Innocence revisited – 34

Smoking dinosaurs

The harmful effects of cigarette smoke are important to most doctors but especially to a respiratory paediatrician. Hence I have always been attracted by the Gary Larson cartoon that has the caption, ‘The real reason dinosaurs became extinct’.1 It shows dinosaurs wandering the earth with cigarettes in their mouths. A copy of this cartoon was prominently displayed in my office for several years and patients and their parents would notice this when they came to see me. In fact it became a real conversation piece with parents.