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98
roscope and immunofluorescence for speedier and more accurate
diagnosis in the future.
However, the greatest single preventive measure with regard to
respiratory diseases is already in the hands of the public. It is for
health education authorities to convince people that abstinence
in terms of cigarette smoking, is not only to their advantage
financially but will also lead to a fuller, healthier life.
Following publication early in the year of Smoking and Health
Now, the Royal College of Physician's 2nd Report on smoking,
government action was confined to a voluntary agreement with
the tobacco industry that warning notices be displayed on cigarette packets and that this action should appear on press and
poster advertisements. Again with the industry's co-operation, a
Standing Scientific Liaison Committee was to be established whose
remit would be the investigation into less dangerous forms of
smoking and the desirability of publishing tar and nicotine yields
of branded cigarettes.
As with the original publication, this Report's impact was
fleeting and we now find the tobacco industry proudly advertising
its agreed warning in such a way as to suggest official support for
the sale of its products.
Opposition to smoking is receiving treatment similar to that
afforded to the proponents of pasteurisation some 40 years ago.
Although the facts are known, as yet, they are unaccepted
universally.
Unborn children are the first to suffer from this pernicious
habit which not only reduces the oxygen but increases the carbon
monoxide content of the mother's blood, thereby giving rise to
mental and physical stunting. Children born to women smokers
are, on average, ¼ lb. to ½ lb. lighter at birth and we now know
that the injurious effects upon the baby's brain could last for
years and, indeed, may be permanent. Educational advancement
in these circumstances is correspondingly retarded.
All physical effort is impaired by cigarette smoking. In the
young, where prowess and achievement is highly prized, it must
be said that smoking lowers capacity for strenuous physical
activity and reduces stamina. For instance it is estimated that, on
an average, it takes 5 secs, longer for the ordinary individual to
run 400 metres and 24 secs, extra to complete 1,500 metres after
he has been smoking for six months. Athletic training produces
less improvement in smokers than in non-smokers (6.6% compared with 10.6%).
Comes maturity and we find that acceleration of the disease
process corresponds closely to the rate of smoking and the age at