Buying Cigarettes from a Hospital Bed in the 1950s? Easy!
The photo shows a man in the 1950s buying cigarettes right from his hospital bed.
In the ’50s, patients in American hospitals could buy packs of cigarettes without getting out of bed. And if they wanted, they could smoke right in their hospital rooms!
Smoking “on doctors’ advice”
In the 1920s and 1930s, cigarette ads ran mostly in newspapers and magazines, and many campaigns of the era tried to convince people that tobacco was good for them. Magazines often showed rosy-cheeked doctors in white coats proudly blowing smoke. The best-known campaign was “More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette”, launched in 1946.
Until the official warning linking tobacco to lung cancer, heart disease and many other illnesses, the medical community as a whole didn’t consider smoking dangerous. On the contrary, smoking was believed to calm the nerves, suppress appetite and be generally beneficial.
Cigarettes as a gift for Mom and Dad! Before the holidays, cartons of cigarettes were advertised as the perfect present.
How it all changed
- 1964 — the US Surgeon General’s report officially linked smoking to lung cancer.
- 1966 — mandatory health warnings appeared on cigarette packs in the US.
- 1971 — cigarette ads were banned from television and radio.
- 1992 — American hospitals were required to ban smoking inside their buildings (it was allowed only in separate rooms). Cigarettes by the hospital bed became history.
It’s terrible what capitalism, the chase for profit and plain stupidity can do 
