Humans have indulged in tobacco for hundreds if not thousands of years, yet
cigarette smoking is a relatively new preoccupation. Before 1881, the year the
cigarette-rolling machine was invented, most people consumed tobacco by chewing
it, smoking it in a pipe, or snorting it as snuff, though some smokers
hand-rolled their own cigarettes. The rolling machine allowed for the mass
production of cigarettes and helped establish the new, state-of-the-art
cigarette as the most common and popular vehicle for tobacco consumption.
At first glance, this vehicle may look simple—a tube of paper with tobacco
in it. But each of a cigarette's myriad elements has been carefully engineered
for a specific purpose. In this feature, take a closer look at a typical
cigarette and compare its conventional form with two recent attempts to create
a "safer" cigarette. (For more information on these new high-tech designs, see
"Safer" Cigarettes: A History).
Further reading
"The Changing Cigarette," by Dietrich Hoffmann and Ilse Hoffmann. Journal of
Toxicology and Environmental Health, 50: 307-364, 1997.
"Cigarette Engineering," Action on Smoking and Health,
http://www.ash.org.uk
The Worldwide Smoking Epidemic: Tobacco Trade, Cigarette Manufacturing, and
Use. William C. Scott et al. in Journal of the American Medical
Association, 263: 3312-3318, June 27, 1990.
