{"id":8009,"date":"2015-11-19T11:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=8009"},"modified":"2022-07-12T08:06:40","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T12:06:40","slug":"smoking-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2015\/11\/19\/smoking-and-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoking and You"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Eilers<\/em><\/p>\n

Today is the 40th annual Great American Smokeout<\/a>. The first was held in California in 1976, and the American Cancer Society took it nationwide the next year. Smokers are encouraged to quit for just one day, which can seem much more manageable than quitting forever.<\/p>\n

With cigarettes on our mind, Circulating Now<\/em> looks at films in NLM\u2019s historical audiovisuals collection that examine the link between tobacco and lung disease. Much of the research that informs these titles well predates the U.S. Surgeon General’s 1964 Report on Smoking and Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Bar<\/a>
Smoking and You<\/a><\/em>, 1963<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rates of smoking and other tobacco use climbed markedly in the 20th century in the U.S. and beyond, peaking in the 1950s. Cigarettes were distributed to soldiers in wartime, tobacco companies recruited doctors to promote their products, and glamorous celebrities lit up. Americans adopted the habit.<\/p>\n

Yet one might wonder: how much did scientists and physicians know about the health-destroying effects of tobacco, and when did they know it?<\/p>\n

The answer is, quite a lot, and earlier than you may realize. Many sounded the alarm. According to a timeline published by Tobacco.org, in 1941 Drs. Alton Oschner and Michael DeBakey<\/a> published \u201cCarcinoma of the Lung<\/a>\u201d in the journal Archives of Surgery<\/em>. Says the timeline, \u201cThe article noted the parallel rise in smoking and lung cancer, concluding that the latter was due mostly to the former, and included a lengthy bibliography of sources from multiple countries.\u201d In response to the 1941 article, Edward Harlow, a chemist at the American Tobacco Company, circulated an internal memorandum mentioning that the tobacco industry was in need of some \u201cfriendly research\u201d to counteract such findings.<\/p>\n

In the 1954 film Tobacco and the Human Body<\/a><\/em>, the physiological effects of nicotine and other substances contained in tobacco and cigarettes are demonstrated in animated sequences, and with explicit animal experiments. A possible link between pollution and illness is also mentioned.<\/p>\n