Smoking Cancer and Smoking kills

SMOKING AND CANCER

Smoking today stands indicted as a significant factor in many types of cancer, most notably cancer of the lung. Most researchers believe that there are multiple causes, rather than some single cause, for cancer. 

Many believe that certain human cancers will be proved to be due to viruses which already are known to produce some cancers in animals. No matter what the cause may be, the basic cancer process involves a change in DNA or RNA, chemicals that are part of the reproductive mechanism of cells.

As a result of the change, the cells no longer reproduce in orderly fashion but divide rapidly and, upon dividing, each cell may produce three or more new cells instead of the normal two. Whether a virus is the cause or chemical disturbances are involved, the effect is upon the cell reproductive system. 

And many contributory factors may open the way for cancer by disturbing the balance between viruses and cells or by upsetting chemical processes in cells. Thus, sun- light, soot, and other irritating substances are known to be factors in provoking skin cancer; radiation is known to be involved in leukemia; and cigarette smoke in lung cancer.

Lung cancer today is the leading cause of death from malignancy in the United States. Before World War I, 371 deaths in the United States were attributed to lung cancer. By 1940, there were 7,121; by 1950, 18,313; by 1960, 36,420; and recently the rate has reached 55,300 a year. The increase has been epidemic in its proportions. The association between smoking and lung cancer has been established by many studies. 

One of the largest involved a follow-up of more than one million men and women for a four year period. The study determined that the risk of dying from lung cancer for men aged 35 to 84 who smoke less than a pack a day is 6 times as great, and' for men smoking

Smoking more packs 16 times as great, as for nonsmokers. 

Smoking Causes - Cautions - problems

In the seventeenth century, there was even a book authored by a London physician on smoking, Panacea, or the Universal Medicine. The book dedicated a drop of tobacco juice in each ear to cure deafness, a leaf on the head to cure headache, a leaf on a tooth for toothache. And, in the form of ointments, powders, leaves or concoctions, tobacco was suggested as a cure for burns, wounds, cancers, sciatica, diseases of the liver, spleen and womb, worms, colic, warts, corns, and mad dog bites.

The smoking of tobacco in paper wrappers as small cigars or cigarettes began in Spain in the seventeenth century and gradually spread. But the really tremendous spurt in cigarette smoking came during World War 1 with free distribution of cigarettes to soldiers, followed not long after-ward by acceptance of cigarette smoking by women. Even a century ago, Dr.Oliver Wendell Holmes, author, poet, and distinguished physician and Harvard Medical School professor, was writing: "I think tobacco often does a great deal of harm to health.

 I myself gave it up many years ago. I think self-narcotization is a rather ignoble substitute for undisturbed self." Early in this century some reports began to appear in medical journals suggesting an apparent relationship between smoking and specific diseases. In 1927, Dr. F. E. Tylecote in England reported that in virtually every case of lung cancer he had seen or known about, the patient was a regular smoker. But striking evidence of the effects of smoking was yet to come.

THE MODERN INDICTMENT In 1938, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University published a study on smoking and length of life based on findings in 2,094 men who did not use tobacco, 2,814 moderate smokers, and 1,905 heavy smokers, Dr. Pearl concluded that smoking is unquestionably associated with a reduction in length of life. For example, between the years of 30 and 50, the chances of dying are 15 percent greater for a moderate and 98 percent greater for a heavy smoker than for a nonsmoker. 

By 1965, studies of mortality rates of smokers and nonsmokers had extensive enough for Dr. Luther Terry, then Surgeon General, to report that 240,000 men would die that year prematurely from diseases associated with cigarette smoking. About 138,000 of the premature deaths would be from diseases clearly associated with smoking, such as cancer of the lung, larynx, oral cavity, esophagus and bladder, as well as bronchitis, emphysema, and coronary heart disease. Another 102,000 deaths would result from diseases in which the relationship to cigarette smoking, while not so obvious, is nevertheless well indicated. These figures did not include women.