Ciliastatic Action of Cigarette Smoke: Varying Exposure Times

Abstract

THE CILIASTATIC action of tobacco smoke has been described by several workers. Mendenhall and Shreeve (1937 and 1940) studied the effect of tobacco smoke on the cilia of calves' trachea in vitro. Hilding (1956) studied scrapings from ciliated epithelium in Ringer's solution. A tissue culture technique was used by Ballenger (1960). Dalhamn (1959) used living rats, and the ciliary beat frequency was measured by means of a high speed motion picture camera. In vivo studies were also performed by Guillerm et al (1961) who studied the epithelium of dog tracheas through a Plexiglas window. All the workers mentioned, together with several others, have reported a powerful ciliastatic effect of tobacco smoke. In recent years increasing attention has been devoted to studies of the difference in ciliastatic effect between various components of tobacco smoke and smoke from different types of cigarettes. Rakieten et al (1952) studied the effect of smoke of