A survey of doctors' attitudes to smoking.

Many doctors who used to smoke cigarettes have, since the risks became known, stopped smoking and there is now a far smaller proportion of cigarette smokers among doctors than among the general public (R.C.P., 1962; Doll and Hill, 1964).This abstention from cigarette smoking should, on the evidence of the effects of cigarette smoking, have given these doctors the expectation of a longer and healthier life, but it is possible that it has deprived them of the benefits of smoking which many smokers claim.The Committee on Smoking and Air Pol- lution of the Royal College of Physicians, concerned about this balance of benefit and deprivation, asked us to enquire whether doctors who had stopped smoking thought that they had suffered any conse- quent inconveniences which might have outweighed the advantages.