The first bather asks his companion, ‘Did you take your doctor's opinion before having a Turkish bath?' The second bather replies, ‘My dear fellow! Take the opinion of a man who told me to my face that tobacco was injurious?' For most of the 20th century, people did not expect or welcome the intrusion of doctors' advice into their lifestyle habits. When this illustration was produced, tobacco was culturally acceptable in the western world. In the United States, annual cigarette consumption rose from an average 49 per person in 1900 to 4318 in 1965. The first important medical paper proposing a link between smoking and lung cancer was written by a German doctor, FH Müller, and published in Germany in 1939. Adolf Hitler supported anti-smoking campaigns and tobacco was banned in the Luftwaffe.

Source: Punch 1913, vol 144, page 129.