Smoke?; Audition tape

When Sir Walter Raleigh threw down his cloak so that her highness Queen Elizabeth might walk across a mud puddle without soiling her shoes she might have said to me wrong it stinks. But how high of tobacco really kingly Raleigh. Oh how horrible. Do you mind the mud. Step stately. The story of so Walter Raleigh the cloak the mud puddle and Queen Elizabeth is probably untrue but there is a point to be made from it. The point is the Times and customs and problems change ppl like people nowadays very seldom say it stinks up tobacco. We tend to say it smells but in those days in England to smell meant one thing to stink and something else or as Dr Johnson put it some years later when someone told him that he smelled no Sure. I think you see

very few of polite people nowadays would say it stinks up tobacco. Because the language has changed and because so many people smoke tobacco today smoking is more or less polite today. People who smoke tobacco very much lose their capacity to smell very well. They smell very little. In fact they don't smell well at all or as Queen Elizabeth might have put it. You. Know if it seems to us that all of this has very little to do with questions about cigarettes and lung cancer you are perfectly right. But it does have something to do with smoking and that's a good place to begin. Radio station WAGA the University of Wisconsin presents the pilot program for a projected series entitled smoke a series intended for use

in high schools and presenting information on Smoking and Health that may help young people make a rational decision about whether to smoke. Times change language changes customs and costumes and habits change even smoking habits change and so do the problems that go with it. For example consider Sir Walter Raleigh one of the first famous smokers of the European world. His rulers changed when Elizabeth died and James the first became King of England really wrong. You know I still think you finish it. I don't think I should view Pernice is that my back never lose we go back. I don't I mean you ever publish an cyan mind the mud then get that stinking

cloak out of my good clean mud. It's not going to do you any good to go throwing your clothes in the mud for me. I'd take mud and a day to go back. Tobacco culture was introduced into France in 15 56 Portugal in fifteen fifty eight Spain in fifteen fifty nine and England in 15 65. So Walter Raleigh was 13 years old at the time. Not far from the age at which most people nowadays decide to begin smoking however so Walter Raleigh didn't have to face up to the decision about smoking at the time because he was a pipe smoker and the pipe had not yet been introduced to Europe so Walter Raleigh had to wait to make his decision till he was 34. When Sir Walter Raleigh reached 34 the first governor of Virginia Ralph Lane

brought the piper to Europe and personally introduced Sir Walter Raleigh to pipes. In really Raleigh what's wrong. It's a little rough Don't you think. Rather like breathing gets your press spidering considerable rally. Perhaps you should stop for a moment. Not government does doesn't it doesn't smell. It is I remet. Oh dear oh you've reached the green stage old man. Whether or not they decided to smoke our just took it up without deciding anything is still a problem for history and not a point to be considered. Point is that by the time Sir Walter Raleigh took up his pipe only a few years after the introduction of tobacco culture to England there were already two

lines of thought concerning smoking. One was in his will. The other was it is right now both lines of thought sound quite familiar and quite modern and both need to be developed and expanded. If you were to understand the changes that have taken place since the early days of smoking. If their Walter Raleigh deliberately decided to take up smoking instead of just falling into the habit. Respectable medical opinion in his day might have led him to it. One of the most famous medical books of the period it was written by a gentleman named Robert Burton and appeared just two years after Riley died had this to say about tobacco. The back of the super excellent tobacco which goes far beyond all the panaceas potable golden philosophers stone and sovereign remedy to diseases.

That's quite a recommendation. And from a leading medical authority to the same medical book related some diseases to the positions of the stars and threw in some love stories as well as deeper medical lore. But it was one of the best for the day and would have helped shape the opinion of anyone who actually decided to take up smoking instead of falling into the habit by accident. And that was one line of thought. Smoking is good for what ails you. The second line of thought was best expressed by the most famous fighter against tobacco in his day. He wrote a book called counter blast to tobacco. He was none other than. King James the first of England there's filthy smoke sucked up by the nose. Do you take the wild godless and slavish Indians who use it as a stinking antidote against the

pox. Making one canker all vermin to eat up the other. Potent part of tobacco. The medical book said smoking is good for what ails you. A sovereign remedy to disease is the king said making one canker famine to eat out the other. Since it was the King who said that smoking was unhealthy most people could ignore his opinion and keep themselves healthy as the medical book recommended by smoking. Reading the love stories and keeping their stars in line. However for Sir Walter Raleigh smoking was a health problem. The King didn't like smoking and he didn't like Sir Walter Raleigh either. Now whether or not Sir Walter would have suffered ill health as a result of smoking we shall never know. It wasn't ill health that got him. It was the ill will of the king who had him executed and there ends the story of so Walter Raleigh. But the tale

of tobacco continues. It is wrong. It is right for more than three hundred long years. It is wrong. It is right. With some additions along the way it is wrong. It is evil. It is immoral. It will stunt your growth. It will make you old before your time. Besides it makes the curtains smell curtains can smell. Oh right it stinks. Well it is right. For several centuries most people could casually fall into the habit of smoking without deciding to at all. Most people who smoked in the Western world were men. Smoking was. It is right it is manly. It was not only manly it became at times a kind of a game. For example in Victorian England in a big country house mother yes son were his father.

He is in the West Wing in his study chair in thought. Don't bother him. But I must talk to him. Smoking was sometimes a little conspiracy against the lady of the house. A part of father and son chats in the study. Mother Margaret. Do you bother him. Oh no mother. But I found him where may I ask. In the West Wing. Yes in his study in the fireplace inhaling. What. Smoking again here. Wait a minute young man whopped is that it is a cigar. I forbid you to smoke. Father says I may I shall then you march right back and join him in the fireplace. I won't have that smell in my curtains stink dare you use that word in this house in that way. Go at once. Times change and customs to only a few years ago. It was on. The basis.

That. There had been a time when men actually had been known to lock the door and put their heads in the fireplace in order to smoke without leaving an odor in the curtains. But a short while later women too began to smoke. People just fell into smoking without giving it much thought it was fun it was rowdy dowdy. Men smoked women smoked. But children couldn't jump. Until recently the arguments remained about the same. It is wrong it is. Tomorrow it is even if it is alright it's on until fairly recently smoking was a more less difficult pastime until the invention of matches for example lighting a pipe was a problem. Pipes were more or less inconvenient in both cigars and pipe tobacco were comparatively expensive. But early in the 20th century cigarettes became popular.

They were easy to get. They were easy to handle and carry. They were cheap in 1015 American smoked about 18 million cigarettes in the early 1950s Americans were smoking more than 400 billion not million but billion cigarettes and then the arguments began to change for a good many years medical men have been asking patients with some diseases to stop smoking. More important no responsible person argues that smoking is good for what ails you. Even the people who sell cigarettes. The people who talk more and with more money than anyone else on the subject. Talk carefully like this all the cigarette is the mildest in the world. No cigarette is milder than ours. No one claims today that cigarettes are good for what ails you. No one claims that cigarettes are good for you. In fact listen to the voices of people selling cigarettes cigarettes. A really

claims that it does you less damage than cigarette B. My oldest not so irritating. Now suppose the makers of soft drinks argued like this drink bourbon bubbles. It's kinder to your tummy if other soft drinks give you that 0 0 0 rated lacerated tummy feeling switched to burble bubble. It's high in there. And then suppose the makers of soft drinks added filters to each bottle. Now it's just possible you might not simply fall into the habit of drinking soft drinks without thinking. And that's the point of this program. Back in Sir Walter Raleigh's day people could fall into the smoking habit without thinking. Medical books recommended sovereign remedy to disease. But times have changed in London recently. The City Medical Officer of Health posted these signs it is my duty to warn all cigarette smokers that there is now conclusive evidence that they are running a greater risk of contracting cancer than non smokers. The

risk mounts with the number of cigarettes smoked giving up smoking reduces the risk. It's worth thinking about. Footnote. Let it be known that this program has been most tentative. The peculiar nature of this series requires extensive research into newly developed content materials and equally important in two studies into proper approaches in bringing the material to high school students.