Once Upon a Time There Was a Monk (Snusmunken)

500 hundred years ago a monk travelled with Columbus to the West Indies. There he was introduced by the Indians to a an exiting and previously unknown herb, which he immediately sent off to Europe. This was the beginning of the history of snuff.

For more than a hundred years this herb was considered being a very  potent medicine. When the upper classes in Europe found out, that it was  also very pleasant to sniff a powder made from this herb, snuff became very fashionable. Napoleon used up to 5 kilo every month.

In the beginning of the 19th Century the Swedes changed the dry powder into a slightly damp substance. When the Swedes emigrated to America snuff was so widely used that the Swedish districts of American towns and cities were being called Snuff Boulevards by the Americans.