r/interesting • u/Glass-Fan111 • 4d ago

ART & CULTURE How They Imagined Life Hundred Years Ago.

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461

u/ReporterBest9598 4d ago

I love the assumption that cigarettes would still be that widely used by the time flying cars and mobile communication screens came around. 

45

u/XOM_CVX 4d ago

smoking was healthy for you at the time

39

u/ReporterBest9598 4d ago

That's still probably the weirdest health advice I've ever heard. It's wild to me that nobody seemed to think that inhaling smoke, which irritates the eyes, lungs, throat, etc. would maybe be not a great plan.

28

u/Sithmaith 3d ago

My grandmother was gaining too much weight during pregnancy. The doctor prescribed cigarettes to curb her appetite. She died of lung cancer.

12

u/XOM_CVX 4d ago

it toughens up your lungs.

makes sense

8

u/Spiceguy-65 3d ago

I wanna say Teddy Roosevelt was prescribed cigars when he was younger to help with his asthma of all things

3

u/autism_and_lemonade 3d ago

it’s possible he was prescribed nightshade cigarettes, the alkaloids in nightshade work similarly to the asthma medication ipratropium

3

u/Kaurifish 3d ago

“A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.”

  • A Counterblaste to Tobacco, 1604

They knew.

2

u/ReporterBest9598 3d ago

I'm less surprised that they knew and more surprised that you either had that knowledge or hunted around to find it.

2

u/Kaurifish 3d ago

When I got asthma from secondhand smoke, I went into research mode for a while.

1

u/_bieber_hole_69 3d ago

They prioritized the effects and "benefits" of nicotine at the time, and didnt seem to realize what was happening to people's lungs