I worked with an odd-duck kind of guy once who previously worked in a morgue as a supporting tech. He told me that when doing an autopsy, he could immediately tell a smoker by their lungs BUT that every picture of a so-called smokers lung on television, etc, was pure bullshit. He said that the lungs the anti-smokers showed you of a “smoker” were always of an advanced-diseased smoker’s lung. His claim was that a smokers lung was usually a bit less shiny and showed a few microscopic deposits of tar here and there but was just as pink and normal as a non-smokers.
What is the SD on lungs and what they look like in a regular smoker?
Second call on this one. I don’t have the time in my life to go view an autopsy but if someone can’t come through with the info then I will resort to solving this one myself.
The lungs shown in the pamphlets and on the commercials are of course the most advanced diseased ones they could find. However, a longtime smoker’s lungs are more than just “a bit less shiny”. They are definitely all black, spotted and gross. If you ever get the chance to see a “Bodies” exhibit or something like that, don’t pass it up. You’ll notice how about 95 percent of the cadavers were smokers and their lungs are MUCH different than the 3 or 4 pink ones on display.
This cadavers I’ve personally worked with were the same way. Two were nonsmokers and the rest were obviously smokers. There is a huge difference and not just a little spec here and there.
Not even half seriously, if a smoker’s lungs are pink, that’s probably due to the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke. As we learned from the movie Coma, you can kill a person with CO and it’s difficult to spot because the tissues will still be a normal-looking pink.
Speaking of, if anyone is in the Pittsburgh area, or near enough, come October, we’re having just that in October at the Carnegie Science Center.