Failures. | ------------+------------+----------------+---------- Smokers | 82 | 70 | .853 Non-smokers| 98 | 48 | .439 ------------+------------+----------------+---------- [Sidenote: Tobacco Smoking Athletes] Prof. Pack's conclusions were as follows: 1. Only half as many smokers as non-smokers are successful in the "try outs" for football squads. 2. In the case of able-bodied men smoking is associated with loss of lung capacity amounting to practically 10 per cent. 3. Smoking is invariably associated with low scholarship. There have of course been many notable instances of high scholarship 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.