It seems as if 'vaping' came out of nowhere. One day it didn't exist and then a few months later everywhere we went someone was vaping. In reality, electro-mechanical cigarettes are not new. Neither is the concept of using vapor to breathe in smoked herbs, scents, or mild-poisons. In fact, that has been going on for as long as mankind has been keeping a written record, perhaps even longer. There are accounts of such techniques in ancient China, as well as in ancient Egypt. The Romans often smoked in bathhouses, and in India 1,500 years ago, they called smoking sugary tobacco 'shisha'.
One famous author, Jean M. Auel, in her famous series of novels describes several ancient civilizations living in caves partaking in such smoke vaping rituals. Indeed, there is enough archeological evidence to support her historical novel storyline and depictions of such.
Vaping Patents and Inventions
Fast forward to 1927 and Joseph Robinson received the first electro-mechanical cigarettes patent. He called his invention the electronic vaporizer. There were several other patents granted after that for various applications of that invention. In the early 1960s, a gentleman by the name of Herbert Gilbert came up with a contraption called the Smokeless Non-Tobacco Cigarette although it wasn't marketed to the masses, as current vaping products, devices, and paraphernalia are today.