How Did People Make The Link Between Lung Cancer And Smoking?

Tobacco was discovered centuries ago and ancient peoples have always smoked it. However, it only became really popular with the general population around the time of the First World War – many men smoked in the trenches. Then it really took off and most women were smoking as much as men by the Second World War in the 1940s. By 1954, almost 80 per cent of adults in the UK smoked.

Some doctors noticed that strange things were happening from about the 1930s. Then, nobody suspected that smoking was dangerous. Richard Doll, a doctor interested in lung cancer though tar on the roads might be the problem. He interviewed lots of people who had lung cancer and, through careful research, he realised that what they mostly had in common was that they smoked.

We now know that tar in cigarettes, and many other chemicals in the smoke, cause cancerous changes in lung cells, causing this devastating disease.

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The smoke that is produced by cigarette and asbestos dust has frequently been reported to have produced cancer of lungs. Cancer is very dangerous and fatal disease, which results from the disordered and uncontrolled cell division. The tar of the cigarette smoke has been reported to be the cause cancer production.

This chemical can damage the cells of internal epithelium of lungs and air tubes. This can produce cancer in the epithelium lining the air passages, which can lead to thickening of their walls, ultimately blocking them. Small tumors can be destroyed by the white blood cells but when a tumor increases in its size it can spread by way of blood to other parts of the body.

The early stages of cancer produce no symptoms, hence it goes on growing unnoticed till it has completely spread and at this stage it is no more curable and becomes fatal. Lungs cancer is very painful and dangerous. Its intensity usually has a correlation with the quantity of tar inhaled which in turn is related with the frequency of smoking. It has been found that smoking for 25 years with 20 cigarettes a day can produce lung cancer in the smokers. When the lungs of regular smokers were examined and compared with the lungs of non smokers of the same age and sex, it was found that the smokers had developed lung cancer.

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