Editing Gunpowder (section)

== Other uses ==

Besides its use as a propellant in firearms and artillery, black powder's other main use has been as a blasting powder in quarrying, mining, and road construction (including railroad construction). During the 19th century, outside of war emergencies such as the Crimean War or the American Civil War, more black powder was used in these industrial uses than in firearms and artillery. [[Dynamite]] gradually replaced it for those uses. Today, industrial explosives for such uses are still a huge market, but most of the market is in newer explosives rather than black powder.

Beginning in the 1930s, gunpowder or smokeless powder was used in [[rivet gun]]s, [[Stunning|stun guns]] for animals, cable splicers and other industrial construction tools.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QSgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA64|title=Popular Science|last1=Corporation|first1=Bonnier|date=April 1932}}</ref> The "stud gun", a [[powder-actuated tool]], drove nails or screws into solid concrete, a function not possible with hydraulic tools, and today is still an important part of various industries, but the cartridges usually use smokeless powders. Industrial [[shotgun]]s have been used to eliminate persistent material rings in operating rotary kilns (such as those for cement, lime, phosphate, etc.) and clinker in operating furnaces, and commercial tools make the method more reliable.<ref>{{cite web|title=MasterBlaster System |url=http://www.remington.com/products/ammunition/industrial/masterblaster-system.aspx |publisher=Remington Products |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101004180951/http://www.remington.com/products/ammunition/industrial/masterblaster-system.aspx |archive-date=4 October 2010 }}</ref>

Gunpowder has occasionally been employed for other purposes besides weapons, mining, fireworks and construction:

* After the [[Battle of Aspern-Essling]] (1809), [[Dominique-Jean Larrey]], the surgeon of the Napoleonic Army, lacking salt, seasoned a [[horse meat]] [[bouillon (broth)|bouillon]] for the wounded under his care with gunpowder.<ref name="Parker">{{cite book|last1=Parker|first1=Harold T.|title=Three Napoleonic battles.|date=1983|publisher=Duke Univ. Pr.|location=Durham, NC|isbn=978-0-8223-0547-7|page=83|edition=Repr., Durham, 1944.}}</ref><ref name="Musee">Larrey is quoted in French at Dr [[Béraud]], ''[http://leslivresoublies.free.fr/leslivresoublies/Sciences_et_techniques_muse/cheval.html Études Hygiéniques de la chair de cheval comme aliment] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304002411/http://leslivresoublies.free.fr/leslivresoublies/Sciences_et_techniques_muse/cheval.html |date=4 March 2016 }}'', [[Musée des Familles]] (1841–42).</ref> It was also used for sterilization in ships when there was no alcohol.
* British sailors used gunpowder to create [[tattoo]]s when ink wasn't available, by pricking the skin and rubbing the powder into the wound in a method known as traumatic tattooing.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rediker|first1=Marcus|title=Between the devil and the deep blue sea: merchant seamen, pirates, and the Anglo-American maritime world, 1700–1750|page=12|date=1989|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-37983-0|edition=1st pbk.|url=http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/colonial-american-history/between-devil-and-deep-blue-sea-merchant-seamen-pirates-and-anglo-american-maritime-world-17001750}}</ref>
* [[Christiaan Huygens]] experimented with gunpowder in 1673 in an early attempt to build an [[gunpowder engine]], but [[Gunpowder engine#Huygens' engine|he did not succeed]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Galloway |author-link=Robert Galloway |first=Robert Lindsay |title=The Steam Engine and Its Inventors: A Historical Sketch |date=1881 |publisher=Macmillan |pages=20–25 |url=https://archive.org/details/steamengineandi00gallgoog/page/n46/mode/2up |access-date=24 November 2022}}</ref> Modern attempts to recreate his invention were similarly unsuccessful.<ref name="mythbusters63">{{cite AV media |last = Beyond Television Productions |date= 18 October 2006 |title= Mythbusters: Air Cylinder of Death |type= Television production |volume= Ep 63}}</ref>
* Near London in 1853, Captain Shrapnel demonstrated a [[mineral processing]] use of black powder in a method for crushing gold-bearing ores by firing them from a cannon into an iron chamber,{{citation needed|date=January 2021}} and "much satisfaction was expressed by all present". He hoped it would be useful on the [[Gold rush|goldfields]] of [[California]] and [[Australia]]. Nothing came of the invention, as continuously operating crushing machines that achieved more reliable [[comminution]] were already coming into use.<ref>''Mining Journal''  22 January 1853, p. 61</ref>
* Starting in 1967, Los Angeles-based artist [[Ed Ruscha]] began using gunpowder as an artistic medium for a series of works on paper.

Gunpowder had originally been produced for medicinal purposes. It was eaten, in hopes of curing digestive ailments; inhaled, for respiratory disorders; and, as mentioned, rubbed onto skin level disorders like rashes or burns.