Science Experiment

I've always wondered about the statement in the Word of Wisdom (Doctrine and Covenants section 89, for the uninitiated) that says that tobacco is for healing bruises.  An athletic training class I had as an undergrad included a recipe and some dish on the BYU football players.

This last week at the Texas Tornado Bootcamp (many more pictures and stories to come), I dumped the bike two or three times and had a pretty good bruise on my thigh.  Since we were in Texas, and chaw/snus/dip was in abundance, I had the opportunity to put tobacco to its heaven-approved purpose.

Step 1:  Bum some Skoal off of someone.  This actually had a nice, peach smell.

Step 2:  Place the tobacco on the bruise.

Step 3:  Cover with gauze.

Step 4:  Wrap loosely with an ace bandage.

Before and after:

The only difference is the lighting.  Foo.  The moral of the story is not to use processed tobacco.  A plain, old tobacco leaf might have worked.  Or, I could have lightly simmered the leaves to get the juices to leak out a little more.