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Show MADE INSANE BY CICARETTES- Another Victim to th Obnoxious Practice Lones His Mind. Chicago, Aug. 7 Excessive smoking of cigarettes drove twenty-year-old William Fitzgerald, a Chicago boy, insane. in-sane. He is one of a score or more of young men who yearly reach the detention deten-tion hospital on the cigarette route. Fitzgerald developed into a paper pipe fiend about a year ago, and has since consumed from three to a dozen boxes of cigarettes per day. When not engaged en-gaged in smoking he was hard at work chewing tobacco. His mind began to totter on its throuo last week and when the police took h'nn to the detention de-tention hospital Saturday, he was little better than an idiot. Fitzgerald has acted badly since his supply of cigarettes cigar-ettes was cut off. Sunday afternoon, while walking i.i the hospital corridor, he violently attacked another patient, inflicting injuries which will lay him up for a month at least. The infuriated infuri-ated young man then grappled with an attendant named Mahoney. One of the attendant's fingers was terribly ter-ribly mangled between Fitzgerald's tooth. The crazy youth was locked up in a cell, but managed to break out a short time afterward. He was again captured, and this timo was put in a stronger cell. Dr. Egbert, who has the case in charge, says that Fitzgerald's system is so thoroughly saturated with cigarette poison that he smells as if he had just escaped from an opium joint. Fitzgerald's case is only one of about twenty live similar ones that come to Dr. Egbert's attention every year. The doctor says that insanity among'ciga-rette among'ciga-rette smokers is growing to an alarming alarm-ing extent, and that at the present time the evil is responsible for nearly two per cent of all the cases he handles. Fitzgerald is still confined in a cell, and he will not be released until he shows some, signs of improvement. |