Blackened lung breathes life into anti-smoking effort

The damaged organ always gets people talking. The Institute hopes it will prompt people to quit smoking.

Some visitors at the Body Worlds exhibit gasp when they see what smoking can do to a human lung. Others cough. According to the Franklin Institute the blackened organ of a cigarette smoker displayed beside a healthy lung definitely gets people talking. The display is now a rallying point for anti-smoking groups.

When the American Cancer Society used Yul Brynner in a stop-smoking ad, it was a message from beyond the grave.

“Now that I’m gone I tell you: Don’t smoke.”

That was shocking in 1985, to hear from an actor who was already dead from lung cancer. Now Body Worlds takes a new tack. A white healthy lung is juxtaposed against a shrunken black lung clogged with cigarette soot – both are real human lungs preserved with plastic chemical process. Kate Merk and Kim Sides are nursing students from Media, and both say the lungs make a strong case.

Merk: You see what happens outside, but you never really know how much is changes on the inside. It’s neat to see that.

Sides: You know everybody has a smoker’s cough – I see why.

The Franklin Institute is inviting visitors to throw away their packs of cigarettes, and providing information on how to get help to stop smoking.