A Hundred Year’s War – Against Nicotine

Despite the high-tech hoopla, treatments to defeat nicotine addiction go back at least a century. This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health. The cover on the Journal of the AMA once showed a color poster by the American artist Maxfield Parrish. Printed about a hundred years ago, the poster promotes No-to-Bac, and it’s actually an ad. No-to-Bac was a product to kill the “tobacco habit” and was “sold and guaranteed by all druggists.” The symbol of No-to-Bac was a warrior, complete with shield and sword, standing over a felled figure whose own shield reads “nicotine.”

Reminder of a bygone era? Hardly. Today’s surge continues on TV, radio and print for patches and chemical gums, which release nicotine into the body to ease a smoker’s dependence on nicotine. And yet even this concept is not new. The Sears Roebuck catalog for 1897 advertised a product to be chewed like gum as a “sure cure for the tobacco habit.” In fact, Sears’ “sure cure” promised to chase nicotine from the system, make weak men strong, the old feel young again, and the impotent gain weight and vigor. Dealing with the nicotine urge: a hundred years’ battle against smoking addiction. For a copy of this script, please visit our web site, speakingofhealth.com. Speaking of Health, I’m Dr. Steven Andrew Davis for CBS News.