Tobacco Documents Online

The appearance of an article in the NEW ENGIAND Jt7URNAL OF NEDICINE in which ;a story in the NEW YORK HERAhD TRIBUNE, The TRIBLTNE the following day ran a -Dr. Henry Satterlee propounding his theories on arsenic became the basis for TIl3C coI>anent. NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE .'New York, New York October 7, 1960 Imagine the fear that swept through the British Isles in November, 1900, when 6,000 millhands and coal miners of the Manchester-Salford-Liver- pooll districts came down with arsenic poisoning from drinking adulterated beer. Beer was known then-as It still is-as the "backbone" of Great Britain. A New-York Tribune correspondent in Lon- don wrote of the arsenic-poi- aoning scare: "The workingman aow empties his pewter pint with more or less fear and trembling. Seventy died in the epidemic: " At that time, few in the U. S. read the reports wit4 more care than a young hospital intern open nres, absorbing arsenic. The leaves also absorb arsenic from pesticides. . It took a Royal Commission, appointed by King Edward VII and headed by the famous physicist, Lord Kelvin, to come up with the findinQs. In doingr so, the commission developed a method for determining the amount of volatile (gaseous) arsenic given off by the fires.. The method, Dr. Satterlee wrote in the current "New Eng- land Journal of Medicine" out yesterday, has since been for- gotten by researchers. Dr. Sat- terlee wrote researchers have been ignoring arsenic as a NEW YORK HERAIJD TRIBUNE New York„ New York =A3 October 8, 1960 ' ~i 4 « 3r! ; r. , Refutes Arsenic In Tobacco Link To Lung Cancer Dr. Robert C. Iiockett, aseo- ciate scientific director of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, took issue yesterday with the reported suggestion that arsenic in tobacco may be linked to lung cancer. . - Dr. Henry S. Satterlee, of Newport. N. H., had reviewed the arsPnic-lung cancer situa- tion~ in an article in the current "New England Medical Jour- nal," one of the leading scien- tific journals in the country. In his review, Dr. Satterlee said he is convinced there is a link between the arsenic In cigarettes and the appearance of lung cancer. Dr. Hockett com:nented: "The research into this sub- jeet has Included: analyses of tobacco smoke,,the soil in which the tobacco Is grown, tests of smokers and non-smokers to determine the difference in ar- senic absorption and inhalation tests with animals. "All of these have failed to show any evidence that arsenic in tobacco has anything to do with .lung cancer." He also said that "Dr. Sat- terlee cites no contrary researr" and has done no recent re-earch •n this that we know of." smoke (tobacco and industrial) Industriai interest's and the pollutant because they have no government, which receives good way of ineasurinir 1ts: large revenues from cigarette from New Hampshire named Dr. presence In Its gasedus form. taxes, of refusing to face up Henry S. Satterlee. Yesterday He suggests that researchers to the smokirig-cancer relation- . ernment to look into public structive solution to the prob- health menaces. Iem. Dr. Satterlee's interest. In Investigators found that ar- By contrast, it Is depressing cancer is an outgrowth of hiss senic was finding its way into to contemplate earlier interest In arsqnic poi- _ present-day soningarhich induces shingles, the British brew two ways- 'inertia in the smoking-cancer a disease of the nerves. He has ;through glucose, a cheap sugar problem, frustrated In a tangle published five papers on arsenic used as a substitute of the more of controversy and mixed moti- in tobacco. Thirty years ago expensive malt, and through vation, without prospect of he began a study of vacuum curing the barley and hops over authoritative organization and cleaner dust for arsenic con- open malting fires. The coke co-ordination of action that Its tent. He found arsenic In used In the,fires gave off large solution demands.': . cigarette butts and ashes and concentrations of arsenic. To- Over the phone, Dr. Satterlee then went on to measure arsenic bacco, today, like the British accused tobacco product manu- content in various brands of barley of 1900, is cured over facturers, other commercial and cigarettes. Dr. Satterlee, now eighty-six carefully at the sixty-year-old ship, and retired from general prac- British method. Dr. Satterlee spends his timA tice in Newport, N. H., pointed Perhaps more important', but ~ retirement looking into out in a telephone interview of a philosophic rather than a arsenic as a cancer-causing 'two lessons learned from the scientific nature, Dr. Satterlee agent In cigarette smoking. He 1900 beer-poisoning epidemic, suggests another lesson to be is convinced there is a lin~,i of int'erest to researchers study- learned from the beer poison- In 1951, he, iound American ing the relationship between ing epidemic. In his words: c3garette smoking. air pollution "In 1960 it Is sobering and cigarettes contained forty times and lung cancer In 1960. edifying to reflect that a na- more arsenic than cigarettes Scientific Lesson tional challenge to British pub- He made cites from studies Oriental tobaccos. One lesson Is scientific and lic-health administration wgs showing that smokers of American cigarettes concerns arsenic as a cancer capable of evoking a competent are more likely to suffer lung cause. The other is philosophic and well-organized inquest that cancer than Oriental cigarette and concerns the duty of gov- promptly discovered ... a con- smokers