Doctors and Smoking
You know you’re reading an old comic when the doctors are all sitting around smoking:
scene from Doctor Tom Brent, Young Intern #1 (Charlton, 1963)
To be fair, the comic was published a year before the Surgeon General’s report first condemning cigarettes came out, and three years before warning labels were added to cigarette packs.
Of course, it wasn’t just comic books that depicted doctors smoking, cigarette ads did too:
click on the image for the full-sized ad
For those of you wondering how many doctors smoked in the past compared to how many smoke now, I don’t have a good answer for you. The best I have is a short paper that takes a look at smoking rates among Rhode Island physicians from 1963-1983. It is over twenty years out of date, so I suspect the numbers have fallen even more, but I think it gives a good idea of the trend. Here’s one of the charts from that paper.
February 19th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I also once met a veteran cardiac (male) nurse who weighted about 300# and smoked like a fiend. Of all people…
Last weekend I watched the 1940 film “Dive Bomber” and man, the doctors smoked constantly (Well, everyone did).
What got me, though, was when the doctor played by Errol Flynn and the chief surgeon walked out of an unsuccessful surgery. As soon as they shed their soiled gowns, they lit up. Seconds after surgery.
February 19th, 2010 at 10:16 am
On a related note, I really like the ironic, only-funny-in-retrospect scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still where the doctors are discussing Klaatu’s health:
DOCTOR 1: How old do you think he is?
DOCTOR 2: Oh, I’d say 35, 38
DOCTOR 1: [shakes head] He told me this morning, when I was examining him. He’s 78.
DOCTOR 2: Well I don’t believe it!
DOCTOR 1: Life expectancy’s 130!
DOCTOR 2: Well how does he explain that?
DOCTOR 1: Says their medicine is that much more advanced. [Hands cigarette to DOCTOR 2.] He was very nice about it, but he made me feel like a third-class witch doctor.
[DOCTOR 1 and DOCTOR 2 light up and begin smoking]
February 19th, 2010 at 10:57 am
For more of people smoking non-sequitor, I highly recommend watching Mad Men. I also recommend it for being really interesting too. There are also several displays of late 50’s / early 60’s medicine displayed, so it may even prove fodder for columns
February 19th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Our family doctor, from the time I was a preschooler (early-mid 60’s) until I was age 30 or so, smoked like a chimney (drank like a fish, too, just so I can use more metaphors). I was friends with his sons, who were close to my age, and sometimes I’d go on trips with them- one memory I’ll always have is of the ashtray in their station wagon, which was always piled a good four inches high with ashes and butts. My dad was a heavy smoker too, but Dr. Hill smoked…rings?…around him!
It was just accepted back then. That said, I don’t recall him smoking when he’d examine me, just in the office when I’d stop by to get my prescription. How things have changed!
February 19th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
But wasn’t there plenty of anecdotal evidence that smoking wasn’t all that healthy, even before 1964? I mean, they didn’t call ‘em “coffin nails” for nothin’.
February 19th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Official Comment
Roger,
You’re correct. European countries had starting posting warnings and reports against cigarettes several years prior.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
I wouldn’t trust the two doctors from that comic anyway. There’s just something sinister about the way they’re grinning.
March 7th, 2010 at 3:01 am
I knew a guy in college who wanted to go to medical school. He smoked so much that all the bio professors sat him down and talked to him about it. His response was, “If I don’t smoke I’ll be too stressed out to handle med school.”
March 9th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Were the Rhode Island statistics based on simply asking the doctors whether they smoke? These days, I don’t think a doctor would want to admit it to a stranger.
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