SNUFF, a powder chiefly made of tobacco, the use of which is too well known to need any description here.
The many mischiefs attending the practice of taking this powder of tobacco at the nostrils, have been described by the writers in general on these subjects, since this pernicious custom has reigned in the world; but one of the most remarkable accidents occasioned by it, is related in the Acta Bruditerum.
The case is this. A fat person, greatly addicted to the taking Spanish snuff, after many years continued use of it, complained one day of a mighty uneasiness which it occasioned in the middle of his oesophagus, and soon after this he began to find his swallowing difficult. He applied for relief to a physician; and naming nothing of the pain which had preceded this difficulty of swallowing, it was treated as a complaint arising from some glutinous humour in the oesophagus. It is no wonder that the medicines in this intention had no effect. The patient grew worse; and, tired of this doctor, applied to another, who, supposing the complaint arose from some sharp humour vellicating the
parts, gave medicines in that intention, equally without success. After this a common quack tried the most violent medicines on him, but without success. Finally, he applied to the use of the excutia ventriculi, an instrument made to be thrust down the œsophagus into the stomach: but this he could never get down; and in the use of this instrument he first felt that there was absolutely a lump of flesh, which stopped its passage farther than the place where the seat of his complaint was. The distemper after this increased upon him, till he could only swallow liquids, and those at last by no other means but by sucking them thro' a quill, by which means he could get down milk, water-gruel, and the like, by a little at a time. At length consulting another physician, and telling him of the immoderate quantity of Spanish snuff he had been used to take, and that it often happened to him on taking the driest snuff of this kind, that it got into his œsophagus, and occasioned violent pain, coughing, and spitting of blood, he soon concluded that a polypus had formed itself in the œsophagus, wounded by this sharp powder; and that there was no relief, but that the death of the patient was quickly approaching. The man, from a very corpulent habit, was so extenuated, that he appeared a mere skeleton; he died some little time after of absolute hunger, the œsophagus being so entirely filled up by this unnatural swelling, that not the least drop of a liquid could get down.
After death the œsophagus was opened, and a fleshy excrescence, or polypus, was discovered, of the bigness of the cavity of the part; and, taking its origin about the middle, from the back-part of the œsophagus, it reached down to the pylorus. This was of a whitish colour, and much resembled a large worm; and its substance was fibrous, and very tender.