WoW - Use of Tobacco

I was thinking about the Word of Wisdom (WoW, not World of Warcraft) recently and the focus of my thought process was led to the section on tobacco. I've always thought it interesting that it says: "And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill." (D&C 89:8) What does it mean to be used for bruises? I bang my shins up quite often at work and have what I call "perma-bruises" They just don't seem to go way. They're not painful or tender or anything, just a permanent darkened area that looks like a bruise. So I was wondering, could I just go buy a can of Skoal or Redman and rip off a plug and slap it on my shin? How does it help sick cattle? What does it men to be used with judgement and skill? Does that only refer to the sick cattle part or the bruise part also?


I decided to search online to see if I could find anything. I was able to find a couple sources about it but it was mostly just discussion board chatter. However, this news article describes the research of a doctor back in the '80s regarding it, and it does seem that he was finding evidence that distilled tobacco juice healed bruises 20% faster than non-treated bruises, but they had no clue as to what substance in the bruise could be causing it.


Websites about using tobacco for sick cattle was even scantier and many of the top responses to the Google Search "tobacco sick cattle" were critical of the church. But as I delved a little deeper into the search results, I did find some talk on a couple discussion boards about it. Does anyone have any better insight into this passage in the Word of Wisdom?