THE FRIENDS AND THE FOES OF TEA.
A learned Dutchman's opinion of tea--Two hundred cups a day
recommended--Tea the universal panacea--Tea-merchants greedy as
hell--Degeneracy of the race through tea-drinking--Appeal to
women--Tea a slow poison--Experiment upon a dog--John Wesley's attack
upon tea--Why he preached against it--Dr. Lettsom's thesis--Accuses
tea of leading to intemperance--The essential principle of tea--The
value of experiments upon animals--Tea-drinking among women--The
Anti-Teapot Society--The benefits of tea-drinking--Dr. Richardson's
condemnation--The Dean of Bangor as a joker--Life without
stimulants--Dr. Poore's description of the good and bad effects of
tea-drinking--Injurious to children--A properly controlled appetite
the safest guide.
Like tobacco, tea received on its introduction very different
treatment by different people. It was extravagantly praised by some,
and extravagantly denounced by others. "Some ascribe such sovereign
virtues to this exotic," remarks one author, "as if 'twas able to
eradicate or prevent the spring of all diseases.... Others, on the
contrary, are equally severe in their censures, and impute the most
pernicious consequences to it, accounting it no better than a slow but
efficacious poison, and a seminary of diseases." A learned Dutchman
pronounced it the infallible cure for bad health, and declared that
"if mankind could be induced to drink a sufficient quantity of it, the
innumerable ills to which man is subject would not only be diminished,
but entirely unknown." He went so far as to express his conviction
that 200 cups daily would not be too much. It is scarcely surprising,
therefore, to find the Dutch East India Company liberally rewarding
this eloquent apostle of the new drink. Scarcely less enthusiastic
was the professor of physic in a German University, who declared tea
"the defence against the enemies of health; the universal panacea
which has long been sought for." This opinion, indeed, prevailed
very extensively in the East. The following notice is copied from the
"Relation of the Voyage to Siam by Six Jesuits, in 1685:"--"It is a
civility amongst them to present betel and tea to all that visit them.
Their own country supplies them with betel and areca, but they have
their tea from China and Japan. All the Orientals have a particular
esteem for it, because of the great virtues they find to be in it.
Their physicians say that it is a sovereign medicine against the stone
and pains of the head, that it allays vapours, that it cheers the
mind, and strengthens the stomach. In all kinds of fevers they take it
stronger than commonly, when they begin to feel the heat of the fit,
and then the patient covers himself up to sweat, and it hath been very
often found that this sweat wholly drives away the fever." A similar
belief in the virtues of opium existed until very recently in the minds
of the people of the Fen counties.
[Illustration: DRYING THE TEA-LEAVES.]
The enemies of tea appear to have been quite as active as its friends.
A German physician declared it a cause of dropsy and diabetes, and
the introducer of foreign diseases, and he charged the merchants with
"inexpressible frauds, calling them greedy as hell, the vilest of
usurers, who lie in wait for men's purses and lives." According to
Mr. Mattieu Williams, drunkenness serves one useful purpose; for it
helps to get rid of the surplus population. A French physician held
similar views of the use of tea and coffee; for, writing at the close
of the seventeenth century, he expressed his belief, "that they are
permitted by God's providence for the lessening the number of mankind
by shortening life, as a kind of silent plague." Coming down to more
recent times, the most remarkable production against tea appeared in
1722. The mind of the author seems to have been seriously disturbed at
the prospect of the deterioration of the race, which would inevitably
follow indulgence in tea. His treatise, which is addressed to ladies,
is entitled "An Essay on the Nature, Use, and Abuse of Tea, in a Letter
to a Lady; with an Account of its Mechanical Operation. London: printed
by J. Bettenham for James Lacy at the Ship, between the Two Temple
Gates, Fleet Street, 1722. Price 1_s._" This book contains some curious
information about the diseases liable to follow the use of tea. The
author begins:--
"Madam,--an earnest desire, which all ages have shown, to serve
your sex will, I hope, be sufficient warrant for my troubling you
with these papers. To be assisting towards the preservation of that
form and beauty with which God has adorned you, is certainly a work
not less pious than pleasant; for while we indulge ourselves in our
greatest pleasure (which is to serve your sex), would also show our
love and gratitude to the Almighty Being, whose form you so nearly
represent, and to whom we are so much indebted for the blessing we
received when He gave man so agreeable an helpmate. Though the value
which we ought to set on this blessing is a sufficient motive to us
to endeavour by all means to dissuade you from anything which may be
to your detriment, yet there are other motives which oblige us to have
a more particular regard to the health of your sex. For when by any
means you ignore your constitutions and impair your healths, though
you yourselves suffer too severely for it, yet the tragedy does not
end here, for the calamity is entailed on succeeding ages, perhaps to
the third and fourth generations."
The author then notes the fact that Lycurgus thought the Spartan women
not in the least unworthy of his care and direction, and proceeds to
remark:--
"If this lawgiver lived in these our days, what a mean opinion, what
a little hope, would he have of the next age, when the women of this
age fell so very short of that regularity and healthy way of living,
which he looked on as necessary for the preservation of a state! With
what an uneasiness would he have seen the many errors which we daily
commit!--errors which are introduced by luxury, suffered through
ignorance, and supported by being fashionable. He would soon have
condemned the exorbitant use of tea, and upon the first observing its
ill effects would certainly have prohibited the importation of it. But
the present age has other considerations: tea pays too great a duty,
and supports too many coaches, not to be preferred to the health of
the public. Tea has too great interest to be prohibited, and I wish
reason itself may be sufficient to dissuade the world from the use
of it. I must confess I have so little hope from these papers, that
though (to me and some others, who have had the perusal of them) they
seem just and satisfactory, yet I should never have presented them to
the public, had not I thought it an indispensable duty to acquaint the
world with the many disorders which may possibly arise from its too
frequent use."
This worthy benefactor of his species contends that tea is a slow but
sure poison, and that it is "not less destructive to the animal economy
than opium, or some other drugs which we have at present learned to
avoid with more caution." He does not deny that tea is "useful as
physic," but lays down the following propositions, which he endeavours
to prove. First, that tea may attenuate the blood to any degree
necessary to the production of any disease, which may arise from too
thin a state of the blood. Secondly, that tea may depauper the blood,
or waste the spirits, to any degree necessary to produce any disease,
which may arise from too poor a blood. Third, that tea may bring on
any degree whatsoever of a plethora necessary to the production of
any disease, which may arise from a plethoric state of body. From an
experiment upon a dog the author concludes that "tea abounds with
a lixiviate salt, by whose assistance it attenuates the blood." The
author draws some terrible pictures of the evils of tea-drinking, but
does not presume to dictate how his readers should act. "Whether or not
we ought to abandon the use of what may possibly be of so vast injury
to us, I leave to every reasonable man to judge, having myself done the
duty of a man and Christian in warning them of what dangers they may
fall into."
On the other hand, Thomas Frost, M.D., wrote a "Discourse on Tea, with
Plain and Useful Rules for Gouty People," in 1750. In this he contended
that,--
"A moderate use of tea of a due strength seems better adapted to
the fair sex than men, for they, naturally being of a more lax and
delicate make, are more liable to a fulness of blood and juices; as
also because they have less exercise or head-labours, than which
nothing braces better, or gives the fibres a greater springiness; and
because they are less accustomed to drink wine, whose astringency
corrugates the fibres, and enables the vessels to act with greater
briskness and force, so in some measure answers the end of the labour."
He holds that tea in a dietetic point of view seems in general not
only harmless, but very useful, but considers it impossible to say
"beforehand with what healthy persons tea will disagree, till they
have used it; where it disagrees, it should immediately be left off,
for there is no altering or compelling a constitution. However, where
it agrees, it excels all other vegetables, foreign or domestic, for
preventing sleepiness, drowsiness, or dulness, and taking off weariness
or fatigue, raising the spirits safely, corroborating the memory,
strengthening the judgment, quickening the invention, &c.; but then it
should be drank moderately, and in the afternoon chiefly, and not made
too habitual."
John Wesley, a few years later, attacked the use of tea. In 1748 he
published a small tract, "Letter to a Friend concerning Tea," in
which he accused tea of impairing digestion, unstringing the nerves,
involving great and useless expense, and in his own case, and that of
others, inducing symptoms of paralysis. But, in the first instance, he
preached against tea, not because he thought it injurious, but because
he wanted money. The whole of the London Methodists were at that time
very poor. The Rev. L. Tyerman, in his "Life and Times of the Rev. John
Wesley," says,--
"The number of members in the London Society on the 12th of April,
1746, was 1939, and the amount of their quarterly contributions
113_l._ 9_s._, upon an average fourteenpence per member. Considering
the high price of money, and that nearly the whole of the London
Methodists were extremely poor, the amount subscribed was highly
creditable. Wesley also believed its use to be injurious. He
tells us that when he first went to Oxford, with an exceedingly
good constitution, and being otherwise in health, he was somewhat
surprised at certain symptoms of a paralytic disorder. His hand
shook, especially after breakfast; but he soon observed that if for
two or three days he intermitted drinking tea, the shaking ceased.
Upon inquiry, he found tea had the same effect upon others, and
particularly on persons whose nerves were weak. This led him to lessen
the quantity he took, and to drink it weaker; but still for above six
and twenty years he was more or less subject to the same disorder. In
July, 1746, he began to observe that abundance of the people of London
were similarly affected; some of them having their nerves unstrung,
and their bodily strength decayed. He asked them if they were hard
drinkers; they replied, 'No, indeed, we drink scarce anything but
a little tea morning and night!' ... Having set the example (of
abstinence from tea) Wesley recommended the same abstinence to a few
of his preachers; and a week later to above a hundred of his people,
whom he believed to be strong in faith, all of whom, with two or three
exceptions, resolved by the grace of God to make the trial without
delay. In a short time he proposed it to the whole society. Objections
rose in abundance. Some said, 'Tea is not unwholesome at all.' To
these he replied that many eminent physicians had declared it was, and
that, if frequently used by those of weak nerves, it is no other than
a slow poison. Others said, 'Tea is not unwholesome to me; why then
should I leave it off?' Wesley answered, 'To give an example to those
to whom it is undeniably prejudicial, and to have the more wherewith
to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked.' Others said, 'It helps
my health, nothing else will agree with me.' To such Wesley's caustic
reply was, 'I suppose your body is much of the same kind with that of
your grandmother, and do you think nothing else agreed with her, or
with any of her progenitors? What poor, puling, sickly things must all
the English then have been till within these hundred years! Besides,
if, in fact, nothing else will agree with you--if tea has already
weakened your stomach, and impaired your digestion to such a degree,
it has hurt you more than you are aware. You have need to abhor it
as deadly poison, and to renounce it from this very hour.' What was
the result of Wesley's attempt to form a _tea_-total society? We can
hardly tell, except that he himself abstained from tea for the next
twelve years, until Dr. Fothergill ordered him to resume its use.
Charles Wesley began to abstain, but how long his abstinence lasted
we are not informed. About 100 of the London Methodists followed the
example of their leader; and, besides these, a large number of others
began to be _temperate_ and to use less than they had previously."
"This was, to say the least," adds Mr. Tyerman, "an amusing episode in
Wesley's laborious life. All must give him credit for the best and
most benevolent intentions, and it is right to add that, ten days after
his proposal was submitted to the London Society, he had collected
among his friends thirty pounds for a lending stock, and that this was
soon made up to fifty, by means of which, before the year was ended,
above 250 destitute persons had received acceptable relief."
The most noteworthy opponent after Wesley was Jonas Hanway, who, in
1756, wrote a bulky volume under the title of "A Journal of Eight
Days' Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston-upon-Thames, to which is
added an Essay on Tea, considered as Pernicious to Health, obstructing
Industry, and impoverishing the Nation." The effects of tea-drinking
formed the subject of Dr. Lettsom's inaugural thesis, when he sought
the medical doctorate of the University of Leyden in 1767. He accused
tea of inducing "excess in spirituous liquors, by reason of the
weakness and debility of the system brought on by the daily habit of
drinking tea, seeking a temporary relief in some cordial; of producing
in some excruciating pains about the stomach, involuntary trembling
and fluttering of the nerves, destruction of half your teeth at the
age of twenty, without any hopes of getting new ones, depression, loss
of memory, tremblings and symptoms of paralysis; and of bringing on a
gradual debility and impoverished condition of the entire system."
Tea contains an active principle called _theine_, which, according to
Dr. Sinclair, was discovered so recently as 1827. Adopting one of the
methods of the opponents of tobacco, the enemies of tea conclude it to
be a deadly poison from its effect upon animals. A New York dentist is
reported to have boiled down a pound of young Hyson tea from a quart
to half a pint, ten drops of which killed a rabbit three months old;
and when boiled down to one gill, eight drops killed a cat of the same
age in a few minutes. "Think of it!" exclaims an opponent of tea, "most
persons who drink tea use not less than a pound in three months, and
yet a pound of Hyson tea contains poison enough to kill, according to
the above experiment, more than 17,000 rabbits, or nearly 200 a day!
and if boiled down to a gill, it contains poison enough to kill 10,860
cats in the same space of time! How can any one in his senses believe
that any human being can take poison enough into the stomach in one day
to kill 185 rabbits and not suffer from it?--or that the uses of this
poison can be continued from day to day without injury to health and
life?"[5]
The Americans appear the most energetic in their opposition to tea. An
organization called the "American Health and Temperance Association"
was formed in 1879 against tobacco, tea, and coffee; and, according
to one of its publications, has a membership of more than 10,000. It
believes that more harm is done at the present time by tobacco, tea,
and coffee, than by all forms of alcoholic drinks combined, and "the
tee-total pledge of the association requires abstinence from alcohol,
tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, and all other narcotics and stimulants."
The "Good Health Publishing Company," at Battle Creek, also issues
tracts on the "Evil Effects of the Use of Tea and Coffee," in which
it is contended that these beverages waste vital force, and injure
digestion and the nervous system; and that they irritate the temper,
and encourage gossip and scandal.[6]
A New York magazine, the _Herald of Health_, is equally unsparing in
its attacks on tea-drinking:--"The habit of tea-drinking among women
is one of the worst with which the hygienic physician has to contend.
Very few women, comparatively, among civilized peoples are free from
this vice--for vice it is--and as pronounced in its effects as either
whisky or tobacco.... It is a common custom among women who do hard
manual labour to depend upon their cup of tea, when they are tired, to
rest them, as they say, and thus the wearied nerves are lulled to sleep
and the warning voice of nature hushed, that the work may be done and
the system taxed to the utmost that it is able to bear without complete
exhaustion. Is it any wonder that women once broken down are so hard
to restore to health again?
"On women and children its worst consequences fall. To the use of tea
may be traced directly most of the prostrating nervous headaches with
which so many women are afflicted; also most of the neuralgic and
nervous affections. Of course children inherit the tendency to these
and similar conditions, and many a puny, emaciated nervous little one
is so because its mother was a tea-drunkard, and its whole system has
been narcotized from the time its being began."
In England the opposition against tea has never taken an organized
form, but a good deal has been said and written on the question.
In 1863 or 1864 an Anti-Teapot Society was formed, but not against
tea-drinking. It published a quarterly magazine called the
_Anti-Teapot Review_. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ stated
that it was no enthusiastic wish to convert tea-topers into anything
else that called this body into existence; it was rather a desire to
oppose and to cast scorn on the narrowness of mind that seems to be
encouraged in circles which, by no very violent figure of speech, may
be described around a teapot. In other words, he says, the A. T. S. was
a combination against modern Pharisaism, and he quotes the following
extract from No. 1 of the _Review_, May, 1864, as proving his point:--
"Many persons either do not, or pretend not to, know what teapotism
is. In consequence of this ignorance or affectation we shall, in
a few words, try to describe the leading features of the male and
female teapot. Teapotism is a magnificent profession, but a very
sorry practice! It professes a large-hearted liberality, unbounded
piety, and the enunciation of true principles; but its practice is
that of a narrow-minded clique, who condemn all who go not with them.
Its piety consists in hero-worship and the circulation of illiterate
tracts, calculated to attract the strong and to confound the weak; it
is bounded on the north by the platform and meeting-house, and on the
south by scandal, hassocks and tea, whence the name of teapots, &c."
The article ends with the assurance that "The society will go on as it
began: it will remain strictly private, enforce the same rules, and
show that it is the enemy, not of tea, but of teapots." The _Review_
professed to be edited by members of the universities, and written only
by members of the Anti-Teapot Society of Europe. The qualifications for
membership were, to read the rules, to fill up the form of admission
to be had in English, French, German, Dutch, and other languages; to
be nominated and seconded by any two officers; "the latter (_sic_)
wholesome rule was introduced so that inquisitive people might be
prevented from joining the society out of sheer curiosity." The society
appears to have made no converts, and had but a very short existence.
Tea-parties have always been popular institutions among Dissenting
bodies, and it is therefore not surprising to find ministers taking
part in meetings advocating a reduction of the tea duties. In 1848
the Rev. Dr. Hume, attending a meeting in Liverpool for this purpose,
warmly defended tea, on the ground of health, and quoted with great
satisfaction the evidence of Dr. Sigmond, given before the Committee
of the House of Commons. Asked what had been the result of the medical
inquiries into the effect of tea upon the human frame, Doctor Sigmond
replied, "I think it is of great importance in the prevention of skin
disease, in comparison with any fluid we have been in the habit of
drinking in former years, and also in removing glandular affections.
I think scrofula has very much diminished in this country since tea
has been so largely used. To those classes of society who are not of
labouring habits, but who are of sedentary habits, and exercise the
mind a good deal, tea is of great importance."
On the other hand, a famous physician of our time takes an entirely
opposite view of the question. At the Sanitary Congress last year Dr.
Richardson delivered an address on "Felicity as a Sanitary Research,"
and charged tea with being a promoter of infelicity. "As a rule," he
says, "all agents which stimulate--that is to say, relax--the arterial
tension, and so allow the blood a freer course through the organs,
promote for a time felicity, but in the reaction leave depression.
The alkaloid in tea, theine, has this effect. It causes a short and
slight felicity. It causes in a large number of persons a long and
severe and even painful sadness. There are many who never knew a day of
felicity, owing to this one destroying cause. In our poorer districts,
amongst the poor women of our industrial populations, our spinning,
our stocking-weaving women, the misery incident to their lot is often
doubled by this one agent."
The Dean of Bangor is the latest clerical opponent of tea-drinking.
Speaking at a meeting held to further the establishment of courses
of instruction in practical cookery in the elementary schools, he
said that if he had his own way there would be much less tea-drinking
among people of all classes. Oatmeal and milk produced strong, hearty,
good-tempered men and women; whereas excessive tea-drinking created
a generation of nervous, discontented people, who were for ever
complaining of the existing order of the universe, scolding their
neighbours, and sighing after the impossible. Good cooking would,
he firmly believed, enable them to take far higher and more correct
views of existence. In fact, he suspected that too much tea-drinking,
by destroying the calmness of the nerves, was acting as a dangerous
revolutionary force among us. Tea-drinking, renewed three or four
times a day, made men and women feel weak, and the result was that the
tea-kettle went before the gin-bottle, and the physical and nervous
weakness, that had its origin in the bad cookery of an ignorant wife,
ended in ruin, intemperance, and disease.
[Illustration: SIFTING TEA.]
The worthy Dean's denunciation of tea-drinking formed the subject
of numerous leading articles in the press, followed by letters from
correspondents, several of whom referred to the difficulty of finding
any satisfactory substitute for the fragrant and refreshing beverage
which, during the present century; has come to be regarded almost as a
necessary of life in English homes, both rich and poor. One gentleman
pathetically describes his feelings on being presented one afternoon
in a drawing-room, where he had been in the habit of being served
with "at least three cups of supernatural tea," with "a glass brimful
of a dim, opaque, greyish-white liquid," which turned out to be cold
barley-water.
Admitting that tea-drinking leads to indigestion, the _St. James's
Gazette_ points out that "tea-drinking is still, in itself, better than
drunkenness; and there is always a chance that the first factor in the
fatal series may not lead to the second, nor the second to the third.
What numbers of persons of both sexes every one must know who drink
tea three times a day--morning, afternoon, and evening--without ever
getting drunk at all! Every one, again, must have met with cases in
which men have brought themselves to utter grief through the abuse of
spirituous liquors; but who ever heard of a man ruining himself or his
family through excessive indulgence in tea? The confirmed tea-drinker
never commits murder in his cups--never even goes home in a frantic
condition to beat his wife. It is certain, on the other hand, that tea
drunk in immoderate quantities does not good, but harm; and it is
very desirable that, both in drinking and eating, people should on
all occasions be temperate. It is difficult, however, to get through
existence without stimulants of some kind; and tea is probably as
little injurious as any yet discovered. 'Life without stimulants,' as a
modern philosopher has remarked, 'would be a dreary waste.'"
Reviewing the discussion, the _Lancet_ doubted whether the abuse
of tea-drinking is prevalent in the country, and maintained that
hard-worked minds and fatigued bodies are the better for some gentle
stimulant that rouses into activity the nerves, and which ministers to
animal life and comfort. The editor concluded that the worthy dean's
"conclusions are drawn from insufficient premises, which in their turn
can scarcely be regarded as scientific truths."
The latest medical contribution to the literature of the question is
a lecture on "Coffee and Tea," by Dr. Poore, Vice-Chairman of the
Council of the Parkes Museum, given at the Parkes Museum on the 6th of
December, 1883. He thus describes the good and bad effects of these
luxuries:--
"The peculiar effects of tea and coffee are due to the alkaloid.
These effects are of a _refreshing_ character. The circulation of
the blood is increased; the elimination of CO_{2} by the lungs
is heightened. The reflex excitability of the nerve centres is
roused, thereby increasing the impressionability of the consumer,
and great wakefulness results; it also excites the peristalsis of
the intestines. Tea and coffee, then, are stimulants; they rouse
the tissues to increased action, make us insensible to fatigue, and
enable us to do more work than we otherwise could. The differences
between these stimulants and alcoholic stimulants are worth noticing.
Tea and coffee keep us awake and attentive; and those who have taken
either for the purposes of midnight study, will know how under their
influence the receptive powers of the brain seem to be at its maximum.
They cause no mental 'elevation,' and do not rouse the imaginative
faculties as a glass of wine seems to do. They enable a man to work,
and often rob him of sleep, and do not, like a glass of wine, tend
to increase the power of sleep after the work has been accomplished.
The tannic acid in tea is doubtless one of the causes why it is as
a drink so attractive. It is slightly astringent, and clean in the
mouth, and does not 'cloy the palate,' an expression for which I can
find no scientific equivalent; tannic acid is also one of the dangers
and drawbacks of tea. It is largely present in the common teas used
by the poor.... Excessive tea-drinkers are more common than excessive
coffee-drinkers, because the heavier coffee more easily produces
satiety than the lighter tea; and it is not possible for ordinary
stomachs to tolerate more than a certain amount of coffee, even when
pure, and only a very small amount of the thick, sweet, adulterated
stuff which too often passes for coffee in this country.... Tea is
more of a pure beverage than coffee, has less dietetic value, and is
less stimulating; it is more capable of being used as a pure luxury
(it is indeed the tobacco of women), but its great astringency is one
reason which makes its excessive use highly undesirable."
The question of the action of tea, as well as of tobacco and other
stimulants, has occupied the attention of Professor Mantegazza, an
Italian physiologist of high repute. This eminent scholar places tea
amongst the nervous foods; and his enthusiasm for it is unbounded. He
credits it with the power of dispelling weariness and lessening the
annoyances of life. He considers it the greatest friend to the man of
letters, enabling him to work without fatigue; an aid to conversation,
rendering it pleasant and easy. His own experience of tea is, that
it revives drooping intellectual activity; and he regards it the
best stimulus to exertion. "Without its aid," he says, "I should be
idle." His general conclusions are that it is beneficial to adults,
but injurious to children; and he pronounces it one of the greatest
blessings of Providence.
Whatever may be urged in favour of tea, it is undeniable that excess
is injurious, and that children would be better without it. It contains
no strength, and therefore ought to be forbidden to the young. In an
inquiry into the sickly condition of the children in many of the cotton
factories of Lancashire, Dr. Ferguson, of Bolton, found that children
between thirteen and sixteen years of age, who had been brought up on
tea or coffee, increased in weight only about four pounds a year, while
those fed on milk increased at the rate of about fifteen pounds a year.
For this evil the blame rests entirely upon the mothers, who exceed the
bounds of moderation in the use of tea. Though doctors differ widely in
their views of the action of tea, they all agree that few things are
more certain to produce "flatulence in the overworked female" than this
beverage. Their views are shared by other authorities. Miss Barnett,
speaking at the National Health Society's Exhibition last year, said,
"I am constantly preaching against tea, as it is taken by the vast
majority of the working women of England. They drink it at every meal,
and suffer from indigestion before they come to middle age. They try
to get the blackest fluid out of the tea, and in doing so draw out the
tannin, which, though it has its virtues, acts upon the coats of the
stomach and produces indigestion by middle life."
But the argument that tea shortens the life of every man who drinks
it is absurd. "It is said," remarked Wm. Howitt, "that Mithridates
could live and flourish on poisons, and, if it is true that tea or
coffee is a poison, so do most of us. Wm. Hutton, the shrewd and
humorous author of the histories of Birmingham and Derby, and also of
a life of himself, scarcely inferior to that of Franklin in lessons of
life-wisdom, said that he had been told that coffee was a slow poison,
and he added that he had found it very slow, for he had drunk it more
than sixty years without any ill effect. My experience of tea, as well
as coffee," added Howitt, "has been the same." Howitt's experience is
the experience of tens of thousands of people. The moral in this, as
in other matters, is that people must judge for themselves whether tea
is injurious or beneficial. As Dr. Poore candidly admits, "a properly
controlled appetite, or instinct, is as safe a guide in the matters of
diet as a physiologist or a moralist."
FOOTNOTES:
[5] "It is not safe, in regard to the action of a drug on animals,
to conclude that its effect will be the same on men. For instance,
belladonna, which is a deadly poison for men, does not hurt
rabbits."--_Professor Rolleston._
[6] There may be some truth in this statement. "I do not remember
any mention of tea in Wycherley, but in Congreve's 'Double Dealer'
(Act 1, Scene 1, p. 175 a), the scene is laid at Lord Touchwood's
house; and when Careless inquires what has become of the ladies,
just after dinner, Mellefont replies, "Why, they are at the end of
the gallery, retired to tea and scandal, according to their ancient
custom.""--_Buckle, Common-Place Book._