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A
TREATISE
ON
FOREIGN TEAS,
_ABSTRACTED_
FROM
An ingenious WORK, lately published,
ENTITLED
_AN ESSAY ON THE NERVES_;
ILLUSTRATING
Their efficient, formal, material, and final Causes; with the Manner of
the Liquids being corrupted by corrosive Acids, and stagnated by obtuse
Alkalies:
IN WHICH ARE
OBSERVATIONS ON MINERAL WATERS,
COFFEE, CHOCOLATE, _&c._
AND
An Investigation of the Nature and Preparation of Foreign Teas, with
their pernicious Effects in debilitating the Nervous System:
INTERSPERSED WITH
THE AUTHOR'S REMARKS,
Arising from an Analysis of such Preparations as may be most
beneficially substituted for INDIA TEA.
THIS SELECTION, containing the Sentiments of the many eminent Physical
Professors who have written on Foreign Teas, is designed to shew, by
the most forcible Arguments and distinguished Authorities, the extreme
Danger to which the Public are exposed from the continual Use of an
Article so pernicious and destructive to the Constitution.
[Price Six-pence.]
Dr. SOLANDER's
SANATIVE ENGLISH
TEA.
UNIVERSALLY APPROVED and RECOMMENDED
BY THE MOST
EMINENT PHYSICIANS,
IN PREFERENCE TO FOREIGN TEA,
As the most Pleasing and POWERFUL RESTORATIVE,
IN ALL
NERVOUS DISORDERS,
HITHERTO DISCOVERED.
Our first aliment at breakfast, being designed to recruit the waste of
the body from the night's insensible perspiration; an inquiry is
important, whether INDIA TEA, which the Faculty unanimously concur in
pronouncing a Species of Slow Poison, that unnerves and wears the
substance of the solids, is adequate to such a purpose--If it be
not--the inquiry is further necessary to find out a proper substitute.
If an Apozem PROFESSIONALLY approved and recommended for its nutritive
qualities, as a general aliment, has claim to public attention,
certainly Dr. SOLANDER'S TEA, so sanctioned, is the most proper morning
and afternoon's beverage.
Prepared for the Proprietor by an eminent Botanist.
Sold Wholesale and Retail by the Proprietor's Agent, Mr. T. GOLDING,
at his Warehouse for Patent Medicines, No. 42, Cornhill, London; and
Retail by Mr. F. NEWBERY, No. 45, St. Paul's Church-Yard; Messrs.
BAILEY'S, Cockspur-street; Mr. W. BACON, No. 150, Oxford-street; Mr.
OVERTON, No. 47, New Bond-street; and by Mr. J. FULLER, South Side of
Covent Garden. Also by the Venders of Patent Medicines in most Cities
and Towns, in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
Sold in Packets at 2s. 9d. and in Canisters at 10s. 6d. each, Duty
included.
Liberal Allowance for Exportation, to Country Venders, and to Schools.
The native and exotic Plants which chiefly compose Dr. Solander's Tea,
being gathered and dried with peculiar attention, to the preserving of
their sanative Virtues, must render them far more efficacious than many
similar Preparations, which by being reduced to Powder, must have those
Qualities destroyed they might otherwise possess.
A Packet of this Tea at 2s. 9d. is sufficient to breakfast one Person a
Month.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOREIGN TEAS.
Having, in the preceding enquiry, traced, from the system of the
nerves, that on their state the health of the constitution chiefly
depends, our immediate concern is next to ascertain what kind of food
we either adopt from choice, custom, or necessity, is the most likely
to destroy the economy of the nerves. And as Foreign Teas have long
been censured as being the cause of many disorders which arise from the
nerves being disarranged or debilitated, an impartial enquiry is here
made into the nature, preparation, and effects, of these Teas. By this
investigation it will appear, that Teas imported from China and India
are the most injurious of any beverage that can possibly be taken as a
general and constant aliment. But, not prematurely to anticipate any
part of the following subject, the Reader is most respectfully referred
to the following pages for further evidence.
INTRODUCTION.
As two of the four meals that form our daily subsistence are chiefly
composed of tea, an enquiry into what kind is the most salutary must be
as necessary as it may prove interesting and beneficial; for, on the
choice of proper or improper tea must greatly depend the health or
disease of the public in general. To this may be attributed the
constitution being either preserved from that innumerable train of
afflictions, which arise from too great a relaxation of the nervous
system by acute distempers, misfortunes, &c. or being so debilitated by
excessive drinking of India Tea, as to render it alone the prey of
melancholy, palsies, epilepsies, night-mares, swoonings, flatulencies,
low spirits, hysteric and hypochondriacal affections. For tea that is
pernicious is not only poison to those who, from any cause of corporal
debility or mental affliction, are liable to the above diseases;--but
it is also too frequently found to render the most healthy victims of
these alarming complaints. And as nervous disorders are the most
complicated in their distressing circumstances, the greater care should
be taken to avoid such aliments as produce them, as well as to choose
those which are the most proper for their relief and prevention. Those
who are now suffering from the inconsiderate use of improper tea, what
pitiable objects of distress and disease do they not represent for the
caution of those who may timely preserve themselves? Nervous disorders
are the most formidable, by being the most numerous in their attacks
upon the human frame. Every moment, comparatively speaking, produces
some new distress of mind or body. The imagination cannot avoid the
horrors of its own creation, while the memory is harrassed with the
shadows of departed pleasures, which serve but to encrease the pain of
existing torments. All the endearments of life are vanished to the poor
wretch who sees himself surrounded by the spectres of dismay, terror,
despondency, and melancholy. And such is but the thousandth part of the
afflictions that are to be avoided or produced by the choice of the
prevailing beverage of tea. Not only the innumerable train of nervous
afflictions, but all those disorders that arise from an improper
temperature of the fluids, may be produced from the action, corrosion,
and stimulation of pernicious teas. In proportion to the state of the
fluids, in particular constitutions, they may either prove too relaxing
or astringent, too condensing or attenuating, and too acrid or viscid;
for India teas, that to some constitutions are very diluting, may
produce in others contrary effects: therefore such should be chosen as
possess a combination of quality that may render them, as nearly as
possible, to a general specific. But this cannot be well expected where
one single ingredient is used, and that is distinguished for its
particular qualities, which, if wholesome, can only be such to those
whose fluids are so, by nature or circumstances, as to require such a
particular assistant; for to every other state of the fluids they must
be pernicious. It is consequently evident, that if teas imported from
India have any virtues, they cannot be such as to render them worthy of
being universally adopted as a general aliment. If wholesome to a few,
they must be pernicious to the rest of mankind, with whose
constitutions they have no congeniality, medicinal or alimentary
virtue. Supposing they may possess some physical properties, like all
other medicines, they can only benefit such disorders as nature
particularly formed them to relieve. Those who have been advocates for
their positive virtues have, in this instance, but more confirmed the
impropriety of adopting them as a general morning and evening beverage.
This only explains more evidently the cause of so many being injured,
where one is benefited, by drinking constantly India tea. There cannot
possibly be stated a more self-evident proposition than where any
simple or combined matter is adopted for a particular purpose, it must,
in every opposite instance, prove injurious. In proportion, therefore,
to such particular qualities, they are the more improper to be
generally and indiscriminately adopted. This observation, although it
may be applied to every art or science, is still more applicable to
physic. Thus is it found that no medicine can be safely taken as a
constant and general aliment. Even those who, at first, might find it
beneficial in their respective complaints, have too frequently found
the constant use of it afterwards hurtful to the constitution it had
before relieved. It may be deduced, from the above considerations, that
India teas, however physically beneficial, to allow them all their best
of praise, must be as an aliment generally injurious. Instead of
preserving health, they sow innumerable disorders, which can only be
cured by substituting a beverage from such salutary native or exotic
herbs as are formed for the particular afflictions the former have so
pitiably brought upon the too greater part of mankind.
As almost every disorder to which the human frame is liable may be
retarded in its cure, if not confirmed in the constitution, by the
power of secretion being weakened, India teas are the most dangerous
that can be possibly used as a general beverage. By too much dilating
the canals, the concussive force of the sides is increased, which
destroys the oscillatory motion, and thus are the secretions altered
and disturbed; and as the action of medicines consists in removing
impediments to the equal motion of the fluids, the greater care should
be taken to abstain from all food or drink that may increase those
impediments. That India teas not only increase but occasion such evils
is evident, from their having been experienced to relax the tone and
reduce the consistence of the solids. As the powers of secretion depend
upon the just equilibrium of force between the solids and the liquids,
the latter must, in the above instance, make a greater _impetus_ upon
one part than another, from which proceeds that morbid state so justly
and emphatically termed Disease. Thus, according to the learned
Boerhaave, to heal is to take away the disease from the body; that is,
to remove and expel the causes which hinder the equal motion or
transflux. Medicines, he says, are those mechanical instruments by
which an artist may remove the causes of the balance being destroyed,
and thus re-instate the lost equilibrium of solids and liquids. He
therefore concludes, that a medicine supposes a flowing of the humours
or liquids; that it operates mechanically; that it acts only mediately;
that its good or bad effects depend entirely on the bulk, motion, and
figure of the acting particles, and that the destruction of the balance
must be deduced from the solids. So that, as it has been found that the
solids are wasted and impaired by the constant use of India tea, the
chief cause of disease, in general, may be attributed to such a
pernicious custom; even the properties which he ascribes to medicines
are in direct opposition to what have been found to be the prevailing
effects of teas imported into Europe. It is consequently evident, that
the drinking of this injurious tea being not only, in its operation,
productive of disease in its general sense, but also repugnant to the
salutary operation of medicine, it is the most dangerous beverage that
can be generally taken; for it appears, from the above consideration,
that its pernicious effects are not confined to any system of
disorders; it is found inimical to the first principles of health, and
therefore may be justly dreaded as capable of being the source of
disease indefinitely understood.
Having thus stated, as an Introduction to this Essay on Teas, the
general tendency of those imported from India, under the titles of
Green, Souchong, and Bohea, to injure the constitution, the following
pages will be particularly devoted to the consideration of the nature,
preparation, and manner of using, and the effects of such foreign teas.
ESSAY ON TEAS.
There is, perhaps, no subject on which there has been more declamation,
for and against its properties and effects, than those of teas imported
into this country by the companies trading from the different maritime
nations of Europe to China and India. Nor has there been a controversy
in which the health of the community has been so materially concerned,
that has afforded so little direction of moment to those who would wish
to ascertain the truth of such teas being either beneficial, injurious,
or innocent in their effects. Amidst a mass of declamatory assertion so
little intelligence is to be gained, that those who have had the
greatest interest in being informed of the real qualities of teas, have
most abandoned the enquiry before they obtained the least knowledge of
what they sought. Either perplexed with abstruse science, or
dissatisfied with assertion equally unfounded and unsupported,
thousands have discontinued the research, and committed themselves to
fatal experience. Thus have too many acquired a knowledge of the
detrimental qualities of teas, by the ruin of their constitution. To
avoid therefore such an inconvenience, the greatest care will be taken
to prevent an indiscriminate reference to authors, whose sentiments can
neither sanction adduced arguments or illustrate technical allusions.
The enquiry will be made with some reference to science, but more to
convince by demonstration than to confound by abstruse perplexities. So
that, while empty declamation is avoided, the principles of truth are
meant to be investigated by reason and experience. With this view, the
Nature of Green, Souchong, and Bohea teas is first considered. To judge
of the nature of these herbs with equal candour and propriety, it may
be necessary to consider their qualities in relation to what are
ascribed them, and what have been discovered by their analysis, and
what have resulted from experience. The virtues that have been ascribed
to them are chiefly, being a greatful diluent in health, and salutary
in sickness, by attenuating viscid juices, promoting natural
excretions, exciting appetite, and proving particularly serviceable in
fevers, immoderate sleepiness, and head-aches after a debauch. It is
also added to the list of their ascribed virtues, that there is no
plant yet known, the infusions of which pass more freely from the body,
or more speedily excite the spirits. To a person of any physical
knowledge, these qualities will either appear contradictory in
themselves, or rather ultimately injurious, than absolutely beneficial.
As the full examination of these assumed qualities, by the rules of
science, would require a volume, instead of a few pages, which the
limits of this Essay will afford, the enquiry must be made as
perspicuous as the necessity of brevity will admit. Allowing they are
diluting in health, their constant use may so attenuate the liquids as
to destroy their natural force and tensity. But Boerhaave says, there
is no proper diluent but water; it is therefore evident it is the
water, and not the tea, which is the diluting medium. With respect to
its being an attenuative of viscid humours, it can never possess this
virtue from being a diluent, for an attenuant acts _specially_ on
the particles, by diminishing their bulk, while the diluent acts upon
the whole mass of the fluid.
The general body of the liquid may be diluted while the viscid humours
remain unresolved. Indeed, the operation of an attenuant is not easily
known; for many are surprised that a slight inflammation should be so
difficult to dissipate. But their surprise would cease, were they to
consider, that medicines act more generally upon the whole body than
abstractedly upon the part affected. Suppose to attenuate some
coagulated blood, six grains of volatile salt were given, how small a
proportion must come to the part diseased, when these grains, by the
laws of circulation, will mix with the entire mass of blood, consisting
at least of thirty pounds!
Teas being said to promote natural excretions, can be no recommendation
of what is generally used; for this constant effect must render them
too copious, and thus, according to all physical experience, the blood
must be thickened in the greater vessels, which frequently terminates
in an atrophy.
The appetite being excited by the drinking of tea, is more a proof of
its attrition of the solids than any stimulus to a wholesome desire of
food. This quality accounts for the acrimonious effects too many have
experienced by its use. Many have not only had their blood
impoverished, but corrupted by the constant drinking of these teas.
Whether it arises from any positive acrimonious salt it naturally
possesses, or from any acquired corrosiveness from its mode of drying,
is not here necessary to enquire: it is only requisite to state that a
pernicious effect is too fatally experienced by those who are
unfortunately its slaves.
How India tea can be serviceable in fevers is not easy to be
understood; for, if it has that effect upon the nerves to excite
watchfulness, it must greatly tend to increase, instead of diminish
feverish symptoms. Dr. Buchan attributes even one cause of the palsy to
drinking much tea or coffee, &c. and, in a note, he subjoins: "Many
people imagine that tea has no tendency to hurt the nerves, and that
drinking the same quantity of warm water would be equally pernicious.
This, however, seems to be a mistake, many persons drinking three or
four cups of warm milk and water daily, without feeling any bad
consequences; yet the same quantity of tea will make their hands shake
for twenty-four hours. That tea affects the nerves is likewise evident
from its preventing sleep, occasioning giddiness, dimness of the sight,
sickness, &c."
With regard to India teas possessing the quality of exciting the
spirits, this, like every other stimulus, either by constant use loses
its effect, or unnerves the system it is meant to strengthen. The
nerves through which the animal spirits circulate being, like the
strings of a violin or harpsichord, too frequently braced, lose, at
last, their natural tensity, and thus render the human frame one system
of debility.
Having thus, as briefly as possible, stated that even their ascribed
virtues are either derogatory to all physical principle, or else
destructive to the constitution, from their constant use, the nature of
India teas is next considered, with respect to what appears to be their
chief component parts, from analyzation.
Teas have been found to consist principally of narcotic salts, some
astringent oil, and earth. These being found in greater quantities in
bohea than in green teas, those who have very sensible and elastic
nerves must be seized with a greater tremor after drinking the former
than the latter. The continual and regular influx of the nervous juices
is stopped by their component fibres being contracted from the
roughness and restringency of such decoctions. The force of the heat,
or the brain's propulsion of its nervous juice, being inferior to the
resistance of the whole ramified fibres thus encreased by the sudden
contraction and unequal motion, the flow of the animal spirits must be
greatly impeded and disordered. In fact, the influx suffers a
suspension, until the fibres, by relaxing again, admit their empty
tubes to receive their appropriated liquids. Thus even green tea must,
especially if taken strong and often, stop the natural circulation of
humours, and produce the attendant defects of depression of spirits,
deficiency of secretion, loss of appetite, decrease of strength, waste
of body, and, finally, a total want of effective vigour in all the
animal functions. But, as above observed, bohea tea possessing in
greater quantity the pernicious ingredients, the vessels are thrown
into momentary spasms and convulsive vibrations, by the relaxing power
of the narcotic salts, and the contracting force of the astringent oil
and earth. And here it must be noticed, that oil mixed with salt is
rendered astringent: thus all vegetables, where a mixture of both
prevails, are reckoned stimulating. The narcotic power of the salt is
derived from its hindering the flux of the animal spirits through the
nerves.
The stomach and bowels being weakened by the above causes, windy
complaints or flatulencies are consequently produced. This caused Dr.
Whytt, in his advice to patients afflicted with such diseases, to
desire they would abstain from India tea, as one of the flatulent
aliments chiefly to be avoided.
If the slightest external motion alone produces the following changes
in the body, what effects may not be ascribed to the constant use of
teas, which we find, as before stated, operate internally? A person in
perfect health, having his nostrils only touched with a feather, cannot
avoid his body being so convulsed as to produce what is commonly called
sneezing. But if the number of muscles agitated, the force and
straining of the body by sneezing, are considered; the slightness of
the cause must excite no little astonishment; for this action is
occasioned by the muscles of the scapula, abdomen, diaphragm, thorax,
lungs, &c. and if the sneezing continues, an universal explosion of the
liquids ensues: tears, mucus, saliva, and urine, are excreted. Thus,
without any moist, cold, hot, dry, sulphur, salt, or any other internal
or external application, an involuntary motion of all the solids and
fluids is produced by a feather touching, in the slightest manner, the
inside of our nostrils. But Boerhaave relates further, "That if
sneezing continues a long time, as it will by taking one hundredth part
of a grain of euphorbium up the nose, grievous and continued
convulsions will arise, head-aches, involuntary excretions of urine,
&c., vomitings, febrile heats, and other dreadful symptoms; and, at
last, death itself will ensue." It is therefore evident that the
slightest bodies produce the greatest changes in the human frame.
Such is the power of certain particles upon the nerves, that the
stomach will be thrown into convulsions that almost threaten an
inversion, by taking only four ounces of a wine in which so small a
portion of glass of antimony as one scruple is infused in eight pounds
of the former. And what is still more remarkable is, that the glass of
antimony remains not only undissolved, but, comparatively speaking,
undiminished in its weight.
These being a few of the fatal afflictions which experience shews to be
frequently the consequence of drinking India teas, its injurious nature
is too evident to require any further investigation of either their
ascribed or positive qualities. The next subject to be considered,
relative to India teas, is their Preparation.
Among the different authors of any consequence that have written on the
culture, preparation, and virtues of foreign teas, may be ranked
Kampfer, Postlethwaite, Dr. Cunningham, Priestley, Lemery, Franchus,
Meister, and Sigesbeck; as the limits of this Treatise will not permit
a detail of observations from the whole of these writers, remarks can
only be selected from the most principal of them. Most of the above,
and many other, authors agree that the leaves are spread upon iron
plates, and thus dried with several little furnaces contained in one
room. This mode of preparation must greatly tend to deprive the shrub
of its native juices, and to contract a rust from the iron on which it
is dried. This may probably be the cause of vitriol turning tea into an
inky blackness. We therefore do not think with Boerhaave, that the
preparers employ green vitriol for improving the colour of the finer
green teas. It may however be concluded, from the colour of bohea,
souchong, and such as are called black teas, that they may be thus
tinctured, by the means of vitriol, after they have been dried upon the
iron plates in the furnace room; and this may likewise particularly
cause that astringent quality which is more experienced in all the
black than any of the green teas. According to Sigesbeck, the colours
of these teas are artificial; so that if these pernicious arts are used
even to give the tea a particular colour, there is no difficulty in
ascribing the cause of their injurious effects.
That the native virtues of these teas are liable to considerable
perversion is evident from the manner in which Meister relates they are
prepared. He says the leaves are put into a hot kettle just emptied of
boiling water, and that they are kept in this closely covered until
they are cold, when they are strewed upon the hot plates above
mentioned for drying. It is easy to conceive how the virtues of a leaf,
however salutary by nature, must be destroyed by such a process. Being
thus put into a steaming kettle, and suffered to remain there until
they are cold, must cause the greatest part of their Virtues to
evaporate, and the leaves to imbibe an unwholesome taint from the
effluvia of the steaming metal. It cannot, therefore, be ascertained
whether teas that are imported in Europe, after such a mutating
preparation, have the least remains of their original odour or flavour,
no more than they have of their qualities; but, on the contrary, it
seems impossible but that the original nature of this shrub is entirely
destroyed by an artificial preparation. Some falsely suppose that this
species of management is only to soften such of the leaves as are grown
too dry, and are therefore liable to break in the curling; but this
will evidently appear not the cause, when it is considered that the
greater part of the teas must dry in such a hot climate while they are
gathering: and as they are particularly anxious to send them in as
curious a curled state as possible, such teas must be thus moistened
again, in order to curl them afterwards in that perfect manner which is
performed on the iron plates of the furnace.
The opinion, therefore, of teas deriving their green colour from being
dried upon copper being founded on a misrepresentation of the manner in
which they are really prepared, a few observations upon the subject are
indispensibly necessary. For those who have always understood that the
detrimental qualities of foreign teas were the consequence of their
being dried upon copper, may perhaps imagine they cannot be so
pernicious if they were dried upon iron; but this opinion cannot be
entertained by any persons who have the least knowledge of the manner
in which the vegetable acid will corrode iron. Those who are acquainted
with culinary processes must know in what manner the acid of onions
will operate upon any steel instrument; it corrodes a knife so as to
turn the onions black with the particles eaten away from the edge and
the face of the blade. To avoid this unwholsome and unseemly
inconvenience, a wooden instrument is generally used in all instances
where onions form a part of the cookery appendages. It is consequently
evident, that although iron utensils are now greatly used instead of
copper, yet many injurious effects may happen from their being liable
to be corroded by the acid of several vegetables. And if the nitrous
acid of the air will corrode iron so as to cause rust, when it will not
produce the proportionate effect upon copper, it is a demonstration
that iron is the most liable to such a corruption. The corrosions of
copper are undoubtedly pernicious; but the damage that tea would derive
from its being dried upon sheets of this metal would not operate so
injuriously to those who drink it as it does now by lying dried upon
iron. For the latter bring more liable to the power of the mineral,
vegetable, or animal acid, must impart more particles of its reduced
calax to the tea than copper would. And, in order to shew how
susceptible of corrosion iron is, the following instance is farther
adduced: in Ireland, where some persons practise the art of tanning
leather with fern, which possesses a very strong acid, particular care
is taken to avoid using any iron vessels in the tannage, lest the
colour of the leather should be blackened by the corroding particle of
the metal. As it is the peculiar property of iron or steely particles,
even in their most perfect state, to operate as too great an astringent
for an aliment that is taken twice a day constantly, tea, when dried
upon it, must be rendered proportionably pernicious. But admitting that
the popular opinion of their being dried upon copper was just, the teas
must be rendered proportionably injurious to the quantity of copperas
or crude vitriol they imbibe from their acidity corroding the metal.
Preparations of steel, that are, in many instances, considered as most
salutary, yet in all pulmonary disorders the most eminent physicians
have deemed them exceedingly dangerous. And in a country, like Great
Britain, Holland, and other places, where a cloudy atmosphere, caused
from their marshy soil or watery situation, renders most of the
inhabitants subject to complaints of the lungs, foreign teas,
contaminated by these iron corrosions, must be particularly
detrimental. It is therefore, from these considerations, evident, that
foreign teas, by being dried upon iron, have their bad qualities so
increased as to render them the most pernicious of any morning and
evening liquid that has yet been taken.----To return from whence we
began this short digression.
It is remarkable that no satisfactory account has yet been given in
what the bohea differs from the green tea. Dr. Cunningham, physician to
the English settlement at Cimsan, and Kampfer assert, that the bohea is
the leaves of the first collection.
This, however, being contrary to the general report of all travellers,
that none of the first produce is brought to Europe, must be
discredited; for these are all preserved for the Princes, to whom they
are sold, even in China, at an immense price. Another proof is, that
the boheas are brought here in the most considerable quantities, at a
price greatly inferior to what even the second, third, and fourth crops
are sold for in China. This not only evinces how inferior in quality
the black tea must be, but also how little they are valued among those
who must be acquainted with their properties.
Although the European dealers divide the green teas chiefly into three
sorts, and the boheas into five, yet it is unknown from what province
they are brought, of what crop they are the produce, and to which of
the Chinese sorts they belong.
Added to their abuse of preparation may be that of their package. It is
impossible but to know that their bad qualities must be considerably
augmented by being so closely packed, for such a length of time, in
such slight wooden chests, lined with a composition of wood and lead.
Considerable quantities are likewise damaged by salt water and other
causes, which, by the management of the tea dealers, are mostly mixed,
and sold under different denominations. How the tea must be affected by
the corrosion of the lead and tin by the marine acid, those of the
least chemical knowledge will easily determine. To what danger must,
therefore, the constitution of those who are in the constant habit of
drinking such an empoisoned drug be exposed, may easily be imagined.
Surely, when all these circumstances are considered respecting the
pernicious mode of preparation, and particularly the poisonous
qualities they are also liable to contract from the nature of their
package, every person must be convinced to what a loss of health, if
not of life, the constant use of such teas must expose them. Such
evidence of their deleterious tendency is almost sufficient to alarm
mankind against so prevailing an evil, without any further arguments;
but as health is too precious not to require every possible proof that
can persuade us to avoid what so immediately threatens our existence,
the following arguments and testimonies of the bad qualities of foreign
teas must not be omitted. Previous, however, to an investigation of
their effects, it may be necessary to say a few words respecting
THE MANNER OF USING.
Foreign tea, as before observed, being taken as two principal meals of
our daily aliment, is undoubtedly one great reason of the constitution
of the people having suffered an entire change in its system. That
vigour, spirits, and longevity, which characterised us in the last
century, is totally subverted; disease, dismay, and debility, now lead
us prematurely to the grave, where we end an existence too deplorable
to excite the least desire for a longer continuance. Dr. Priestley
states, very justly, in his Medical Essays, that it is curious to
observe the revolution which hath taken place, within this century, in
the constitutions of the inhabitants of Europe. Inflammatory diseases
more rarely occur, and in general are much less rapid and violent in
their progress than formerly; nor do they admit of the same
antiphlogistic method of cure which was practised with success a
hundred years ago. The experienced Sydenham makes forty ounces of blood
the mean quantity to be drawn in the acute rheumatism; whereas this
disease, as it now appears in the London hospitals, will not bear above
half that evacuation. Vernal intermittents are frequently cured by a
vomit and the bark, without venæsection, which is a proof that, at
present, they are accompanied with fewer symptoms of inflammation than
they were wont to be. This advantageous change, however, is more than
counterbalanced by the introduction of a numerous class of nervous
aliments, in a greater measure, unknown to our ancestors, but which now
prevail universally, and are complicated with almost every other
distemper. The bodies of men are enfeebled and enervated; and it is not
uncommon to observe very high degrees of irritability under the
external appearance of great strength and robustness. The
hypochondriac, palsies, cachexies, dropsies, and all those diseases
which arise from laxity and debility, are, in our days, endemic every
where; and the hysterics, which used to be peculiar to the women, as
the name itself indicates, now attacks both sexes indiscriminately. It
is evident that so great a revolution could not be effected without the
concurrence of many causes; but amongst these, I apprehend, the present
general use of tea holds the first and principal rank. The second cause
may perhaps be allotted to excess in spirituous liquors. This
pernicious custom owes its rise to the former, which, by the lowness
and depression of spirits it occasions, renders it almost necessary to
have recourse to what is cordial and exhilarating; and hence proceeds
those odious and disgraceful habits of intemperance with which too many
of the softer sex of every degree are now, alas! chargeable. These are
the sentiments of a character distinguished for his elaborate
researches and judicious discoveries in almost every branch of liberal
science. It may therefore be safely concluded, that the general manner
of using India tea morning and evening has been, and is, the principal
cause of the greater part of the diseases with which the natives of
Europe are now afflicted. When it is considered that the first meal
which is taken to recruit the body, after the loss it sustains from the
insensible perspiration of the preceding night, and to prepare it for
the avocations of the succeeding day, is India tea, who can be
surprised that nature should rapidly become the victim of disease?
Thus, instead of being supported by nutritious aliment, its nerves are
enfeebled, its spirits diminished, and all its functions enveloped with
the gloom of melancholy. Even in the afternoon, when nature is
exhausted by care and fatigue, we fly for refreshment to tea, which,
instead of bracing, still further relaxes the unnerved system. Such are
the evil effects of the imprudent manner in which this pernicious drug
is so constantly and universally used. But how must these evils appear
in their extent, when the following view is taken of India teas, with
regard to their variety of injurious EFFECTS.
In all the physical experiments that have been made upon India teas,
there is, perhaps, none that shews its acid astringency more than one
tried by the above writer, Dr. Priestley. Endeavouring to trace the
differences and ascertain the astringency and bitterness of vegetables
reciprocally bear to each other, he imagined he had found they were
distinct and separate properties, by the following experiment: Taking
two pieces of calf-skin just stripped from the calf, he immerged them
in cold infusions of green and bohea tea; at the expiration of a week
he found they were hard and curled up, and that there was no sensible
difference between them. He therefore concluded, that this experiment
afforded a striking proof of India tea differently affecting a dead and
a living fibre; this he considered as the greatest effect of a
medicine. But, with deference to so distinguished an author, I cannot
but attribute this astringency of the skin to the particular properties
of India tea; for all physical as well as medical experience proves
that vegetable produce afford some that are astringent, and others that
are relaxant, of the dead as well as the living fibre. Oak bark is
equally astringent, and hardens the fibres of the hide, as well as it
braces the living nerve of our bodies; therefore the effect produced by
the India tea upon the dead skin only proves, what we have before
related, that an infusion of it has a peculiar effect, which, being too
frequently applied to the nerves, destroys their tensity by their fine
fibres being either broken or relaxed by overbracing. Were any
astringent to be constantly taken, it must ultimately produce more or
less such an effect; so that while the above experiment of the learned
Philosopher demonstrates that India tea has the power of astringing the
dead as well as the living fibres, it does not prove that astringency
bitterness are separate qualities. On the contrary, bitterness seems to
be the characteristic taste of all that has the tendency to contract
whatever is the subject of its application. Thus galls, bark, rhubarb,
camomile tea, &c. &c. are all bitter and astringent. It is, therefore,
the immoderate use of such an astringent that ultimately relaxes and
debilitates: like the too frequent bracing of a drum, or any other
stringed musical instrument, destroys its tensity, the body is unnerved
by the overstretching of its fibres. Although we sometimes differ with
the celebrated Doctor in part of the conclusion he has drawn from his
experiment, yet the following sentiments so perfectly coincide with all
our observations upon India teas, that we are happy to have the
opportunity of corroborating our own with the sentiments of so eminent
a Philosopher. He says, from his experiments, "it appears that green
and bohea teas are equally bitter, strike precisely the same black
tinge with green vitriol, and are alike astringent on the simple fibre.
From this exact similarity in so many circumstances, one should be led
to suppose that there would be no sensible diversity in their operation
on the living body; but the fact is otherwise: green tea is much more
sedative and relaxant than bohea; and the finer the species of tea, the
more debilitating and pernicious are its effects, as I have frequently
observed in others, and experienced in myself. This seems to be a proof
that the mischiefs ascribed to this oriental vegetable do not arise
from the warm vehicle by which it is conveyed into the stomach, but
chiefly from its own peculiar qualities." Dr. Hugh Smith, in his
Treatise on the Action of the Muscles, justly says, that an infusion of
India tea not only diminishes, but destroys the bodily functions.
_Thea infusum, nervo musculove ranæ admotum, vires motices minuit
perdit._ Newman, in his Chemistry, says, when fresh gathered, teas
are said to be narcotic, and to disorder the senses; the Chinese,
therefore, cautiously abstain from their use until they have been kept
twelve months. The reason attributed for bohea tea being less injurious
than green is, being more hastily dried, the pernicious qualities more
copiously evaporate.
"Tea," says Dr. Hugh Smith, in his Dissertation upon the Nerves, "is
very hurtful both to the stomach and nerves. Phrensies, deliriums,
vigilation, idiotism, apoplexies, and other disorders of the brain, are
all produced by the nerves being thus disarranged and debilitated. If
the digestive faculty of the stomach be weakened, the body, failing of
recruiting juices, must tend to emaciation, and the whole frame be
rendered one system of distress and infirmity. The nerves, being thus
deprived of a sufficiency of their animal spirits, must become languid,
and leave every sense void of the first means of conveying to the mind
the only enjoyments of our temporal existence.
"But if there be any class of persons to whom India tea is more
particularly hurtful than to any other, it is that which includes the
studious and sedentary, and especially those who are enfeebled with
gout, stone, and rheumatism; age, accident, or avocation, cause many
persons to be unfortunately ranked amongst those of the latter
description. These, from their intensity of thought, want of exercise,
injurious position of body, respiration of unwholesome air, and a
variety of other causes, have not only their animal spirits exhausted,
but their liquids corrupted from the loss of a necessary circulation.
With these evils India tea operates as an absolute poison. Indeed, it
frequently renders those incurable, who might, by other means, have
been relieved.
"When a view is taken of the dismal effects produced by India teas, the
mind seems to be bewildered in searching for the cause of using so
generally a drug that is so universally destructive. It chiefly
originated in a fundamental mistake of physical principles. About the
time that India tea was introduced to Europe, a grievous error crept
into the practice of medical professors; they falsely imagined that
health could not be more promoted than by increasing the fluidity of
the blood. This opinion once established, it is no wonder that mankind,
with one accord, adopted the infusion of India tea, which was then a
novelty to Europe, as the best means of obtaining the above effect. By
the advice of Bentikoe chiefly was the pernicious custom of drinking
warm liquors, night and day, established. To this man, and the
introduction of India tea, may be ascribed that revolution in the
health of Europeans which has happened since the last century. The
present age, therefore, have great cause to lament, in what they suffer
in nervous complaints, that their forefathers did not attend more to
the scientific and judicious advice of the illustrious Duncan,
Boerhaave, and the whole school of Leyden, who proscribed this error.
Although they could not entirely prevent this physical abuse, yet their
zealous endeavours did, in some degree, at first impede its progress;
but, however, so powerful did novelty plead in favour of India teas,
that, at last, general custom and prejudice bore away every barrier
that had been erected by these learned and experienced physicians. This
error, instead of diminishing, has increased: most valetudinarians are
now of opinion that a thick blood is the sole cause of their
complaints; with this impression they adopt what they call the diluent
beverage of India teas. It can scarcely be imagined how many disorders
this practice produces; it may be justly termed the box of Pandora,
without even hope remaining at the bottom." Tissot says, "They are the
prolific sources of hypochondriac melancholy, which both adds strength
to and is one of the worst of disorders." He adds, "with regard to
studious men, who are naturally weak and feeble, such warm beverages
are more hurtful to them than to others; for they are not troubled with
an over thick, but, on the contrary, too thin a blood. You are all
aware," continues he, "respectable auditors, that the density of the
blood is as the motion of the solids; the fibres of the learned are
relaxed, their motions are slow, and their blood, of consequence, thin.
Bleed a ploughman and a doctor at the same time; from the first there
will flow a thick blood, resembling inflammatory blood, almost solid,
and of a deep red; the blood of the latter will be either of a faint
red, or without any colour, soft, gelatinous, and will almost entirely
turn them to water. Your blood, therefore, men of learning, should not
be dissolved, but brought to a consistence; and you should in general
be moderate in the article of drinking, and cautiously avoid warm
spirituous liquors.
"Amongst the favorite beverages of the learned," the same Tissot
observes, "is the infusion of that famous leaf, so well known by the
name of India tea, which, to our great detriment, has every year, for
these two centuries past, been constantly imported from China and
Japan. This most pernicious gift first destroys the strength of the
stomach, and if it be not soon laid aside, equally destroys that of the
viscera, the blood, the nerves, and of the whole body; so that
malignant and all chronical disorders will appear to increase,
especially nervous disorders, in proportion as the use of India tea
becomes common; and you may easily form a judgment, from the diseases
that prevail in every country, whether the inhabitants are lovers of
tea or the contrary. How happy would it be for Europe, if, by unanimous
consent, the importation of this infamous leaf was prohibited, which is
endued only with a corrosive force derived from the acrimony of a gum
with which it is pregnant."