The great campaign against smoking especially cigarette smoking began you may have read, or you may remember, with alarming medical findings in the 1950s. But anti cigarette propaganda has a longer history. Cigarettes had not been invented, on this side of the Atlantic anyway, when King James 1st let off his famous diatribe against the new drug, tobacco, in the early 17th century. Closer to our times, there was a military campaign against the cigarette in these words:
"Non commissioned officers and men are cautioned against contracting the cigarette habit or smoking to excess.
"It is advisable to call attention to some of the evil results of this habit. Those who are inclined to indulge are exhorted to exercise self centred and moderation in cigarette smoking, or in deed, to give it up altogether, before it grows into a habit, and the smoker becomes a slave to it, and to adopt the more manly, cleaner, more economical, and absolutely innocuous clay pipes, the old established friend of the British soldier.
"The following are some of the results of cigarette smoking to excess: (1) Unsteady hands. (2) Loss of wind. (3) Affected heart. (4) Loss of appetite. (5) Bad for general Health. (6) Expensive. (7) Dirty form of smoking. (8) Injurious to sight. In fact, altogether detrimental to physical fitness, which should be the aim and ambition of every good soldier."
The source of this warning? Standing Orders, The Connaught Rangers 1921. Culled from The Irish Sword, Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland, Summer 1983. Did officers of The Connaught Rangers ever smoke the manly clay pipe?