"Better dizzy than dead. And, by the way—how's your chest?"
"Better. There's no pain now. But the cough is worse."
"It should be."
"Why?"
"You've never smoked enough to get a cigarette cough," he said.
She shook her head dizzily. "You're so right," she said.
"And that's what nearly killed you," he finished triumphantly.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm certain. Naturally, I can't prove it—yet. But that's just a matter of time. Your response just about clinches it. Take a look at the records. Who gets this disease? Youngsters—with nearly one hundred per cent morbidity and one hundred per cent mortality. Adults—less than fifty per cent morbidity—and again one hundred per cent mortality. What makes the other fifty per cent immune? Your crack about leather lungs started me thinking—so I fed the data cards into the computer and keyed them for smoking versus incidence. And I found that not one heavy smoker had died of Thurston's Disease. Light smokers and nonsmokers—plenty of them—but not one single nicotine addict. And there were over ten thousand randomized cards in that spot check. And there's the exact reverse of that classic experiment the lung cancer boys used to sell their case. Among certain religious groups which prohibit smoking there was nearly one hundred per cent mortality of all ages!
"And so I thought since the disease was just starting in you, perhaps I could stop it if I loaded you with tobacco smoke. And it works!"