Smoking Risks of Different Tobaccos

The smoke of English cigarettes (flue-cured tobacco) greatly shortens the life of rats and damages the respiratory system, whereas that of the cigar (air-cured tobacco) is relatively harmless. This bears out two of the principal features in the 1971 Report of the Royal College of Physicians, which draws attention to the large number of premature deaths in cigarette smokers and the comparative safety of smoking cigars.