| Summary: | An examination of recent literature on the subject of smoking shows that the growth in the volume of medical research into the conse quences of smoking (i. e. research designed to prove that smoking is hazardous to health) correlates with an increase in the amount of empirical social research on the smoker and the causes of smoking. It almost seems as if there is a causal relationship between the number of medical publications and the number of social investigations on this subject. Certainly, since the appearance of the Surgeon Gener al's Report on Smoking and Health in 1964 there has been a steady increase in the number of studies on the risks involved by smoking. In the meantime literally thousands of investigations have also been carried out on the causes of smoking behaviour. Probably no other section of society has been subjected to such meticulous examina tion. It is unlikely that any aspect of the smoker's life has escaped scrutiny - from their blood group to the girth of their calf muscles, from their development in infancy and early childhood to the num ber of arguments they have with their spouse, from their personality structure to their educational prowess and professional achieve ment
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