Smoking and you (1963)

[Applause] wherever you are you'll see people smoking cigarettes you won't even notice it unless it's pointed out to you the habit of smoking is just a part of everyday life these people really believe that cigarettes means something to them [Music] the cigarette is a tube of paper filled with loosely packed chopped up tobacco which burns slowly given the proper draft in many ways it can be compared with a chimney when a chimney smokes badly it means that the fuel in the fire is only being partially burnt and all kinds of gases dirt and steam are spreading into the air no one would think of deliberately inhaling the Thick Smoke from this stack the soot and gas would soon choke one to death yet the cigarette is also a chimney and the pleasure it seems to give people hides a very real d it holds for the lungs the human lungs are a delicate mechanism and they can't be easily repaired if they get damaged on the inside of the breathing tubes are very small hairs which are like eyelashes and are in constant movement on these a layer of sticky substance called mucus forms which is constantly being moved up the breathing tube as if on a moving staircase in the normal way any small bits of dirt which enter the throat stick to this layer and are removed upwards this is the lung's defense against dirt the smoker however sucks in gas smoke and all kinds of dirt only a fraction of which is breathed out again the smoke inhaled temporary paralyzes the little hairs inside the throat so that there's no moving escalator to protect the lung against dirt smoke also irritates and causes more liquid mucus to form since it cannot be removed upwards it falls back into the lungs and if it stays there long there's a danger of it plugging up some of the smaller tubes infection grows in these warm places and a cuff on top of Trapped air works like bursting a paper bag if much of this goes on the the Damage Done becomes really dangerous the victim becomes permanently breathless and then ill a healthy lung looks like this a more or less regular fine mesh of tissues but much of the delicate structure of this lung has been destroyed by smoking a man with a lung like this is permanently breathless and often too ill to get about at all this man used to be a heavy smoker now he's a helpless invalid I just want you to step up and down on these steps Mr major as I tell you right come up up there quite gently that's right down the other side turn around two years ago this man could swim with his teenage son that's right but now he can't now would you like to sit down now is that about as much as you can do anymore no one has to tell his son not to [Applause] smoke this is a smoking machine which was specially invented to imitate the way of person smokes and to collect scientifically the tobacco smoke which goes into the body the of the mechanical smoker is a glass tube and the lungs a glass bottle and it smokes like six people in a [Applause] row every puff is counted after being given only a packet of 10 each their throats are stained with tar even this small amount can be taken away and analyzed and if the mechanical smoker goes on long enough you can soon fill jars with this cigarette tar a week a month a year 5 years of smoking 20 a day would fill these jars this enormous speaker would be filled up after 20 a day for 20 years of course not all this stays in the body but part of it does scientists examined this tar and found many complicated chemicals in it though smoking is not the only cause of lung cancer it is the major one and at least 16 of these chemicals are already known to produce cancer research is still going on to find out how these work in smokers it's taking a long time because one can't experiment on live people as a result of what scientists have discovered and doctors know it's difficult now to find a chess doctor in this country who is still smoking cigarettes and here's another reason imagine these two orange blocks as representing in tens of millions all the cigarettes smoked in 1910 here are the amounts which have been smoked since then up to 1960 compare this for the numbers of deaths from lung cancer during the same years they're in thousands but still going up and closely following the rising cigarette sales though not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer no one knows who will lung cancer is an increasing Menace why because people are encouraging it by smoking there's no mistake about this Mar cigarettes can kill and if they don't kill they can rot the lungs in this bottle does the lung of a man who was a moderate smoker till this great cancer grew in his lung and killed him if this man had known what cigarettes were going to do to his lung he wouldn't have smoked you do know when one is Young and feeling fit one thinks the body can look after itself even when one realizes that smoking can lead to chronic bronchitis or heart disease as well as lung cancer it's a habit which is very difficult to give up these boys and girls may think it's clever or grown up to be seen with a cigarette but they don't realize that for every day they smoke they could actually be shortening their own lives smoking in public may seem daring but it's hardly glamorous this side of smoking is never shown in advertising [Music] if you do smoke well stop it but it's much easier not to start than to stop don't think you can't stop I used to say that but then I saw the damage that cigarettes were doing to my patients and I stopped if you don't smoke you will save hundreds of wasted pounds and you'll stay fit now breathe deeply people with healthy lungs can really enjoy life but for people who are smokers it's a different story [Music] [Music] is a