There is no scientific evidence to suggest that cigarette smoking by itself is linked to cancer although I am prepared to concede that smoking is perhaps responsible for certain minor heart ailments.’ Dr Ashok Jahnavi Prasad People of my vintage who were in the academia in the late 70′s would distinctly remember these pearls of ‘wisdom’ coming from the most read psychologist of that era viz. Hans Eysenck. An émigré from the Nazi Germany, he made his home in the United Kingdom and established himself as a popular author on psychology in addition to holding a chair in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry.
He published dozens of books nearly all of which became bestsellers. An ace squash player and a persuasive speaker, he used his inherent talents to the fullest and within no time became part of the London social elite. The first whiff of a problem with his style of populist…
