The History of Activated Charcoal 3750B.C. to 21st century.

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joel

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Ancient Egypt

Because it burns hotter, charcoal is superior to wood, and so, historically, it became the fuel used to smelt ores. 3750 B.C. is its earliest known recorded use. The Egyptians and Sumerians produced charcoal for the reduction of copper, zinc and tin ores in the manufacture of bronze. But, it was during that time that Egyptians also discovered a completely unrelated aspect of charcoal - it was a preservative. Posts scorched black by fire, when used for construction along the River Nile, were found not to rot when buried in the moist/wet soils. Without realizing it, the Egyptians began to capitalize on charcoal's anti-bacterial, anti-fungal properties. This early innovation to preserve wood from rotting in wet situations continued down through the centuries, as other uses were discovered.

Water Treatment

Centuries later, wood tars produced from charcoal were used for caulking ships. Recent studies of the wrecks of Phoenician trading ships from around 450 B.C. suggest that drinking water was stored in charred wooden barrels. This practice was still in use in the 18th Century for extending the use of potable water on long sea voyages. Wood-staved barrels were scorched to preserve them, and the water or other items stored in them. How ingenious it was, a completely natural, organic, and environmentally friendly preservative! Today we have hundreds of patented sleek chrome water filters and activated charcoal is a major component.



Embalming

Realizing that charcoal somehow inhibited whatever it was that promoted rotting, early Egyptians saw another application that catered to their suspicions about the afterlife. They wrapped the dead in cloth. They were then buried in layers of charcoal and sand to preserve the corpses. This was later improved upon by collecting byproducts of charcoal for use in their embalming industry.

1500 B.C.

The first recorded use of charcoal for medicinal purposes comes from Egyptian papyri around 1500 B.C. The principal use appears to have been to adsorb the unpleasant odors from putrefying wounds and from within the intestinal tract. Hippocrates (circa 400 B.C.), and then Pliny (50 A.D.), recorded the use of charcoal for treating a wide range of complaints including epilepsy, chlorosis (a severe form of iron-deficiency anemia), vertigo, and anthrax. Pliny writes in his epoch work Natural History (Vol. 36): “It is only when ignited and quenched that charcoal itself acquires its characteristic powers, and only when it seems to have perished that it becomes endowed with greater virtue.” What Pliny observed and noted so long ago is the very mystery science continues to exploit today.

In the second century A.D. Claudius Galen was the most famous doctor of the Roman Empire, and the ancient world’s strongest supporter of experimentation for scientific discovery. He produced nearly 500 medical treatises, many of them referring to the use of charcoals of both vegetable and animal origin, for the treatment of a wide range of diseases.

1700 A.D.

After the suppression of the sciences, first by Rome around 300 A.D. and then on through the Dark Ages, charcoal reemerged in the 1700s as a prescription for various conditions. Charcoal was often prescribed for bilious problems (excessive bile excretion). The use of charred wood was mentioned for the control of odors from gangrenous ulcers. (CharcoalRemedies.com p. 56-57)

1800 A.D.

By the mid 1800s charcoal, as a medicinal, suddenly became a well known treatment for a number of health conditions. Notice this entry:

"...Charcoal mixed with bread crumbs or yeast, has long been a favourite material for forming poultices, among army and navy surgeons. The charcoal poultice has also obtained a high character in hospital practice as an application to sloughing ulcers and gangrenous sores, and recently, this substance has afforded immense relief in numerous cases of open cancer, by soothing pain, correcting foetor, and facilitating the separation of the morbid structure from the surrounding parts. It is unnecessary to mention other instances of its utility; for in this form Charcoal is now admitted into the London Pharmacopoeia, and it is in general use in all naval, military, and civil hospitals..." James Bird M.R.C.S. (Surgeon - Royal Glamorgan Militia, 1857)

After the development of the charcoal activation process (1870 to 1920), many reports appeared in medical journals about activated charcoal as an antidote for poisons and as a cure for intestinal disorders, and much more. By the end of the 20th century Activated Charcoal was employed by every hospital, clinic, research department, and poison control center in the world in hundreds of varied applications. From wound dressings to ostomy bags, from drug overdose to kidney dialysis units, from hemoperfusion cartridges to drug purification, from the treatment of anemia in cancer patients to breast cancer surgery, the role of activated charcoal as a medicinal continues to grow.

21st Century

Today, charcoal is rated Category 1, “safe and effective”, by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acute toxic poisoning. It is also listed in the U.S. homeopathic pharmacopoeia as having “marked absorptive power of gases”. A 1981 study, reported in Prevention magazine, confirmed what Native Americans have known for hundreds of years. Activated charcoal cuts down on the amount of gas produced by beans and other gas-producing foods, and adsorbs the excess gas as well as the bacteria that form the gas. Brand name, over-the-counter drugs may be more commonly used for gas because of their attractive packaging and commercial value, but they are certainly not as effective.

Old charcoal remedies are repackaged today in glistening instruments and catchy packages, but the charcoal inside is still its same humble self - still unpretentious, still black, still dusty and messy to use, still relatively cheap, still ridiculed if not ignored, still largely un-thanked. But in hundreds if not thousands of ways charcoal touches our lives every day though we would scarcely know it. Crafted by the Creator's hands, its history resurrected from the burial sands of ancient Egypt, charcoal is one of the single greatest benefactors to the human race.

From the dawn of civilization, man has had an intimate relationship with charcoal. As an indispensable tool of technology and as a medicinal, charcoal is used in numerous ways to make our lives more healthy. It purifies the water we drink, the air we breathe, and detoxifies the soil we grow our food in. As a medicinal, charcoal is used in virtually every hospital in the world on a daily basis, as it plays an increasingly significant role in maintaining, restoring and enhancing man’s level of health. From drug and food poisoning, to kidney and liver dialysis machines, to wound dressings, to anemia of cancer, and much more, modern hospitals depend on the many uses of this most simple of remedies. These same benefits are also available to you. “In a world being poisoned by its own near-sighted wisdom, God has provided man with a microscopic black hole big enough to swallow much of what ails us.”

https://buyactivatedcharcoal.com/th...its earliest,charcoal - it was a preservative.
 
Henry Ford, of the Ford Motor Company, was making and selling over a million cars in the 1920's. Back then, cars were made of wood and used 100 feet of wood per car.

Wanting more control of the process and to save money, he sought the help of Michigan real estate agent, and family friend, Edward G. Kingsford to find suitable land.

Once up & running though, the mill generated a lot of waste. This bugged Ford so he decided to venture into making a new fangled thing, invented by a chemist named Orin Stafford, called charcoal briquettes (made from sawdust and mill waste and held together with cornstarch), with an eye towards marketing to families who were doing more things outdoors - thanks to being more mobile because of his cars.

Ford, not knowing the first thing about how to build a factory to make charcoal briquettes, enlisted his good friend Thomas Edison, who helped design the factory to be built next to the sawmill, which was a model of efficiency, and let Kingsford run it.

The company was named Ford Charcoal and only renamed it Kingsford Chemical Company in 1951, after Ford's death in 1947.

Ford sold what he called "picnic kits" containing the charcoal briquettes and a small portable grill for $1, exclusively at his dealerships and larger quantities to meat smoking plants. The home backyard grill wasn't invented yet, and grilling as we know it, didn't take off until after WWII.
https://www.fwiwreviews.net/2023/06...ed Ford so he,outdoors - thanks to being more
 

Kingsford factory tour: How charcoal is made​

  • There are five Kingsford factories in the U.S.%2C and the one in Belle%2C Mo.%2C sometimes offers tours
  • The Kingsford furnaces burn 550 to 600 tons of wood a day and 200%2C000 tons a year
  • The charring process creates a manageable material to form into a briquette
Given the increase in grilling "backyarders" and television usurping regional barbecue restaurant stars into nationally known faces with professional tours all over the country, it is no surprise that the charcoal briquette itself is also having its time in the sun. And nowhere does the sun shine brighter (along with the help of a lot of wood scrap and fire) than in Belle, Mo., the location of the Kingsford charcoal factory and the Kingsford Invitational barbecue contest. The Daily Meal, fresh off its Ultimate BBQ Road Trip, took a tour of the charcoal factory to see the journey of charcoal from wood to grill.

While the charcoal-making process is usually kept under wraps, the Kingsford factory in Belle, Mo., sometimes offers tours, including to local elementary school children. When visitors first arrive at the factory, they come to a dead-end road and see a looming khaki mountain that looks inviting for climbing. But upon closer scrutiny is the realization that no mountain could be this tan. It's not really a mountain at all; it is a giant pile of the wood scrap that gets fed into the Kingsford furnaces, which burn 550 to 600 tons a day and 200,000 tons of wood a year. There are five Kingsford factories in the U.S., each burning about the same amount, meaning about 1 million tons of wood scrap are turned into charcoal briquettes in Kingsford factories across the country each year.


History of charcoal

Charcoal has certainly come a long way since cavemen used it to write on walls. The etymology of the word charcoal is from the Old English charren, "to turn," plus cole, "coal;" hence, charcoal, "to turn to coal."

In the 1920s, Henry Ford developed a process for using wood scraps from his Model T's, which were in fact made of wood, to popularize briquettes (spelled briquet on the Kingsford bags). Briquettes, however, were first patented by Ellsworth B.A. Zwoyer in 1897. Kingsford was originally called Ford Charcoal, and E.G. Kingsford, Ford's brother-in-law, helped broker the location for first factory, which was later renamed in his honor. Since Ford's mass production of the charcoal briquette, barbecuing with charcoal has become more and more popular.
How charcoal is made
The manufacturing of charcoal is a multi-step process. The main ingredient for a quality briquette is the char (the first syllable of charcoal), but charcoal briquettes are not pure charcoal. At the beginning of the charcoal-making process, that mountain of wood visitors see at the entrance of the factory glides onto conveyer belts and enters a wood hog that feeds the retort for char. Afterward, it is dried and then packaged. The charring process occurs when the wood is burned in a furnace, creating a manageable material to form into a briquette. If the wood is too brittle, it will crumble. Once the charcoal is warm and soft, it is put into a dryer set at 300 degrees. Two hours later, the once-soft briquettes come out hard and are ready to be bagged and shipped to stores across the country.
 
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