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nAlmostna century before the U.S. surgeon general issued a report confirmingnthe dangers of smoking tobacco, on this date in 1878 the Englishndoctor Charles R. Drysdale published his findings about the dangersnof tobacco in The Times ofnLondon.
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nDrysdalenhad discovered evidence of tobacco’s harm to the heart, lungs, andneven skin, and he had written on these dangers for about a decade,nincluding an entire book called Tobacco and the Diseases ItnProduces. As the seniornphysician to the Metropolitan Free Hospital in London, Drysdale’snwarnings should perhaps have had a lot of influence on the public.nYet it was a good long while before the general public began tonacknowledge that smoking tobacco is harmful.
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nPerhapsnDrysdale’s polite and academic writing didn’t impact people. He wrotenthat smoking tobacco was “the most evident of all the retrogradeninfluences of our time.” But a couple of centuries earlier (andnwithout the scientific research to back him up), England’s King JamesnI was a lot more direct: He wrote that the use of tobacco was “ancustome loathsome to the eye, hateful to the Nose, harmefull to thenbraine, dangerous to the Lungs, and the blacke stinking fume thereof,nneerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that isnbottomelesse.” And in 1634 the Russian Czar ordered that people whonsmoked or sold tobacco would thereafter have their noses slit! Yuck!
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nHowever,nKing James’s harsh words, and the Czar’s repulsive punishment, didn’tnslow the adoption of the tobacco habit, either.
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Whennspeaking about the harm of smoking, it is important to remember thatnit’s not just that smokers suffer earlier deaths, on average, thannnon-smokers; smokers also tend to suffer with many more, and more severe, illnesses allnthrough their lives and from premature wrinkling of the skin. They have to put up with cravingsnand withdrawals while in non-smoking places (on airplanes, innschools, in many restaurants and other public places), and they havento deal with discoloration of their teeth and fingers, and odor. And all of this pain and suffering, stink and stain and death–it all costs smokers a lot of money! Of course the computation of how much smokers spend on cigarettes depends on how long they smoke, and how much they smoke each day, but the average smoker can count on spending thousands of dollars every year, and about 92,000 pounds in a lifetime, in the U.K., or $100,000 to $200,000 in a lifetime, in the U.S.
Whennspeaking about the harm of smoking, it is important to remember thatnit’s not just that smokers suffer earlier deaths, on average, thannnon-smokers; smokers also tend to suffer with many more, and more severe, illnesses allnthrough their lives and from premature wrinkling of the skin. They have to put up with cravingsnand withdrawals while in non-smoking places (on airplanes, innschools, in many restaurants and other public places), and they havento deal with discoloration of their teeth and fingers, and odor. And all of this pain and suffering, stink and stain and death–it all costs smokers a lot of money! Of course the computation of how much smokers spend on cigarettes depends on how long they smoke, and how much they smoke each day, but the average smoker can count on spending thousands of dollars every year, and about 92,000 pounds in a lifetime, in the U.K., or $100,000 to $200,000 in a lifetime, in the U.S.n
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nPeople disagree about the best way to warn people about thendangers of smoking. Check out this earlier post about warningnlabels—including the disgusting-photos type of warning label.
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