alternatehistory.com

Suppose that - in the same way penicillin was discovered through mold and other advances were made by accident - some biologist starts looking at the lungs of tobacco users and thinks, "Boy, that's a lot grosser than normal people when they die," and this person stumbles upon a finding that smoking/tobacco use is harmful.

Obviously, it'll take a while, just as it took decades after the Surgeon General's Warning fro the idea to really take hold with people. But, what would be the result? Say it happened in the 1700s, and the nascent US's's tobacco industry nose-dives, could it advance the end of slavery in some states? Given this would be before or concurrent with germ theory, would it be possible for a different theory of disease to be advanced, that all disease is caused by "backers"? (Little things that are in tobacco and, likely other things, according to these ATL scientists)

Even if it was only a century early, discovery in the late 1800s would have interesting effects.
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