PRESERVING HISTORY
Lectures on the Evils of Tobacco : Dr . Charles Stephenson
BY : RAY HANLEY
As late as the 1950s , the American tobacco companies featured physicians in their advertising touting the benefits of cigarettes . The battle against tobacco in medicine only gradually began to ramp up in the early 1960s after the U . S . Surgeon General ’ s announcement of the health impacts . But more than 50 years before that , Dr . Charles Stephenson published an article in the August 1905 Monthly Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society to lecture his fellow physicians on not doing enough to rid themselves of the habit .
Dr . Stephenson was born during the Civil War in DeSoto County , Mississippi , in 1863 and relocated to Des Arc , Ark ., seven years later . In 1881 , he became a drug store clerk spurring his interest in medicine . He would graduate from the Kentucky School of Medicine in 1889 and practiced for a time in Stuttgart before opening his practice as an oculist , known today as an ophthalmologist , in Little Rock .
In addition to his practice , he served the Arkansas State School for the Blind , the Arkansas Deaf Mute Institute , and the Logan H . Roots Memorial City Hospital . At the time of his article in 1905 , he was the secretary of AMS and would later become the Society ’ s president .
He wrote , “ Doctor , with your permission , I will have a little heart-to-heart talk with you on what I believe to be a very important subject . In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and a recent issue of the Medical World , appeared articles on the use of tobacco and its physiological effects .” Dr . Stephenson expressed amazement that while this was discussed , “ neither one said one word of encouragement to the slave of the tobacco habit or gave one word of advice to cease the weed .”
Don ’ t wait until the first of the month ; don ’ t wait until the
Fourth of July ; don ’ t wait till Christmas ; don ’ t wait until the first of the year , or any other time to swear off . Throw away what you have on hand now , and quit , and stay quit .
patients face ? Is it right for you to come in contact with parties who do not use the weed and blow your breath into their faces ?”
Dr . Stephenson continued , “ To illustrate my point more fully ; In discussing the tobacco habit with a gentleman a few days ago , after bringing up to him a picture that I thought would impress his mind more forcibly , he said to me that he would rather suffer with poverty and sickness than to give up his tobacco .
“ Doctor , if you are a victim of the tobacco habit , let me implore you to quit . Don ’ t wait until the first of the month ; don ’ t wait until the Fourth of July ; don ’ t wait till Christmas ; don ’ t wait until the first of the year , or any other time to swear off . Throw away what you have on hand now , and quit , and stay quit ,” he wrote .
For reasons lost in history , Dr . Stephenson moved to Los Angeles in 1910 . He died in 1938 and was buried among the rich and famous in the Forest Lawn Cemetery at Glendale , Calif .
“ If you are a tobacco user , is it right for you to enter the room of your sick patient with your breath scented with smoke of a cigar , be it a Havana or “ two-fer ” ( likely meaning two for a nickel ), or a strong pipe , and consider it nothing to blow your breath onto the sick
A typical magazine ad for tobacco at the time Dr . Stephenson appealed to his colleagues in 1905 .
As a doctor decades ahead of his time warning of the dangers of tobacco , we know he would celebrate all the progress made against the deadly habit and would encourage us to do more . ■
WINTER 2023 | VOLUME 119 | NUMBER 3 95