One day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of Chile, in one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, 20 American sailors watched their ship flood with seawater.
They'd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ship's hull. As their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together in three small whaleboats.
These men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest scrap of land. In their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.
These were the men of the whaleship Essex, whose story would later inspire parts of “Moby Dick.”
Even in today's world, their situation would be really dire, but think about how much worse it would have been then.
No one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. No search party was coming to look for these men. So most of us have never experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, but we all know what it's like to be afraid.
Smoking is a greater cause of death and disability than any single disease, says the World Health Organisation.
According to their figures, it is responsible for approximately five million deaths worldwide every year.
Tobacco smoking is a known or probable cause of approximately 25 diseases, and even the WHO says that its impact on world health is not fully assessed.
Heart attack and stroke.
UK studies show that smokers in their 30s and 40s are five times more likely to have a heart attack than non'smokers.
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