Role of Tobacco Smoking in the Causation of Chronic Respiratory Disease

IN a study of chronic respiratory disease recently undertaken by us in the city of Berlin, New Hampshire,1 the prevalence of various forms of respiratory disease according to age, sex, current tobacco-smoking habits and lifetime cigarette consumption was determined. A questionnaire was administered in conjunction with simple tests of pulmonary ventilation to a probability sample of Berlin residents twenty-five to seventy-four years of age.This paper analyzes the relation between smoking and respiratory disease by examination of the extent of the increased rate of disease in smokers and the relation of disease to increasing use of cigarettes and lifetime exposure . . .