Asthma and Smoking: When Cigarettes Were Medicine

Criminalia

Shondaland Audio and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

In 1946, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launched an ad campaign with the slogan, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” Long before Camel cigarettes became the doctor-approved cigarette of choice, at least in advertising, people living with asthma were often instructed to inhale smoke to relieve their symptoms. And that advice was for asthmatic adults – and children. ‘Asthma cigarettes’, as they were called, and related products, weren’t packed full of tobacco, though many did include it; they were, essentially, psychotropic drugs from the nightshade family that people inhaled in hopes of finding respiratory relief. Let's take a look at what kinds of quack – and, to be honest, some not-so-quack – products for asthma before the invention of the modern inhaler.

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0:00.0	Summon your
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0:18.5	Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the I Heart Radio
0:24.1	app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop starting May 2nd.
0:30.3	Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shandaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
0:37.0	In
0:38.0	In 1946, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launched an ad campaign with the slogan,
0:48.5	quote, more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette. Long before
0:55.0	camel cigarettes became the doctor-approved cigarette of choice, at
0:58.6	least in advertising, people living with asthma were often instructed to inhale smoke to relieve their symptoms.
1:06.0	And that advice was for asthmatic adults and children.
1:10.2	And that is definitely not how asthma is treated today.
1:14.4	The popular asthma cigarette, as they were called, and related products weren't packed full
1:19.2	of tobacco, though many did include it.
1:22.2	They were essentially psychotropic drugs from the Nightshade
1:25.0	family that people inhaled in hopes of respiratory relief.
1:29.2	Let's go to a time in history, a rather long period of time it turns out when smoking was recommended to people as
1:36.7	young as six years old and we'll take a look at what kinds of quack and actually to be
1:41.1	honest some not so quack products for asthma that existed
	...

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