Lab safety has come a long way

The concept of "safe laboratory practices" is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most all scientists understand that lab coats, gloves, and safety goggles are important for protecting the health of the researcher, and in most chemistry labs, food and drink are expressly verboten. This is, in large part, due to the efforts of toxicologists to bring our expanding knowledge of carcinogens an harmful agents into public consciousness.

The following image is taken from the journal Organic Syntheses in 1927. At the height of the Roaring Twenties, organic chemists would routinely engage in activities that would horrify chemistry students today, most notably "mouth-pipetting" and smoking. This particular article, which describes a chemical synthesis of hydrogen cyanide, describes a practical application of this second activity:

As you can see, Prof. Ziegler rightly wanted to alert the reader to the potential vaporization of the potently poisonous HCN. This is a rather creative approach to testing the safety of a fume hood, in the absence of the sophisticated equipment we use today. Of course, if you are playing with cyanide and the lab begins to smell like almonds, you're already in deep trouble, smoking or not.