Letter

Gary M. Williams

New York Medical College Department of Pathology Valhalla, NY 10595 williamsgm{at}pol.net

To the Editor:

To the scholarly short history of lung cancer by Witschi (2001), I wish to add a noteworthy addendum. In a detailed paper, "Cancer and Smoking Habits," published in 1931 in a volume in honor of James Ewing, Frederick L. Hoffman, who was with the Prudential Insurance Company, presents compelling statistical associations between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Moreover, he notes that "cigarette smoking ... would not be the only factor ... for there may possibly be a connection with gross air pollution of large cities as the result of motor cars." Hoffman goes on to conclude that "smoking habits unquestionably increase the liability to cancer of the mouth, the throat, the esophagus, the larynx and the lungs." These observations preceded and, regrettably, have been largely ignored by many prominent workers in the field, to their advantage. Incidentally, Hoffman also was one of the first to implicate nutrition in the etiology of cancer (Hoffman, 1937Go).

REFERENCES

Hoffman, F. L. (1931). Cancer and smoking habits. In Cancer, International Contribution to the Study of Cancer in Honor of James Ewing (F. E. Adair, Ed.), pp. 50–67. Lippincott, Philadelphia.

Hoffman, F. L. (1937). Cancer and Diet. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore.

Witschi, H. (2001). Profiles in Toxicology. A short history of lung cancer. Toxicol. Sci. 64, 4–6.[Free Full Text]





This Article
Extract
FREE Full Text (PDF)
Alert me when this article is cited
Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Email this article to a friend
Similar articles in this journal
Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Similar articles in PubMed
Alert me to new issues of the journal
Add to My Personal Archive
Download to citation manager
Disclaimer
Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Articles by Williams, G. M.
PubMed
PubMed Citation
Articles by Williams, G. M.