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Other sections found within "Dangers of Tobacco":
Addiction // Cancer // Lung and Heart Disease // Fatigue and Headache
Second-hand Smoke // Other Dangers >> Coffin Nails Homepage & Introduction


The suspicion that smoking tobacco caused damage to the user’s heart and lungs dates back centuries.  In 1604, King James I of Great Britain had remarked in his “Counterblaste to Tobacco” that smoking was “dangerous to the lungs.”  In 1867, George William Curtis, the editor of Harper’s Weekly, who himself had stopped smoking in the 1850s, wrote three commentaries warning of health hazards from using tobacco.

The first editorial, published in the February 2 issue, was simply entitled “Tobacco.”  In it, Curtis argued against the evidence and logic of those who claimed that tobacco use neither lessened longevity nor undermined health.  The introduction of tobacco into the human body resulted, he said, in a tolerance allowing increased use and, thus, greater absorption of its poisonous substances.  The editor asserted that there were enough medical cases to conclude, “that the very prevalent use of tobacco is among the prominent causes of ill-health and positive [i.e., manifest] disease.”  He identified the nervous system and digestion as the most obvious targets of the product’s negative effects.  Anticipating scientific studies in the late-twentieth century, Curtis observed that health could be regained in some cases when the tobacco habit was curtailed.  His example of a clergyman who quit smoking clearly presented the symptoms of addiction, withdrawal, and recovery.

In the second editorial on August 3, 1867, Curtis primarily discussed the “Capacity of the Human Lungs” by describing in some detail how they look and function.  But the moral appeared in the last paragraph, which began dramatically:  “No organs of our system are more abused.”  Among the sources of the harm, he prominently listed “the inhalation of tobacco smoke,” all of which “sweeps off unnumbered thousands who might have lived to threescore and ten.”

Into the early-twentieth century, many anti-tobacco advocates claimed that the habit resulted in a laundry list of maladies.  However, in his final editorial on the topic on September 14, 1867, Curtis demonstrated remarkable foresight by pinpointing what scientific studies a century later would identify as the three major health hazards of tobacco use:  cancer, lung disease, and heart disease.  In uncharacteristically pessimistic terms, he deplored the worldwide spread of the habit while “people die prematurely of palsy of the heart, cancerous stomach, and diseased lungs…”

An 1870 study by a Dr. Sigmund concluded that frequent smoking increased the likelihood and severity of maladies affecting the mouth, nose, and throat.  A news item in the June 5, 1875 issue of Harper’s Weekly informed readers that a Dr. Krauss found tobacco smoke to “contain a large quantity of carbonic oxide” [i.e., carbon monoxide].  He concluded that the poisonous gas was responsible for lung damage in smokers and sickness in first-time users.  Scientific studies in the late-twentieth century would find that the carbon monoxide produced in tobacco smoke restricts the blood’s ability to carry oxygen, which is needed by the body’s tissues.  In that way, the poisonous gas inhaled by smokers contributes to arterial disease and coronary heart disease.

In 1897, a Dr. Mendelssohn reported a 60% greater occurrence of respiratory disorders in smokers than nonsmokers, and a somewhat higher incidence in those who regularly inhaled from those smokers who did not.  During the 1930s-1950s, medical research associated smoking with lung cancer, bronchitis, emphysema, and coronary heart disease.  In 1964, the Report of the U.S. Surgeon General identified cigarette smoking as the leading cause of chronic bronchitis, and reported a statistical correlation between smoking and emphysema, as well as smoking and heart disease.  In 1984, the Report of the U.S. Surgeon General named cigarette smoking as a primary cause of chronic obstructive lung disease, and found that stopping the habit was beneficial.


Harper's Weekly References
1)  February 2, 1867, p. 67, c. 2-3
editorial (Curtis) “Tobacco,” in which it is stated, “the very prevalent use of tobacco is among the prominent causes of ill-health and positive [i.e., manifest] disease.”

2)  August 3, 1867, p. 483, c. 3
editorial (Curtis), “Capacity of the Human Lungs,” harmed by (among other things) smoking tobacco

3)  September 14, 1867, p. 579, c. 4
editorial (Curtis), “The Consumption of Tobacco,” deplores the worldwide spread of the habit, which causes “people [to] die prematurely of palsy of the heart, cancerous stomachs, and diseased lungs…”

4)  June 5, 1875, p. 463, c. 1
news item, carbon monoxide in smoking tobacco


Sources Consulted
“Effects of Lung Disease,” Discovery School.com lesson plan, http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/lungdisease/

“The Health Consequence of Smoking:  Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease,” 1984 Surgeon General’s Report, Philip Morris USA website, http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/DisplayPageWithTopicdd03.asp

Moyer, David, M.D., “The Tobacco Reference Guide,” http://new.globalink.org/tobacco/trg/Chapter15/table_of_contents.htm

  “The 1964 Report on Smoking and Health,” Reports of the Surgeon General, National Library of Medicine, sgreports.nlm.nih.gov/NN/Views/Exhibit/narrative/smoking.html or http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports.htm

“Smoking, The Heart & Circulation,” Fact Sheet No. 6, August 2002, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact06.html

 
 

Other sections found within "Dangers of Tobacco":
Addiction // Cancer // Lung and Heart Disease // Fatigue and Headache
Second-hand Smoke // Other Dangers >> Coffin Nails Homepage & Introduction


     
 

 
     
 

 
     
 

 

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