SNUFF was originally made in Spain, and later in England, Scotland, Holland, and Belgium. It was at first made by grinding the leaf tobacco in mortars, and scenting the powder in various ways. It is now ground in metal mills by steam power. The United States produces a small amount of snuff, hut the practice of taking snuff is annually declining. In the reports of the manufactures of tobacco, snuff is classed with chewing tobacco. Chewing tobacco is put up in pressed cakes called 'plug tobacco,' and in a spongy mass of fine threads known as 'fine cut.' Usually flavoring matters, as vanilla, sugar, syrups, glycerin, etc., are added in small amounts. Different manufacturers have various formulas, considered as trade secrets, for improving their products. Smoking tobacco for pipes is put up in twists or rolls of the natural leaf or is cut fine and put up in small packages.
Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflate) has nothing in common with this subject. See LOBELIA.
Tobacco has been used as a sedative or nar cotic over a larger area and among a greater number of people than any similar substance, opium ranking next, and hemp third. Tobacco leaves, when submitted to chemical analysis, yield nicotine (q.v.), which •is its most characteristic constituent, albumen, a gluten-like substance, gum, resin, malic and citric acids, and a large amount of inorganic constituents, 100 parts of the dry leaf yielding from about 19 to 27 per cent. of ash, in which potash, lime, and silica preponderate. Nicotine, the alkaloid contained in tobacco and considered a violent poison, does not appear in tobacco smoke. It is split into pyridine and eollodine. Of these the latter is said to be the less active and to preponderate in cigar smoke, while the smoke from pipes contains a larger amount of pyridine. if tobacco pos sesses, like alcohol, opium, tea, coffee, etc., the power of arresting oxidation of the living tis sues, and thus checking their disintegration, it follows that the habit of smoking must be most deleterious to the young, causing in them impair ment of growth, premature manhood, and physi cal degradation. Before the full maturity of
the system is attained, even the smallest amount of smoking is hurtful; subsequently, the habit is generally prejudicial. Smoked just after a meal a cigar is said to act as a digestive stimulant, and as a food when other forms of nourishment are not procurable. In some persons smoking increases. in others diminishes mental activity. Chewing is considered the most deleterious form in which to use tobacco. The different kinds of tobacco exert a different influence on the smoker according to the amount of noxious ingredients which they contain. Those which yield a small proportion are termed mild tobaccos.
Tobacco has been used in medicine with the view of relaxing the muscular fibres, in cases of strangulated hernia, intestinal obstruction, asthma, strychnine poisoning, tetanus, etc.; but is no longer so employed on account of its dan gerous depressant action.
Consult: Killebrew and Myrick, Tobacco, Its Culture, Cure, Marketing, and Manufacture (New York, 1897) ; Lock, Tobacco Growing, Curing, and Manufacture (London, 1886) ; Seu seney, Tobacco front the Seed to the Warehouse (Chambersburg, Pa., 1878) ; United States De partment of Agriculture, Washington, Farmers' Bulletin No. 60, Methods of Curing Tobacco; No. S3, Tobacco Soils; No. 120, Insects Affecting Tobacco; Division of Soils, Report No. 62, Culti vation for Cigar Leaf Tobacco in Florida; No. 63, Work of the Agricultural Experiment Sta tions on Tobacco; Arnold, History of the To bacco Industry in Virginia (Baltimore, 1897) ; A. M. and J. Ferguson, All About Tobacco, In cluding Practical Instruction in Planting, CON rating. and Curing (('olombo, Ceylon, 1889) ; Ragland, Tobacco, How to Raise It and Home to Make It Pay (flys°, Va., 1895) ; •Sim. Tobacco frown Seed Bed to Packing Case (Etiwanda, (al., I:it); ).