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Annals
of Tobacco
"In 1952 the FTC directed a tobacco firm to refrain from claiming
that its cigarettes, by virtue of containing a certain moistening agent,
produced less irritation. . . . Before the ruling was finally
imposed, an astonishing series of scientific tests was conducted. The
firm bubbled smoke from various cigarettes through water and dripped the
solutions on to the eyes of rabbits; only the solutions of rival brands,
it claimed, caused irritation. Embattled (and embittered) rivals devised
their own smoking machines to blow smoke against rabbits eyelids.
All smokes, they reported, had an identical effect. Another test (subsequently
disallowed by the Federal authorities) involved cutting off the rabbitts
upper eyelids, weighing the membranious linings, drying them in an oven
and weighing them again. The firm under attack then cut holes in the air
passages of the rabbits and pumped smoke into their lungs (presumably
because the rabbits were reluctant to inhale). Five of the animals died,
but (argued the experimenters) they were all smoking rival brands."
From the Shocking History of Advertising, p. 231.
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