Book Description

This book was Henry Ford's personal attempt to thwart the public's growing love affair with cigarettes. It features a letter from Ford's friend, inventor Thomas Edison, which reads "Friend Ford, the injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed, is called "Acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes. Yours, Thomas A. Edison." Ford also references his discussions regarding cigarettes with the eminent naturalist John Burroughs. The entire pamphlet focuses on discouraging smoking in childhood. Mr. Ford compiled various other testimonials from famous persons giving their opinions on the evils of cigarettes, as well as the rebuttals from Percival I. Hill, President of the American Tobacco Company. It also excerpts an interesting Detroit newspaper article from March 20th, 1916 which describes a man committed to an insane asylum due to insanity caused by smoking cigarettes; "One hundred cigarettes a day were too much for Frank Winters, aged 46 years, of this city. He was declared to have been mentally affected by excessive cigarette smoking in a certificate filed in the Probate court, Saturday Morning by Dr. M.A. LaytonSome interesting chapter titles in the Table of Contents include: Some Scientific Facts, Non-Smokers More Efficient, The Brain Acts More Slowly, Mind Wrecked by Cigarettes, Cigarette Evil is Most Serious, Makes Slaves of Boys, Smokers in Football Tryout, Smoking Causes Lower Efficiency, What Dr. Wiley Has to Say, Undermines Success, Cigarette Injures Morally, The Cigarette as Related to Disease and Mortality, Cigarettes-Drink-Opium, What Mike Donovan Says, Worst of Tobacco is in Cigarettes, What A Noted Sport Writer Thinks, Tobacco Killed A Cat, And This is From the London Lancet, Connie Mack Speaks, Cigarette is One of Worst Habits, Hudson Maxim on the Cigarette, Makes Boys Soulless, Want Cigarettes More Than Liquor, Cigarettes Spoil Boys for His Business, Nonsmokers Given Preference, Puts the Ban on Cigarette Smokers, Cigarette "Fiends" Not Employed, Cigarettes Detrimental to Development, What A Merchant Prince Says, No Cigarette Smokers Employed, One of the Most Baneful Influences to Combat, Clarke Griffith's Ultimatum, What Ty Cobb Thinks of Cigarettes, Seventy-Five Per Cent of Drink Due to Tobacco, No Slavers for These Fighting Men, and How Cigarettes Affect Boys' School Activities.