Obviously, the famous Surgeon General’s report came out in 1964, and that was when we first started seeing widespread anti-smoking campaigns. No doubt many people learned that smoking causes cancer only then.
However, I was just reading Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, which was published in 1920, and the character Guy Pollock casually mentioned that he’d surely get cancer one day soon if he didn’t quit smoking.
So, apparently, it was known or suspected by some people that smoking causes cancer as early as 1920. Perhaps long before that.
So, when was the link between smoking and cancer first posited and first widely publicized?
Doctors had argued the health effects of tobacco as far back as the 18th century. The first report in the medical literature to suggest a link between tobacco and lung cancer was published in 1912. The first formal studies showing a link were published in the late 20s.
Well, it’s not really cancer specific, but King James (the guy who sponsored the King James Version of the Bible), in 1604, thought that tobacco caused health problems:
I remember reading a collection of Sigmund Freud’s letters including one discussing his diagnosis of mouth/jaw cancer in the early 1920’s. He took it as an obvious matter of fact that his cigar smoking was the cause. Didn’t give up the habit though.
I’ve heard the one big factor was World War I. Soldiers were given free cigarettes and this led to a significant increase in the amount they smoked (even after the free wartime supply stopped, most continued to smoke at their own expense). Doctors soon spotted that veterans had a significantly higher rate of lung cancer than the general population.
Sir Richard Doll is usually credited with being the first to scientifically establish a link between lung cancer and smoking back in 1950. He was so affected by the results of his research that he immediately stopped his own smoking habit.
According to the article it was previously discovered in Germany but no one knew about their work until recently.
It’s hard to be sure whether the OP is more interested in the “know” or “suspect” part of the thread title. It appears that they almost immediately suspected that it was bad for you, later they “knew” in the “everybody knows” sense, finally they proved it.
I have a copy of Medical Nursing, by Amy Frances Brown, copyrighted 1945 and 1952, reprinted June 1958. She quotes from “Lung Cancer and Smoking–What We Really Know” from The Atlantic Monthly, January 1956:
“The American Cancer Society…does not hold that smoking causes cancer of the lung. It does not propose to tell the public not to smoke. It does intend to equip the national conscience with the information by which it can make up its own mind fairly. If time should establish the innocence of tobacco, such a course will prove less blameworthy than failure to suggest caution to smokers and potential smokers of today…”
Again, not specific to lung cancer, but Mark Twain had breathing problems in his old age, and felt that his smoking was responsible. He died in 1910. Certainly people felt there was something not entirely wholesome about smoking – Ulysses Grant, known for his indulgence in cigar smoking, died of cancer of the tongue and throat.
Not a doctors’ report, but German author Karl May wrote in the late 19th/ early century that he had been a heavy smoker, but due to the urgings of his second wife about the effect on his health had given it up now*. So if a layperson picks up from general newspapers enough facts to take concern for health serious…
*except for ritual peace pipe - he fabricated blood brothership with Indians in the Wild West.
After smoking roughly a pack a day for ten years, I quit cold turkey back in 1959. I did this primarily because of seemingly constant media publicity about the dangers of smoking. A lot of this information, particularly in publications like “Reader’s Digest” was very descriptive and gory.
I sometimes amuse myself now with estimating just how much money I’ve saved over the years by kicking this particular habit.
BTW, when I quit you could buy Camels, in a few stores just outside of St. Louis, for $2.50 a carton. A quarter a pack. Somewhat higher now.
Its pretty bad when the American Cancer Society throws you under the Big Tobacco bus because it would be “less blameworthy” to have folks die of cancer than to be a bit on the cautious side till the whole smoking/cancer link evidence gets more firmly established.
Not surprising to me. Recently they have advocated older women need not get mammograms, nor older men bother with PSAs, as they will probably die of something else first.
As a two-time prostate cancer survivor, I am infuriated by this, as is my family doc. I now call them the American Pro-Cancer Society.
I think you are misreading the quote. Yes, they are very hesitant in condemning tobacco, but it seems to me, they do still suggest some caution in the matter of smoking tobacco and consider this mild suggestion of caution less blameworthy than not suggesting any caution regarding tobacco.
If smoking caused cancer 100% of the people who smoked would have it. It doesn’t even cause oral/respiratory cancer.
Smoking is a significant contributing factor in the development of oral/respiratory cancer. Until we understand how it’s cured, we will not fully understand how it develops. There are plenty of people who have never smoked who have developed cancer.
