Snuff

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Tins of British Nasal Tobacco

Snuff is ground or pulverized tobacco, which is generally inhaled or "snuffed" through the nose. It is a type of smokeless tobacco. There are several types, but traditionally it means Dry/European nasal snuff. In the United States, "snuff" can also refer to dipping tobacco, which is applied to the gums rather than inhaled.

[edit] Types

[edit] European (dry) snuff

The Monk of Calais (1780) by Angelica Kauffmann, depicting Pastor Yorick exchanging snuffboxes with Father Lorenzo "..having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented it open to me.--You shall taste mine--said I, pulling out my box and putting it into his hand." From Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey.

Dry snuff, or European snuff is usually scented or flavored and is intended to be sniffed through the nose. Typical flavors are floral, mentholated (also called 'medicated'), fruit, and spice, either pure or in blends. Other common flavors include:

• Spearmint
• Cinnamon
• Rose
• Camphor

Modern Flavors

• Cola
• Whisky
• Bourbon
• Cherry

Apart from flavors, dry snuff also comes in a range of texture and moistness, from very fine to coarse, and from toast (very dry) to very moist. Often drier snuffs are ground finer.

[edit] Moist

A tin of Copenhagen American dipping tobacco.

Moist snuff is called American Snuff in the U.S. in contrast to the aforementioned Dry Snuff, which was perceived to be a European, particularly British and French, habit^{[citation needed]}. In truth, it originates, and is still produced and used, in Europe. It tends to be applied to the gums, rather than sniffed. Called dipping tobacco, it is similar to Snus, a Swedish tobacco product, and it is possible that this type of snuff originated in Sweden or Scandinavia^{[citation needed]}. American snuff comes in many varieties, with flavours including peach, mint, and licorice. Dipping tobacco is distinct from chewing tobacco.

In India, Creamy snuff is a paste consisting of tobacco, clove oil, glycerin, spearmint, menthol, and camphor sold in a toothpaste tube. It is marketed mainly to women in India and is known by the brand names Ipco (made by Asha Industries), Denobac, Tona, Ganesh.

[edit] Accessories

When snuff taking was fashionable, the manufacture of snuff accessories was a lucrative industry in several cultures. In Europe, snuff boxes ranged from those made in very basic materials, such as horn, to highly ornate designs featuring precious materials made using state of the art techniques. Large snuff containers, called mulls, were usually kept on the table.

A floral-scented snuff called "English Rose" is provided for members of the British House of Commons at public expense due to smoking in the House being banned since 1693^[1].A famous silver communal snuff box kept at the entrance of the House was destroyed in an air raid during World War II with a replacement being subsequently presented to the House by Winston Churchill^[2]. Very few members are said to take snuff nowadays.

In China, snuff bottles were used, usually available in two forms. Glass bottles are decorated on the inside to protect the design. Another type used layered multi-coloured glass; parts of the layers were removed to create a picture.

[edit] History

Snufftaking by the native peoples of modern-day Haiti was observed by a monk named Ramon Pane on Columbus' second journey to the Americas during 1493-1496.^[3]

In 1561 Jean Nicot, the French ambassador in Lisbon, Portugal, sent snuff to Catherine de' Medici to treat her son's persistent migraines.^[4] Her belief in its curative properties helped to popularize snuff among the elite.^[5]

By the 1600s some started to object to snuff being taken. Pope Urban VIII threatened to excommunicate snufftakers, and in Russia in 1643, Tsar Michael set the punishment of removal of the nose for snuff use. However, elsewhere use persisted; King Louis XIII of France was a devout snufftaker, and by 1638, snuff use had been reported to be spreading in China.

By the 1700s, snuff had become the tobacco product of choice among the elite, prominent users including Napoleon, King George III's wife Queen Charlotte, and a new Pope, Benedict XIII. The taking of snuff helped to distinguish the elite members of society from the common populace, which generally smoked its tobacco.^[6] It is also during the 1700s that the first tobacco warnings were published, among these, John Hill, an English doctor warned of the overuse of snuff, causing vulnerability to nasal cancers.^[7] Snuff's image as an aristocratic luxury attracted the first U.S. federal tax on tobacco, created in 1794.

In Eighteenth-Century Britain, the Gentlewoman's Magazine advised readers with ailing sight to use the correct type of Portuguese snuff, "whereby many eminent people had cured themselves so that they could read without spectacles after having used them for many years."

[edit] Health risks

Users of smokeless tobacco products including snuff are believed to face less cancer risk than smokers, but are still at greater risk than people who do not use any tobacco products.^[8]

[edit] Legal issues

Oral snuff, in the form of dipping tobacco and snus is banned from all countries of the European Union except Sweden, Norway and Denmark, where the sale of snus is legal. Usage of snus in Scandinavian countries is very common. Sale of snus over the counter in Norway is also legal. ^[9]

Snuff is readily available over the counter in most European tobacco shops. In Britain, snuff is much cheaper than cigarettes and other tobacco products as it is tax exempt, however for duty free purposes snuff still carries the same limitations as other tobacco products.

[edit] Makers

An Antique Pair of Snuffers, 1888

[edit] Brazil

• Moeda

[edit] Germany

• Bernard brothers - Founded in 1733
• Lotzbeck - Founded in 1774
• Sternecker - Founded in 1900
• Pöschl - Founded in 1902, makers of Gawith Apricot & Ozona
• Wittmann - Founded in 1955
• Arnold Andre
• Dallmayr

[edit] India

• 5 Photo Snuff
• Dholakia
• M/s Bhogilal Mafatlal & Sons
• P. V. Rajan & Company

[edit] Netherlands

• De Kralingse

[edit] South Africa

• Leonard Dingler
• Ntsu

[edit] Sweden

• Swedish Match
• Skruf Snus

[edit] United Kingdom

• Fribourg & Treyer - Founded in 1720
• Wilsons of Sharrow - Founded in 1737
• Samuel Gawith - Founded in 1792
• Gawith Hoggarth - Founded in 1854
• Hedges
• McChrystal's - Founded in 1926
• Toque - Founded in 2006
• Jaxons Snuff - Founded in 2007

[edit] USA

• Conwood
• Swisher
• U.S. Smokeless Tobacco

[edit] See also

• Snuff boxes
• Snuff Mills
• Anatomical snuff box
• Jack and His Golden Snuff-Box, a fairy tale
• Lycoperdon perlatum, Devil's Snuff Box, a mushroom
• Verrucous carcinoma, "Snuff dipper's cancer"
• Anadenanthera, source of an hallucinogenic snuff known as Cohoba, see also Vilca, Yopo, nopolyopo
• Asarum europaeum, a ginger plant once used as a snuff
• Gradan
• Marengo
• Artisans
  • George Michael Moser, eighteenth century snuff-box maker
  • The Blarenberghe brothers
  • Daniel Macnee
  • Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier
  • James Sandy, inventor of airtight "Laurencekirk hinge".
  • Rosalba Carriera
  • Adolf Frederick of Sweden

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Ursula Bourne, Snuff. Shire Publications, 1990. ISBN 978-0-74780-089-7
• John D. Hinds, "The Use of Tobacco." 1882. [1]

[edit] External Links

• Tobacco: PipeChat Forum: General Discussion of all things tobacco related.