October 2003, Vol 93, No. 10 | American Journal of Public Health 1643
© 2003 American Public Health Association
Shame on You, Uncle!
Elizabeth Fee and
Theodore M. Brown
Elizabeth Fee is with the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Elizabeth Fee, PhD, Building 38, Room 1E21, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 (e-mail: elizabeth_ fee{at}nlm.nih.gov).
THE CHILD IN THIS SOVIET poster is a Young Pioneer; his red armband indicates that he is on patrol. The Young Pioneer organization was created soon after the Russian Revolution. Just as, in the classroom, children with red armbands were responsible for keeping desks tidy and blackboards clean, so, in the street, children with red armbands were responsible for educating others, including adults, about proper behavior. This child addresses the man as "uncle," a familiar term of address in Russia from a child to any older man. The man pretends not to hear, although knowing that he is in the wrong, for he is both smoking and littering.
The Institute of Sanitary Education of the Ministry of Public Health in Moscow produced 35 000 copies of this poster in 1964. Health propaganda was a very important function of the Ministry of Public Health.1 The institute, an academic research organization with perhaps 50 to 60 staff members, produced many such posters, which were then placed in polyclinics, canteens, factories, and other public spaces. This poster notes the name of the creator of the concept, I. S. Sokoloff, and of the artist, K. K. Ivanov. It also notes the censor number (T06284) and the date (May 11, 1964) when the censor gave permission for the poster to be printed and distributed.
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Soviet-era Russian health education poster.
Source. Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine
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It is perhaps ironic that 1964 was also the date of publication of the first, and most famous, US Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health.2 When the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association asked John F. Kennedy in 1961 to appoint a national commission on smoking and health, he was initially too preoccupied with the Cold War and civil rights to be bothered about smoking. Tobacco played an important role in the American economy, and politicians were often reluctant to treat it as a health hazard. The surgeon general, Luther L. Terry, was himself a cigarette smoker, and when he chose the 10 members of his Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, he chose 5 who were regular smokers.
Nevertheless, the group produced the first comprehensive and critical assessment to date of the relationship between smoking and health. When their groundbreaking report was ready, Surgeon General Terry released it on a Saturday in order to minimize its possible adverse effect on the stock market.3 Despite the importance of the 1964 Report on Smoking and Health, it would be many more years before an effective health education campaign against smoking could even be attempted in the United States.
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Acknowledgments
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Our thanks to Nikolai Krementsov for his assistance in translation and discussion of Soviet public health, and to Walter Hickel for his research on the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health.
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References
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1. Krementsov N. The Cure: A Story of Cancer and Politics From the Annals of the Cold War. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press; 2002.
2. Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. Rockville, Md: Public Health Service, US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare; 1964. Available at: http://sgreports.nlm.nih.gov/NN//Views/Exhibit/narrative/smoking.html. Accessed May 7, 2003.
3. http://sgreports.nlm.nih.gov/NN/Views/Exhibit/narrative/smoking.html. Accessed May 7, 2003.
Copyright © 2003 by the American Public Health Association
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