1941-1950: List of Tobacco Articles by George Seldes
Rick has presented Seldes' tobacco writings in context at: http://www.brasscheck.com/seldes/tobac.html
List of Articles
January 13, 194 1, pp. 1-3, "Tobacco Shortens Life."
January 27, 1941, p.4, "Tobacco Shortens Life (Part 2)."
January 27, 1941, pp.3-4, "Big Money in Cigarets."
September 14, 1942, p.3, "Fake Cigaret Ads."
November 9, 1942, p.2, "Tobacco 500 to 1."
December 14, 1942, pp. 1-4, "Sending Poison to Our Armed Forces? The Suppressed Story of Tobacco Tobacco Does Shorten Life Tobacco Smoking and Longevity Nothing Can Be Said in Favor of Smoking.", "The Clinical Aspect of Tobacco Smoking."
March 29, 1943, p.4, "Smoke In Your Eyes."
May 24, 1943, p. 4, "Manpower for Tobacco, Not Food."
December 13, 1943, p.4, "For Camel Smokers."
January 1, 1945, p.2, "Cigarettes and The Press.
January 29, 1945, p.2, "Cigarets and Long Life."
February 12, 1945, p.3, "Columnist a Suicide."
November 26, 1945, p.4, "News Usually Suppressed."
December 2, 1946, p. 1, "Everybody Suppresses."
January 20, 1947, pp.3-4, "Suppressed: Cigarette Advertising is the Bunk."
July 28, 1947, pp. 1-4, "'Stop Cancer' Drive Suppresses Scientific News Linking Disease to Well-Advertised Cigarettes New Evidence on Tobacco."
August 4, 1947, pp.2-3, "Army Dr. on Tobacco."
September 8, 1947, p.3, "Smoking and Cancer."
November 10, 1947, pp. 1-4, "Suppressed News: FTC Brands Million Dollar Advertising Press & Air Campaigns False Only I Paper in U.S. Reviews a Book."
November 17, 1947, p.3, "Tobacco and Cancer."
February 2, 1948, pp. 1-3, "Radio Exposes Tobacco, Sacred Cow of the Press."
March 22, 1948, pp. 1-2, "U.S. To Force Europe to Take $911, 100, 000 in Tobacco, Only 2 Billion in Food in ERP Plan."
April 19, 1948, pp.2-3, "On the Credit Side."
April 26, 1948, pp. 1-3, Congress Debates Tobacco 3 Months; Press Omits News."
May 17, 1948, p.3, "State Dept. On Tobacco."
May 31, 1948, p.2, "Tobacco Story (Conc.)"
August 2, 1948, pp. 1-2, "AP Softens New Warning Linking Cancer to Cigarets."
January 3, 1949, p. 3, "1% Honor Roll."
March 14, 1949, p. 1, "Headlines."
October 24, 1949, p.2, "Cost of Cigarets."
November 14, 1949, pp. 1-4, "Most Papers Suppress, Some Important New Medical Report on Cigarets and Cancer."
August 7, 1950, "Tobacco & Cancer."
October 2, 1950, "Cancer and Tobacco News Suppressed."
Tobacco Shortens Life
In fact
Jan. 13, 1941
(No. 18) Vol. 11, No. 5
Smoking shortens life. Between the ages of 30 and 60, 61% more heavy smokers die than non-smokers. A human being's span of life is impaired in direct proportion to the amount of tobacco he uses, but the impairment among even light smokers is "measurable and significant"
The facts for the foregoing statements come from Johns Hopkins University, department of biology. They constitute one of the most important and incidentally one of the most sensational stories in recent American history, but there is not a newspaper or magazine in, America (outside scientific journals) which has published all the facts.
The mention by Secretary Ickes of the .suppression of this story resulted in one of the major scandals of American journalism. Many prominent newspapers which had suppressed the story published false statements and refused to print corrections.
Here are the facts.
"Make Users' Flesh Creep"
FOR generations there have been arguments about tobacco. Moralists preached against cigarets. Scientists differed. But in Feb 1938 Dr. Raymond Pearl, head biologist, Johns Hopkins, gave the New York Academy of Medicine the scientific result of a study of the life histories of some 7,000 Johns Hopkins cases which, for newspapers, should have constituted a story "to scare the life out of tobacco manufacturers and make the tobacco users' flesh creep," as Time commented (March 7 1938).
The Associated Press, United Press and special correspondents of New York papers heard Dr. Pearl tell the story. But a paragraph or two buried under less important matter, in one or two papers was all the great free press of America cared to make known to its readers, the consumers of 200,000,000,000 cigarets a year.
Science News Letter (March 12 1938 p. 163) had this to say:
"Scientists can tell you whether or not groups of men are marked for early death.
"They can do this while these men are still In good health, years before the first appearance of any signs of the disease that will eventually kill them.
"The studies which make this possible were reported publicly for the first time by Dr. Raymond Pearl. . . .
'Tobacco, smokers do not live as long as nonsmokers. This conclusion was based on life tables for the number, out of 100,000 non-smoking men, 100,000 moderate smokers (men) and 100 ,000 heavy smokers (men) who were still alive at each age level after 30 years. At age 60, for example, 66,564 of the 100.000 non-smokers were still living, 61,911 of the moderate smokers were living, and 46.226 of the 100,000 heavy smokers were still living. . . .
"The studies show that smoking is associated with a definite impairment of longevity. This Impairment in proportional to the habitual amount of tobacco usage by smoking, being great for heavy 100,000 heavy smokers (men) who were still alive at each age level after 30 years. At age 60, for example, 66,364 of the 100,000 non-smokers were still living, 61,911 of the moderate smokers were living, and 46,226 of the 100,000 heavy smokers were still living . . .
The studies show that smoking is associated with a definite impairment of longevity. This impairment is proportional to the habitual amount of tobacco usage by smoking, being great for heavy smokers and less for moderate smokers, but even in the latter, sufficient to be measurable and significant."
61% Excess Deaths
WRITING in La Follette's Progressive (no advertising taken) Francis A. Porter popularized Dr. Pearl's tables as follows:
Deaths from age 30 to 60 among:
per 100,000 per 100
1. Non-smokers 3,436 33
2. Moderate 38,089 38
3. Heavy 53,774 54
Percentage of excess deaths:
1. Moderate smokers 14 per cent
2. Heavy smokers 61 per cent
Alcohol versus Tobacco
WRITING on the subject of longevity in Scientific Monthly (May 1938) Dr. Pearl said of the use of alcohol:
"The problem of the effect of such usage upon longevity has excited violent and unreasoning prejudice on the part of large numbers of people. They contend that alcohol always and everywhere shortens the life of its users. There is much evidence, experimental, statistical and actuarial, that this is not a universally valid generalization." Dr. Pearl had previously studied the use of alcohol. He now concluded: "Moderate drinking does not significantly shorten life when compared with total abstention from alcohol, while heavy drinking does seriously diminish the length of life." This too would have been a big story for any newspaper which had the courage to publish anything about such matters.
Of tobacco, Dr. Pearl explains bow he picked his 7,000 cases, and concludes:
"These are not large numbers from an actuarial point of view, but are sufficient to be probably indicative of the trends that would be shown by more ample material. Naturally the men included in the observation were an unselected lot except as to their tobacco habits. That is to say they were taken at random and then sorted into categories relative to tobacco usage." The result of the study is summed up in Dr. Pearl's life and death table, which follows:
Death rate (1000 q.), at 5 year intervals, starting at age 30; % (a) non-users of tobacco; (b) moderate smokers who did not chew tobacco or take snuff; (c) heavy smokers who did not chew tobacco or take snuff.
Age Non-Users Moderate Smokers Heavy Smokers
30 8.18 7.86 16.89
35 8.78 9.63 21.27
40 10.01 11.89 23.91
45 12.04 14.80 25.69
50 15.16 18.61 27.49
65 19.82 23.67 30.09
60 26.73 30.49 34.29
65 36.88 39.83 41.20
70 51.69 52.84 52.72
75 73.02 71.28 72.33
80 103.22 97.95 100.44
85 142.78 136.50 139.48
90 197.49 190.23 193.68
95 273.2 265.1 268.9
"The net result is obvious. In this group of nearly 7,000 men, the smoking of tobacco was associated definitely with an impairment of life duration and the amount or degree of this impairment increased as the habitual amount of smoking increased. The contrast between the life tables relative to the implied effect upon longevity of moderate smoking on the one hand and the moderate use of alcoholic beverages on the other hand is very striking. The moderate smokers in this material are definitely shorter lived than the total abstainers from tobacco; the moderate drinkers are not significantly worse or better off in respect of longevity than the total abstainers from alcohol. Heavy indulgence in either tobacco or alcohol is associated with a very poor life table, but the life table for heavy smokers is definitely worse than that for heavy drinkers."
Other Scientific Evidence
IN 1927 the present editor of IN FACT, then representing the Chicago Tribune in Berlin, went to Prof. Dr. Johann Plesch, head of the medical school of the University of Berlin, for treatment of malaria. Dr. Plesch suggested cutting down on tobacco. He himself was not an anti-nicotine fanatic, but he was an authority; he had written a heavy tome on the subject. He named arsenic, prussic acid, other deadly poisons as present in tobacco, and laid down this law: inasmuch as all tobaccos contain poisons, the continued use of certain kinds of cigarets is dangerous. To escape danger to one's health, the tobacco user must continually change the kind of tobacco he uses, so that the minute amounts of poisons they contain may not affect him. This does not mean switching from Camels to Old Golds, from Chesterfields to Luckies, as these contain exactly the same tobaccos and same poisons; it means switching from American tobacco to Turkish or to Greek or South African.
This story was sent to the Chicago Tribune and its newspaper syndicate, but if any paper in America used it, it escaped the eye of the clipping bureaus.
Doctors still argue whether or not smoking is a cause of heart disease. Dr. Frederick Arthur Willius of the Mayo Clinic says it is. With two assistants he studied several thousand cases and concluded that there was three times as much heart disease among 569 smokers aged 40 to 59 as among that many nonsmokers.
Dr. Edwin E. Barksdale warns people allergic to arsenic to stop smoking. Farmers spray tobacco plants with arsenate of lead to kill horn worms and apparently there is no way to remove the poison from the leaves.
Radio Also Suppresses
SOME years ago Lucky Strike's slogan was "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet," an appeal to women who wanted to reduce. Authorized by the New York medical association, Dr. Benjamin JabIons prepared a speech in which appeared the lines: "Excessive use of tobacco to kill the appetite is a double-edged sword, for nicotine poisoning and starvation both leave dire results in their train." This statement was censored by the radio stations and press.
How to Save Your Life
MEDICAL authorities differ as to what constitutes heavy, medium and light smoking. Readers should consult their doctors. It is now scientifically established that smoking involves taking into the system not only nicotine and arsenic, but ammonia, pyridine and pyridine derivatives, cyanides and sulpho-cyanides. One authority holds that "it is not the nicotine . . . but something much more subtle or poisonous that causes the unfortunate results. Whatever it is, and this is as yet unknown, it is contained in the protein which results from the burning of the cigarets." (Commonweal April 9 1937.)
Most doctors believe that 40 cigarets a day mean heavy smoking, but the most important disclosure by Dr. Pearl was that even light smoking shortens life.
TOBACCO SHORTENS LIFE (Part 2)
In fact
Jan. 27, 1941, p. 3-4
No publication in America, outside of scientific journals, told the whole story of how tobacco shortens human life, as detailed in the last issue of IN FACT. (In brief: Dr. Pearl, biologist at Johns Hopkins, published documented findings from 7,000 cases proving that between the ages of 30 and 60, 61% more heavy smokers die than non-smokers, and that the impairment to longevity among light smokers is "measurable and significant.")
In New York the Herald Tribune, Sun, News, Mirror, Post, and Journal-American suppressed this story, although the Associated Press, United Press and Hearst's International News sent it out, and although science reporters turned in stories. The Times and World-Telegram buried a few lines, omitting Pearl's frightening death tables.
Then, after having suppressed the story, the same newspapers attacked Sec'y of the Interior Ickes because he intimated that "the press" suppressed the story without qualifying his statement by adding that a mere 98 or 99% of the press suppressed it.
Here follows the evidence of the venality of the press as regards tobacco--an industry which pays the press $50,000,000 a year.
Venal Metropolitan Press
The American press bears other grudges against Ickes, who is the hatchet man of the Administration when it comes to newspapers. Editors and publishers let loose a terrific campaign in which not one of Mr. Ickes' main arguments was answered.
The Herald Tribune's editorial, headed "Mr. Ickes Stumbles," said that "he was guilty of more misstatements and misrepresentations of fact than we have been led to expect from even a spokesman of the Administration." Mr. Ickes had also said that the HT refused an ad for Lords of the Press. Continued the HT editorial: "No advertisement of this book was ever refused by the Herald Tribune." This is a falsehood. Photostats of the proofsheets of the censored ad, set up by the HT, appeared in the labor press throughout the U.S.
The Federated Press, serving the labor press (which is not venal, and which gets precious little cigaret advertising) reported that the HT not only suppressed the tobacco story but claimed it never saw it. FP said: "Wilbur Forest, executive editor (said) his paper had been scooped on the tobacco story. Asked how an Associated Press member could be scooped on an AP story, he explained that the HT does not get the AP local service. This excuse was punctured by AP executives, who insisted that the story went not only to the HT but also to other NY papers that failed to print a line." Here is the private FP report of Jan 20 1938: "Talked with X of AP (he did not want his name used) and he put the finger on Forrest. After I got it straight that the HT did receive the story, I told X that they denied it. He stuck to his story, even called back to say that Howard Blakeslee, science editor, had personally covered the Pearl story."
Where Was Doctor Pearl?
Jan. 27, 1941 P.4
A large part of the controversy hinged on Dr. Pearl. In preparing the evidence, the present editor of IN FACT wrote Dr. Pearl, who replied:
"I may say that the newspaper coverage on my statement regarding the association between tobacco smoking and longevity was very widespread. Without taking the trouble to count them, for which I have not the time to spare, I should say that the point was amply and promptly reported in no less than 250 daily and weekly newspapers in this country."
Inasmuch as a search at the New York Public Library revealed that no San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati newspaper, or, in fact, any big newspaper besides the Washington Post, had covered the story, Dr. Pearl was asked to name two or three newspapers, outside of country dailies and country weeklies (which are not subsidized by tobacco advertising) which ran his story. He refused to answer.
There are 300 big daily papers in America, some 1,700 fairly big dailies and 18,000 weeklies. Apparently Dr. Pearl had 249 country paper clippings plus the Washington Post. Science Services, asked to looked through its files, found only the Washington Post story and the two buried references in New York.
But no sooner had Ickes mentioned Pearl than the AP rushed out a column story which the Times headlined: "Contradicts Ickes On Tobacco Story--Johns Hopkins Biologist Says Report . . . Was Widely Published.--'No Press Suppression."'
Since then several senators, librarians and others have asked for details from Johns Hopkins biology department. It has steadfastly refused to reply.
Medical Journal Confirmation
When Wm L Laurence, science writer, told Managing Editor Edwin L James of the Times (Mar 12 1939) that there was an interesting story on tobacco in the Journal of the American Medical Association, James, who has been very sensitive to charges of venality on the great American Thunderer, asked, "Does it confirm or deny what Seldes said against the Times?" Laurence replied it pretty well confirmed the Johns Hopkins findings. James was disappointed.
The Journal reported that studies at Northwestern showed that excessive cigaret smoking provokes vomiting and diarrhea, while in any particular person "the functioning of one of the bodily systems may be affected more than another." Experiments were made by Dr J G Schedorf and Prof A C Ivy. In patients suffering from gastro-intestinal complaints, some apparently deleterious effects of tobacco may be secondary to disturbances of the heart and blood vessels. Persons with marked changes in heart rate or blood pressure in response to smoking should be advised to stop as "these changes determine the deleterious effect of smoking on the heart and blood vessels," the physicians concluded.
Mr. Laurence then added to his story a summary of Pearl's findings, 28 lines, giving the facts which the Times had partially suppressed one year earlier. (Source: Mr. Laurence.)
Big Money in Cigarets
January 27, 1941, pp.3-4
Six cigaret companies grossed $200,000,000 in 1937 (SEC report). A combined profit after all charges of $83,000,000 that year was reported by the Census of American Listed Corporations (April 5 1939).
The major companies spent as high as $50,000,000 a year on advertising, notably:
Company Best Known Brand 1937 1939
Reynolds Camels $15,422,744 $9,296,470
Liggett & Myers Chesterfield 14822120 8926148
Lorillard Old Gold 9714286 1722663
American Tobacco Lucky Strike 7441 554 5002056
The newspapers, Editor & Publisher, Saturday Evening Post, all say that advertising has nothing to do with editorial policy. The facts are:
1. The cigaret companies spend up to $50,000,000 a year.
2. News inimical to tobacco is not published.
3. 99% of the American press suppresses government fraud orders against advertisers.
More Good News
January 27, 1941
MORE good news for Americans who want the truth despite the press: Consumers Union, which does for commodities what IN FACT does for news, announces a weekly newsletter about prices, goods, food; about government orders against crooked advertising; about what goods to buy and not to buy. One dollar a year; address 17 Union Square, NYC.
Fake Cigaret Ads
Sept. 14, 1942, P.3
YOU have been lied to for years. All that stuff about certain cigarets being better, milder, healthier, toasted, more expensively made, easier on your throat, filtering the smoke, less liable to stain, etc, are just advertising lies. The Federal Trade Commission in mid-August called the Philip Morris and Camel ads lies; Aug 31 it issued complaints 4826 and 4827 calling Pall Mall and Lucky Strike ads lies. The released story is 3 pages, singlespaced, but America's leading paper, NYTimes buried three paragraphs on it on a financial page. Its rival, conservative Herald Tribune, which makes no claims of "all the news that's fit to print," ran three times as much, in regular news columns.
NOTICE: When IN FACT began publishing it asked its readers if they wanted the whole factual documented but suppressed story of how Johns Hopkins University tested tobacco and found out the percentages of people killed by it. Five hundred postcards, some wityh 20 names, demanded that story. IN FACT has 6 times as many readers now; if you want this story reprinted, with new facts, send a postcard.
Tobacco: 500 to I
November 9, 1942 P. 2
AFTER more than 500 postcards arrived asking for the suppressed story about tobacco and hundreds of paragraphs in letters reaffirmed request, we stopped counting. Only one objection: "Damn the cigarets-full speed ahead against the Fascists. Good luck." We'll pring the story the first week pressure of timely news lets up.
2 Corrections
Upton Sinclair wrote for INFact's Newspaer Week issue: "The great commercial press of the USA remains what it has always been, the agent guardian and voice of great commercialism in our country. It will never change, except in its pretensions, while the profit system endures."
SENDING POISON TO OUR ARMED FORCES?
December 14, 1942
(No. 114) Vol. VI, No. 10
THE SUPPRESSED STORY OF TOBACCO
Scientific Facts to "Make Your Flesh Creep"
"War IS BOOMING THE TOBACCO BUSINESS," say recent press reports; no less than 20,000,000,000 (twenty billion) cigaretes are being made and smoked a month. Everyone who has a friend or relative in the army, navy, marines and airforce is urged to send him cigarets. United Auto Workers (CIO) at Allis Chalmers is popularizing "Keep 'Em Smoking" with "Keep 'Em Flying." Peoria unionists (AFL) collect cartons at the Labor Temple for soldiers. Overseas League Tobacco Fund collects for British, Free French, others. Press and radio urge you to remember the fighters against Fascism by sending them tobacco.
But the American press and radio--at least 99.99% of it--have suppressed the facts, scientifically established, that the more tobacco a person uses the earlier he dies. Tobacco impairs the health of all users, moderate and heavy. At certain ages 61% more heavy users of tobacco die than nonusers. But the tobacco companies spend fortunes--four (Camels, Lucky Strikes, Chesterfields and Old Golds) spend $50,000,000 annually -- to keep the American public in ignorance.
The story is sensational. It must be said here that the term sensational is generally used against a newspaper, to characterize it as yellow, biased, unfair , given to overplaying news. But sensational news can be news really worth playing up, such as, for example, the discovery of the electric light, or the U S landing in Africa. These were sensational news items which no paper need be ashamed for headlining, whereas the Hearst press and the NYD News, which played up the Errol Flynn rape case for almost as much space as the Rommel defeat, were illustrating the sensationalism of yellow journalism.
Certainly -- and we leave this to 18,000 Newspaper Guild members to confirm -- the first scientific, documented report from the head of the biology dep't of Johns Hopkins listing tobacco first as impairing life, as causing users, of whom there are tens of millions in America alone, to die earlier than non-users, was a first-class story, a big story, and in a scientific way a sensational story, and worth the front page of any paper (not corrupted by cigaret advertising). But to this day the story is suppressed in 99% of our commercial newspaper and magazine press, and if used at all in the other1% (which is doubtful) it is buried or played down so effectively that not one-tenth of one per cent of America's newspaper readers have ever heard of it.
Managing Editor James objects to IN FACT's including America's most powerful paper, NYTimes, among suppressors. He sends 4 photostats. Here is the record: Pearl announced findings to NY Academy of Medicine Feb 24, 1938. Times had 12 1/2 inches under heading "SCIENCE FORETELLS HUMAN LIFE SPAN," with less than 2 inches on tobacco in middle. However, after non-commercial weeklies had played up story, Times did run 10 1/2 inch story April 16 under heading "TOBACCO CALLED A LIFE SHORTENER." But, Jan 14 1939 it ran 10 1/2 inch story headed "CONTRADICTS ICKES ON TOBACCO STORY," quoting Pearl saying papers had not suppressed his story. Pearl had 250 clippings. It was impossible to list the names of more than 2 city papers among them; the other clippings were from what Pearl admitted were largely "crossroads" papers. When the Times received a statistical table showing 99% or more suppression, including 6 out of 8 NYC papers, and burial in other 2, it refused to print correction. Mr. Ickes later proved that it was impossible for him to get the facts straightened out in the entire press, most of which had smeared him for saying it was venal. On Nov 19 1940 Times ran 1/2-col editorial praising Pearl, but only mention of tobacco was one line, "the effects of alcohol and tobacco on longevity." And no other paper in America printed as much as the Times did, and the record is still about 99.99% suppression of the story which follows.
Tobacco Does Shorten Life
The story which the American press will never mention is the scientific truth that tobacco impairs the life span. People who smoke more than a pack of cigarets a day not only die sooner than non-smokers, but throughout their lifetime, from age 30, they make themselves much more liable to all the ills to which flesh is heir, than non-smokers; and even mild smokers impair their lives to an extent which, according to Johns Hopkins "is measurable and significant."
This is the story which Time magazine said was enough "to scare the life out of tobacco manufacturers and make the tobacco users' flesh creep," but the Associated Press and United Press (Roy Howard's) correspondents either suppressed it or buried it.
Worse than that, when Secretary of the Interior Ickes off-handedly mentioned the suppression of this story (facts furnished by editor of IN FACT) the very newspapers which had suppressed it accused him of error, and when the facts were sent Associated Press, NYTimes, Columnist Pegler, Saturday Evening Post, and numerous papers throughout the country, all of which had either suppressed the story or attacked Ickes on false information, they refused to publish the scientific facts as supplied by IN FACT's editor.
The tobacco advertisers share with peacetime automobile advertisers first place in spending money in newspapers and magazines. This is without doubt the reason the press suppressed the story. The press is therefore part of a system spreading poison throughout America.
The story proves scientifically that between the ages 30 and 60 no less than 61% more heavy smokers die than nonsmokers Here is a table written from the tables prepared at Johns Hopkins by Dr Raymond Pearl (which will be found in the following article written by him):
Deaths from age 30 to 60 among per 100,000 per 100
Non-smokers 33,436 33
Moderate smokers 38,089 38
Heavy smokers 53,774 54
Percentage of excess deaths:
Moderate smokers 14%
Heavy smokers 61%
According to Science News Letter (March 12 1938, p 163) the important disclosure made by Dr Pearl, and suppressed in America, is that "tobacco smokers do not live as long as non-smokers. This conclusion was based on life tables for the number, out of 100,000 non-smoking men, 100,000 moderate smokers (men) and 100,000 heavy smokers (men) who were still alive at each age level after 30 years."
Since IN FACT published its first story in 1941 considerable scientific documentation has been received confirming Dr Pearl. We present herewith parts of the Pearl document and the new material, for which we thank the doctors and scientists who are the authors.
Tobacco Smoking and Longevity
By RAYMOND PEARL
(Late head of Dep't of Biology, Johns Hopkins; reprinted from Science and Scientific Monthly.)
IN the customary way of life man has long been habituated to the routine usage of various substances and materials that are not physiologically necessary to his continued existence. Tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, opium and the betel nut are statistically among the more conspicuous examples of such materials. If all six are included together as a group it is probably safe to say that well over 90% of all adult human beings habitually make use of one or more of the component materials included in the group. All of them contain substances of considerable pharmacologic potency.... The purpose of this paper is to report a part of the results of an investigation of the influence of tobacco upon human longevity. . . . The material was drawn from the Family History Records of this laboratory. It is composed of data collected at first hand and ad hoc. The accuracy of the data as to the relative degree of habitual usage of tobacco and as to the ages of the living at risk, and of the dead at death can be guaranteed. . . .
TABLE I
The Death Rate (1,000 q.) and Survivorship (I.) Functions, at Five-year Intervals, Starting at Age 30, of (a) Non-users of Tobacco; (b) Moderate Smokers Who Did Not Chew Tobacco or Take Snuff; (c) Heavy Smokers Who Did Not Chew Tobacco or Take Snuff. White Males.
Age Non-users Moderate smokers Heavy smokers
1.000 qx Ix 1.000 qx