So I’ve been thinking about this since I began taking snuff about 2 years ago. It’s a pretty simple fact, snuff can and will cause nasal congestion under certain circumstances. Now, in this modern snuff revival, people like myself may experience nasal congestion brought on by snuff but we have things to help this like Neti Pots, saline mists, and decongestants. Also, we know more about our physiology than people of 50,100, and most definitely 200 hundred years ago. My question is, when snuff was in its hay day did the people of the time know that snuff was the reason for some nasal congestion (stuffiness)? They wouldn’t have had any of the modern remedies or information regarding nasal congestion or inflamed sinuses. I almost imagine them getting super clogged noses and thinking they needed to use more snuff to fix it which only compounded the issue. What are your thoughts on this?
I would think that the stink of everyday life would make taking a masking snuff a plus. Dirt, dust, coal smoke, Horse manure, lack of frequent bathing. I actually believe that frequent snuff use toughens the sinus and one gets used to snuff irritation fast. I believe they just blew their noses often.
They may have been less technologically advanced than us, but they weren’t stupid. I think that they would have seen a cause and effect relationship between the two. The impression I get is that they believed in the medicinal value of tobacco than we do nowadays, and a stuffy nose is really just a side effect; the percieved benefits outweighing the drawbacks. I doubt many of us stop snuffing at the first sign of a stuffy nose, and I doubt any of our ancestors would have either. On the other hand, this may well have been the reason for the invention of ‘medicated’ snuffs, and in that case you may be right. We get the same problems today from our nasal decongestant sprays, they work in the short term but actually become addicive in the long term. Such a correlation would be harder to spot.
Leaving aside people with overly sensitive sinuses, snuff causes congestion when you take too much. Its exactly the same as saying wine causes drunkenness. I have both afflictions fairly regularly.
LOL!
I think neti pot equivalent is very old invention.
mentolated ones are the only ones that bung me up, and they do it very quickly. Other sorts do not cuase me any stuffiness at all. Coarser mills make my nose run.