Waving, however, any attempts to fix with precision the effects of
Tea from these experiments alone, let us endeavour to collect from
observation likewise, such facts as may enable us to judge what its
effects are on the human frame, and from thence draw the clearest
inferences we can, how far it is salutary or otherwise.
The long and constant use of Tea, as a part of our diet, makes
us forget to enquire whether it is possessed of any medicinal
properties. We shall endeavour to consider it in both respects.
The generality of healthy persons find themselves not apparently
affected by the use of Tea: it seems to them a grateful refreshment,
both fitting them for labour and refreshing them after it. There are
instances of persons who have drank it from their infancy, to old
age; have led, at the same time, active, if not laborious lives; and
yet never felt any ill effects from the constant use of it.
Where this has been the case, the subjects of both sexes were for the
most part healthy, strong, active, and temperate. Amongst the less
hardy and robust, we find complaints, which are ascribed to Tea, by
the parties themselves. Some complain that after a Tea breakfast,
they find themselves rather fluttered; their hands less steady in
writing, or any other employment that requires an exact command of
spirits. This probably soon goes off, and they feel no other injury
from it. Others again bear it well in the morning, but from drinking
it in the afternoon, find themselves very easily agitated, and
affected with a kind of involuntary trembling.
There are many people who cannot bear to drink a single dish of Tea,
without being immediately sick and disordered at the stomach: To some
it gives excruciating pain about that part, attended with general
tremours. But in general the most tender and delicate constitutions
are most affected by the free use of Tea; being frequently attacked
with pains in the stomach and bowels; spasmodic affections; attended
with a copious discharge of limpid urine, and great agitation of
spirits on the least noise, hurry, or disturbance.