Tag: smoking
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What a newspaper advice columnist had to say about smoking…in 1691
Alan BlumKevin BaileyTuscaloosa, Alabama, United States London bookseller John Dunton (1659–1733) could be called the first newspaper advice columnist. In 1691 he and three polymath friends founded the Athenian Society, which began publishing a twice-weekly periodical to answer “all the most Nice and Curious questions Posed by the Ingenious”1 on a wide range of subjects, including politics, religion,…
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Tobacco in my time
Hugh Tunstall-PedoeDundee, Scotland Doll and Hill’s 1956 publication1 linking smoking with lung cancer had one quick result—others were delayed by years. My school biology class displayed a cigarette butt among the specimens in our classroom, labelled “Fagendia cancercausia”. A year later when being interviewed for a place at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, most of my…
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Nikolai Medtner: his forgotten melodies, music, and life
Michael YafiHouston, Texas, United States The music of Nikolai Medtner (1880 -1951) is among the most enigmatic of the piano repertoire. Medtner was an opinionated composer who admired Rachmaninoff and rejected all attempts at modernism in music. Rachmaninoff met Medtner in Russia and the two composers had a mutual admiration for one another. Rachmaninoff told…
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The history of polio and cigarettes, and the need for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate
Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Depicted in this display (Picture 1) at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia are technologic marvels. The first is a box that contained early vials of Dr. Salk’s formalin inactive polio vaccine (with supplementary irradiation). The second is a matchbook, originally invented in the 1890s, that made another technologic marvel…
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Covid-19 and the mind: a short play
Catalina FlorescuHoboken, New Jersey, United States Characters: LOLA, late 40’s TORA, mid 40’s Setting: Two apartments in NYC. Imagine the dialogue happening in two balconies or, for a more absurd take, the same apartment divided by French doors. Time: During the historic plague of 2020. Notes on acting: These women are neighbors. They are also…
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On your doctor’s orders
Alexandria SzalanczyWinston-Salem, North Carolina, United States Long before physicians faced a nation crippled by an opioid crisis, their predecessors lived and worked in a nation dominated by cigarettes. By 1953, 47% of Americans smoked cigarettes, including half of all physicians.1 These physician smokers were particularly instrumental to the rise of the cigarette in America. Beginning…
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George Orwell and the ethics of dealing in or dealing with cigarettes
Lynn T. KozlowskiBuffalo, NY, United States Early in World War II, George Orwell wrote the essay “England, my England,” commenting that as he was writing “highly civilized human beings” were flying overhead trying to kill him: They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are ‘only doing…