Tobacco stops the bleeding

Last week I cut the top of my thumb.

I was showing a contractor, working at the house for the day, a toilet that needed to be fixed. Somehow, with my expert ways around toilets, I managed to drop the top of the toilet onto the marble floor. It broke with a loud crash. I reached down to pick up the broken piece.

"Be careful!" The contractor shouted.

He was too late. I sliced my thumb across the top on the very sharp edge of the ceramic toilet top. I swore. Loudly. Then I turned on the tap and placed my thumb under cold running water. The blood poured out an alarming rate.

The young contractor's eyes widened when he saw the red run off in the sink. He got me the Band-Aid box and wrapped my thumb in several Band-Aids but they were soaked through before he was even done.

I wrapped my thumb in a white rag. After half an hour the contractor checked in on my thumb. It was still bleeding.

"You need tobacco," he told me.
"Tobacco?"
"Tobacco stops the bleeding."

He went out to his truck, got a cigarette, broke it in half and emptied the tobacco. He took a small clump of tobacco and pressed it against my bleeding cut. He wrapped another Band-Aid around the tobacco.

(Then he asked why I was taking pictures of my bloody thumb.)

I had my doubts. I really did. So I googled "tobacco stops bleeding" and was surprised at the results. Apparently tobacco really does stop bleeding. In my case it took twenty minutes.

It's hard to know if it was the tobacco or just the fact that fifty minutes had passed since I first sliced my thumb. I like to believe it was the tobacco.

Have you ever used an unusual first-aid treatment?