[This tape was transferred from a 16mm film original by Colorlab for the National Library of Medicine]
[March 2014 NLM call number HF 8100]
[Numbers count down.]
[A man lights up a cigarette in the middle of a busy street corner.]
[Smoking and You]
[Narrator:] The habit of smoking is just a part of everyday life.
[A couple of men are shown walking around puffing on cigarettes.]
[A teenage boy is shown smoking and then a man with a huge grin is smoking a cigarette having a conversation.]
[Narrator:] These people really believe that cigarettes mean something to them.
[Saxophone plays in the background as a few more smokers are shown.]
[Men and women of all ages, shapes, and sizes are shown smoking cigarettes.]
[Music peters out as man smoking a cigarette makes a disgusted face.]
[Narrator:] 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 danger it holds for the lungs.
[A man smokes his cigarette with a slight gasp for breath as he exhales the smoke.]
[Narrator:] 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.
[A diagram of the lungs is shown with the tiny hairs being blown back and forth.]
[Narrator:] On these, a layer of sticky substance called mucus falls.
Which is constantly being moved up the breathing tube as if on a moving staircase. In the normal way small bits of dirt which enters the throat
stick to this layer and are removed upwards. This is the lungs' defense against dirt.
[A larger diagram appears showing both lungs.]
[Narrator:] A smoker however, sucks in dust, smoke and all kinds of dirt.
[A man is shown smoking back-to-back cigarettes.]
[Narrator:] Only a fraction of which is breathed out again.
[The man exhales the smoke and makes another gasping sound.]
[Narrator:] The smoke inhaled temporarily paralyzes the little hairs inside the throat.
So that there is no moving escalator to protect the lung against dirt. Smoke also irritates and causes more liquid mucus to form.
[Mucus builds up on the side of the throat and in the lungs.]
[Narrator:] 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 cough on top of trapped air
works like bursting a paper bag.
[*Man coughs* -- the mucus has become trapped in his lungs.]
[Narrator:] If much of this goes on, the damage done becomes really dangerous. The victim becomes permanently breathless.
And then, ill.
[The lungs are shown with extreme damage all over due to cigarette smoke.]
[Narrator:] 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 damaged lung is shown in fine detail.]
[Narrator:] A man with a lung like this is permanently breathless.
And often too ill to get about at all.
[An elderly man is lying up in bed wheezing for breath.]
[Narrator:] This man use to be a heavy smoker. Now he's a helpless invalid.
[Man continues to gasp for air.]
[Doctor:] I just want you to step up and down on these steps Mr. Major, as I tell you.
Right. Come up, up there. Why can't you. That's right. Down the other side. Turn around.
[Mr. Major walks up a step and then down the other side where he turns around to do it all over again.]
[Narrator:] Two years ago this man could swim with his teenage son. But now he can't.
[Doctor:] Now would you like to sit down now?
[Mr. Major:] Sure.
[Doctor:] Is that about as much as you can do?
[Mr. Major:] *gasping for breath* That's all please I can't do anymore.
[Narrator:] No one has to tell his son not to smoke.
[A hand is shown lighting cigarettes attached to individual containers lined up in a row.]
[Narrator:] This is a smoking machine which was specially invented to imitate the way a person smokes.
And to collect scientifically the tobacco smoke which goes into the body.
[Cigarettes burn into the smoking machine; an inhaling sound is heard.]
[Narrator:] The throat of the mechanical smokers is a glass tube. And the lungs, a glass bottle. And it smokes like six people in a row.
Every puff is counted.
[The smoking machine counts every puff from each individual cigarette.]
[Narrator:] After being given only a packet of only ten each, their throats are stained with tar.
[The doctor lifts up the throats from the smoking machine to examine the tar buildup.]
[Narrator:] 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 cigarette tar.
[A jar full of hot tar is shown beside an ashtray filled with cigarette butts.]
[Narrator:] A week, a month, a year, five years of smoking twenty a day would fill these jars.
This enormous beaker would be filled after twenty a day for twenty years. Of course not all this stays in the body.
[Different size beakers appear one by on to show the amount of tar that builds up over time.]
[Narrator:] 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.
[Scientists examine the chemicals found in tar.]
[Narrator:] And at least sixteen 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.
[Doctor does a physical examination of a teenage boy.]
[Narrator:] As a result of what scientists have discovered and doctors know, it's difficult now to find a chest doctor this country who is still smoking cigarettes.
And here's another reason. Imagine these two orange blocks as representing tens of millions all the cigarettes smoked in 1910.
Here are the amounts which have been smoked since then up to 1960.
[Stacks of orange blocks appear behind a year to represent the number of cigarettes smoked.]
[Narrator:] Compare this to 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.
[Numerous black blocks line up in front of the orange blocks to represent the number of lung cancer related death of those years.
[Narrator:] Lung cancer is an increasing menace. Why? Becuase people are encouraging it by smoking.
[Doctor Two:] There's no mistake about this [?]. Cigarettes can kill and if they don't kill they can rot the lungs.
In this bottle is the lung of a man who was a moderate smoker 'til this great cancer grew in his lung and killed him.
[The doctor points to a damaged lung in a glass bottle.]
[Doctor Two:] If this man had known what cigarettes were going to do to his lung he wouldn't have smoked. You do know.
[Narrator:] When one is young and feeling fit one thinks the body can look after itself. Even when one realizes 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.
[A couple of young teenagers are shown casually smoking.]
[Narrator:] 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.
[More children casual smoke cigarettes throughout the day.]
[Narrator:] Smoking in public may seem daring but it's hardly glamorous.
[A group of women sit in their train car smoking and putting on make-up.]
[Narrator:] This side of smoking is never shown in advertising.
[A man leans over an object he appears to be repairing, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.]
[A man puts out his cigarette on the same plate his is eating his morning breakfast on.]
[A cigarette butt is left inside someone's tea.]
[Doctor Two:] If you do smoke, well, stop it. But it's much easier not to start then to stop.
Don't think you can't stop. I used to say that, but then I saw the damage 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.
[Doctor does a physical on a teenage boy again.]
[Doctor:] Now breathe deeply.
[*Boy breathes*]
[Narrator:] People with healthy lungs can really enjoy life.
[A man with healthy lungs goes swimming deep underwater.]
[A man plays a saxophone beautifully.]
[Two men play-fight underwater.]
[Narrator:] But for people who are smokers, it's a different story.
[A man is shown rolling a cigarette, and Mr. Majors is seen again, grimacing.]
[An image of damaged lung tissue and the man lying in bed gasping for air is shown to represent the life of smokers.]
[Man coughs from cigarette smoke and image of damaged lung in the glass bottle is shown.]
[The ashtray and jar of tar is shown filled to the top.]
[A Central Office of Information Film for Ministry of Health]
[Ministry of Education Scottish Home and Health and Education Departments]
[Scripted and Directed by Derrick Knight; Photography Michael Boultbee]
[Editor David Gladwell; Narrator Gerald Anderson]
[Produced by DERRICK KNIGHT AND PARTNERS LTD.]