Welcome to the tobacco chapter from the book How to Live (1915), by Prof. Irving Fisher, Ph.D., and Eugene Lyman Fisk, M.D. To go to the tobacco section "Table of Contents" immediately, click here.
In that era, medical science, emphasizing prevention, was conquering smallpox, plague, yellow fever, etc. Confidence was high that life-style diseases (e.g., those from tobacco) could soon be the next eliminated. Politicians and the media had cooperated in those prior disease conquests. There was cooperation in that era against tobacco, and states (Iowa, Tennessee, Michigan) were banning cigarette manufacture. More progress was expected. 'Prevention' was the keynote of the period; people expected it to continue. However, tobacco pushers had already conquered the media and politicians. People ceased to be meaningfully told tobacco effects. In 1915, a President, Wm. H. Taft, was endorsing pro-health action. Nowadays presidents, such as Truman, Bush, Reagan, take tobacco lobby money, and obstruct tobacco-prevention. How morals have deteriorated! The tobacco-effects concealment-process is called the "tobacco taboo." Other pertinent words are "censorship" and "disinformation." Here is the text by Prof. Irving Fisher, Ph.D. (1867-1947), and Eugene Lyman Fisk, M.D. of an early exposé (1915) of tobacco dangers. It cites facts you rarely ever see, due to the "tobacco taboo." The phrase "tobacco taboo" is the term for the pro-tobacco censorship policy—to not report most facts about tobacco. This information about tobacco hazards was being circulated in 1915, 49 years before the famous 1964 Surgeon General Report. Back then, with people's then substantially higher educational level, people understood statistics and prevention. They understood that prevention was different than making arrests! getting convictions!mass jailings! They understood instead that to prevent problems, for example, malaria, the solution was not mass jailings, but instead to take preventive measures, for example, to drain the swamps, thus eliminate mosquito breeding areas! Re the effects and evils caused by tobacco, many people then knew to (a) not criminalize the effects, (b) not focus on individual cases, but instead to (c) act on statistical norms, and (d) ban at the cause level! See examples of bans by Iowa, Tennessee, and Michigan. This site reprints only the tobacco material, pp 13, 82-83, 339-365, and 412-413; and some introductory material with pertinent context, pp v-27. For the full book, contact your local libary. |
How to Live
by
Prof. Irving Fisher, Ph.D.,
and
Eugene Lyman Fisk, M.D.
(New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co, 1915)
Table of Contents