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Counterpoint: people back then saw people chain-smoke cigarettes all day long with no apparent ill effect.

• sammalloy 5y ago
  Not really true. The harm from tobacco has been known for centuries. Epidemiology didn’t mature enough as a science to provide good evidence for harm until the 1950s. > In 1602 an anonymous English author published an essay titled Worke of Chimney Sweepers (sic) which stated that illnesses often seen in chimney sweepers were caused by soot and that tobacco may have similar effects. This was one of the earliest known instances of smoking being linked to ill health. > In 1795 Sammuel Thomas von Soemmering of Maine (Germany) reported that he was becoming more aware of cancers of the lip in pipe smokers > In 1798 the US physician Benjamin Rush wrote on the medical dangers of tobacco
  • cnasc 5y ago
    You’ll have to forgive me for being skeptical that these 3 obscure sources that you needed a search engine to find were common knowledge among regular Joes in Massachusetts during the Great Depression
    • sammalloy 5y ago
      The dangers of tobacco were known centuries before the Great Depression. This is well known and has been covered extensively by historical works on the subject. Closer to home, within the twentieth century, Max MacLevy’s book "Tobacco Habit Easily Conquered” (1916) was well known, as was Louis L. Krauss’ "Tobacco Mysteries Exposed and Habit Conquered” (1917). Krauss lists the available evidence as to the known dangers of tobacco for almost 100 pages. This was in 1917. We also know that the public was exposed to much of the information in Krauss’ book. I haven’t even brought up the Germans. Any cursory review of the the history and harm of tobacco shows this is true. Your counterargument is just wrong, and given its latest iteration, has now devolved into no true Scotsman.