E-cigarettes, with their ads featuring sexy people puffing away on futuristic tubes tipped with blue light, seem distinctly modern. But the idea actually dates back to 1963, when a two-pack-a day smoker named Herbert A. Gilbert patented a “smokeless non-tobacco cigarette” that delivered flavored steam without combustion. Unfortunately, the smoke-hazy Mad Men world of the 1960’s wasn’t ready for Gilbert’s idea, and it received little attention. It took until 2003 for the e-cigarette to find a foothold in the public consciousness, when a Chinese pharmacist named Hon Lik, whose father had died of lung cancer, developed a device to vaporize liquid nicotine, which became the e-cigarette we know today.
Originally Published in The Atlantic
Link to full article
No comments:
Post a Comment