A History of Vaping
Vaping has become a huge part of modern-day life. Not only is it a useful cessation tool but Public Health England has mentioned in reports and research that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking.
Wherever we travel, vaping is becoming more and more common. But despite its popularity, vaping hasn’t always been so accepted in modern society.
Technically, it has been almost 100 years since the first vaping device was invented. The first documented reference to an e-cigarette was an initial patent back in 1927. Since this idea, vaping has significantly improved thanks to the technology of the modern world.
When Did Vaping Begin?
Vaping was first formulated from an idea onto paper over 90 years ago in America. It wasn’t until decades later that the idea would actually be taken seriously. The earliest electronic cigarette ideas were far from the easy-to-use, refillable, flavoursome vaping kits we know today. They were introduced to the world before the world was ready to accept them as an alternative to cigarettes.
1927: Joseph Robinson
The initial idea of vaping came from an American man, Joseph Robinson, who lived in New York.
Robinson wanted to create a device that would make inhaling vapour easier without the possibility of being burned. He filed his patent in 1927 and stated that his invention was intended for “medicinal compounds”.
His patent was named “Mechanical Butane Ignition Vaporizer” and he had proposed the device as a way to generate “hot medicated vapors for inhalation” not too far from what an e-cigarette is now. The patent was approved three years later in 1930. Despite being approved, Robinson never took his invention to the market, leaving the concept forgotten about for the next few decades.
1963: Herbert A. Gilbert
Herbert Gilbert decided to bring his own electronic cigarette device to life almost forty years after Robinson’s initial design. Gilbert created a device that could be used as an alternative to cigarettes without combustion.
Before creating the device, Gilbert was an avid smoker and could go through two packs a day. He used the technology available in 1963 and concluded that a battery-powered heat source would do the job and the first electric cigarette was born. He managed to build prototypes and tried using various flavours of water as steam… and it worked!
The problem with Gilbert’s device was that it was way ahead of its time and just wasn’t fashionable enough to take off. However, if you look at the patent, you will notice that Gilbert’s device is almost identical to today’s devices.
1980s: Phil Ray
Phil Ray, one of the pioneers of computers, worked alongside physician Norman Jacobson to create the first commercialised variation of the e-cigarette. However, the device wasn’t actually electronic, it relied on evaporation of the nicotine. They had invented a way of inhaling nicotine without combustion. This device also started to feel and look more like a cigarette and worked by soaking a paper in nicotine rather than burning it.
Despite the idea not taking off, the pair did contribute the verb “vape” to the language.
2001: Hon Lik
Hon Lik is a pharmacist from China. He created a device that would replace cigarettes after his father passed away from lung cancer.
Before his invention, he was a co-founder of a health care, pharmaceuticals, and electronic cigarettes company in Hong Kong. He began to experiment with vaporisation systems to find a substance that could replace and replicate the sensation of inhaling tobacco smoke. Eventually, he concluded that propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine would provide the solution he had been searching for. This is the same combination of ingredients used across the vaping industry to make e-liquids today.
Hon Lik was fortunate enough to have access to modern technology and could use a modern lithium battery in his device to allow the e-cigarette to run for hours at a time.
He put the small lithium battery in a tube that would atomise the e-liquid solution. Doing this created the e-cigarette that we are familiar with today.
This device was released into stores in China in 2004 and entered the US and European markets in 2006.
The rest is… well… history!
