Revelations about tobacco : a prize essay on the history of tobacco, and its physical action on the human body, through its various modes of employment / by Hampton Brewer.
- Brewer, Hampton.
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Revelations about tobacco : a prize essay on the history of tobacco, and its physical action on the human body, through its various modes of employment / by Hampton Brewer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![tobacco leaves, cut in small pieces, are sprinkled with water, or with salt and water (which prevents the leaves becoming mouldy), and laid in heaps, where fermentation soon commences. This is allowed to go on from one to six months, during which time ammonia, with more or less nicotine, is evolved at first, and afterwards water and acetic acid. The tobacco thus fermented is ground to powder, either in a mill or with a pestle and mortar. In this state it is fit for commerce as snuff, though often it is placed in boxes and sprinkled again with salt and water, when it again ferments slightly, and gives the snuff a pleasantly pungent odour. Snuffs are often variously scented to suit the diversity of olfactory choice. Sal ammoniac, hellebore, and veratria are sometimes added to snuffs, the two last named being excessively powerful and dangerous errhines. [Note A.] There are two varieties of snuff, moist and dried. Rappees or moist, are prepared from the moist, soft, and succulent parts of. the leaves only, and Ihclude French, Strasburg, and Russian. The dried snuffs are prepared for the most part from the mid- ribs and fibres of the leaves, which are dried by heat preparatory to grinding. Welsh, Scotch, and Irish snuffs come in the category of dried. What is known as “ brown Scotch tsnuff ” is, I believe, simply Scotch snuff moistened after having been ground. The active principles of tobacco appear to depend upon three sub- stances, a volatile alkaloid, a volatile oil, and an empyreumatic oil. The liquid volatile alkaloid (to which the name Nicotia or Nicotine has been given) is colourless, with an acrid smell and acrid burning taste,, and has more or less of an oily nature. It is an extremely poisonous substance, one- drop being sufficient to kill a large dog, and its vapour is so irritating that it is difficult to breathe in. a room, in which one drop has been evaporated. It acts with rapidity and somewhat after the manner of prussic acid. The poison exists not only in all parts of the plant, but also in the smoke given off during the process of burning. Fire does not destroy it. The concrete volatile oil, known as tobacco camphor, also exists in all parts of the plant and in the smoke. It is evidently one of the. ingredients to which the usual effects of tobacco are due, as when taken internally it produces giddiness, nausea, and sometimes vomiting; although it exists in the minutest quantity in the leaves, only two grains being obtained from one pound of leaves. But it is upon such small quantities of chemical ingredients, that the action and peculiarly](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28085784_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
