Smoking and Cancer

I heard that in Douglas' character speech. I had TiVo'd the movie and ran it back to hear what he said again. Isn't it interesting they were already talking about the connection? Of course, they all still smoked, didn't they?

John Harvey Kellogg, a medical pseudo-scientist and brother of the founder of Kellogg Company, postulated a link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1930s. So the possibility of link was known, though it was not accepted science.

As kids in the fifties we called them "cancer sticks", a phase my mother's generation used in the 1930s. My grandmother, with only an 6th grade education, knew they caused cancer. It was actually common knowledge before the fifties. German scientists linked lung cancer and cigarettes in the 1930s but it was known prior to that. Before that the bigger health threats came from spoiled food. Lung cancer was lower on the list. Once the health risk from food spoilage became more controlled due to better food preservation then the attention turned to lung cancer which was on the rise world wide. The Nazi's were the first to ban smoking in public buildings and on public transportation. Hitler was a vehement anti (and ex) smoker. No one was allowed to smoke in his presence. It was known back then. The common people really didn't believe the down playing by the tobacco companies. Some Doctors were paid by big tobacco to help sell the product the same as they are paid by the big pharmaceuticals companies to push pills today.

One might also point out that doctors certainly knew that Pres. Grant's throat cancer was due to his incessant cigar smoking.

So was Coolidge's apparent throat cancer but by 1933 the tobacco-cancer link was being covered up. Coolidge not only smoked cigars everywhere but in public, in private he was a veritable pusher, foisting them on every man who would accept one. In his last years his chronic sore throat and hoarseness were obvious--in fact he couldn't speak to give an address at the convention for the 1932 election. He self-medicated constantly with home remedies to relieve it. But you would be hard pressed to find any reference that calls a spade a spade, preferring to only mention his final heart attack.

I'm not sure if he was the first, but Alton Ochsner published a report linking smoking to lung cancer in 1939 - http://www.ochsner.org/programs/legacy_article_jan_18/

As far back as the 1880s people used to refer to cigarettes as "coffin nails".


"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."

Despite the promotions by doctors, people have long known of the ill effects of smoking, far back into the 19th century, but knowing something is bad for you never stopped people from doing it. People are not very bright.





"Ain't it funny how coffee never tastes as good as it smells?"

I have a small pamphlet that was handed out to sailors by the U.S. Navy in 1943. I found it in a box of my dad's old Navy stuff. It's titled "Nicotine Knockout", and it was written by Lt. Commander Gene Tunney, the former heavyweight boxing champion, who was in charge of Navy physical training during WWII. It consists of five pages of fine print detailing all the ways that smoking compromises your health and ultimately kills you with cancer. They knew all about it back then.