Tobacco and Cancer: The First Clinical Report, 1761

Abstract

The early participants in the tobacco controversy, beginning in the late sixteenth century, did not associate the use of tobacco with the production of cancers, although they credited it with causing or curing nearly every other known disease. Dr. John Hill, of London, a physician, botanist and prolific writer, first suggested the relation in 1761. In Cautions against the Immoderate Use of Snuff, he reported six cases of "polypusses" related to excessive indulgence in tobacco in the form of snuff. One such "polypus" was described as a swelling in one nostril that was hard, black and adherent on a . . .