COUNT RUMFORD’S SUBSTITUTE FOR TEA AND COFFEE.
TAKE eight parts by weight of meal (Rumford says ‘wheat or rye meal,’
and I add, or oatmeal), and one part of butter. Melt the butter in a
clean _iron_ frying-pan, and, when thus melted, sprinkle the meal into
it; stir the whole briskly with a broad wooden spoon or spatula till
the butter has disappeared and the meal is of a uniform brown colour,
like roasted coffee, great care being taken to prevent burning on the
bottom of the pan. About half an ounce of this roasted meal boiled in
a pint of water, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar, forms
‘burnt soup,’ much used by the wood-cutters of Bavaria, who work in the
mountains far away from any habitations. Their provisions for a week
(the time they commonly remain in the mountains) consist of a large
loaf of rye bread (which, as it does not so soon grow dry and stale as
wheaten bread, is always preferred to it); a linen bag, containing a
small quantity of roasted meal, prepared as above; another small bag of
salt, and a small wooden box containing some pounded black pepper; and
sometimes, but not often, a small bottle of vinegar; but _black pepper_
is an ingredient never omitted. The rye bread, which eaten alone or
with cold water would be very hard fare, is rendered palatable and
satisfactory, Rumford thinks also more wholesome and nutritious, by the
help of a bowl of hot soup, so easily prepared from the roasted meal.
He tells us that this is not only used by the wood-cutters, but that
it is also the common breakfast of the Bavarian peasant, and adds that
‘it is infinitely preferable, in all respects, to that most pernicious
wash, _tea_, with which the lower classes of the inhabitants of this
island drench their stomachs and ruin their constitutions.’ He adds
that ‘when tea is taken with a sufficient quantity of sugar and good
cream, and with a large quantity of bread-and-butter, or with toast
and boiled eggs, and, above all, _when it is not drunk too hot_, it is
certainly less unwholesome; but a simple infusion of this drug, drunk
boiling hot, as the poor usually take it, is certainly a poison, which,
though it is sometimes slow in its operation, never fails to produce
fatal effects, even in the strongest constitutions, where the free use
of it is continued for a considerable length of time.’
This may appear to many a very strong condemnation of their favourite
beverage; nevertheless, I am satisfied that it is sound; and my opinion
is not hastily adopted, nor borrowed from Rumford, but a conclusion
based upon many observations, extending over a long period of years,
and confirmed by experiments made upon myself.
I therefore strongly recommend this substitute, especially as so
many of us have to submit to the beneficent domestic despotism of
the gentler and more persevering sex, one of the common forms of
this despotism being that of not permitting its male victim to drink
cold water at breakfast. This burnt soup has the further advantage
of rendering imperative the boiling of the water, a most important
precaution against the perils of sewage contamination, not removable by
mere filtration.
The experience of every confirmed tea-drinker, when soundly
interpreted, supplies condemnation of his beverage; the plea commonly
urged on its behalf being, when understood, an eloquent expression of
such condemnation. ‘It is so refreshing;’ ‘I am fit for nothing when
tea-time comes round until I have had my tea, and then I am fit for
anything.’ The ‘fit for nothing’ state comes on at 5 P.M., when the
drug is taken at the orthodox time, or even in the early morning, in
the case of those who are accustomed to have a cup of tea brought to
their bedside before rising. Some will even plead for tea by telling
that by its aid one can sit up all night long at brain-work without
feeling sleepy, provided ample supplies of the infusion are taken from
time to time.
It is unquestionably true that such may be done; that the tea-drinker
is languid and weary at tea-time, whatever be the hour, and that the
refreshment produced by ‘the cup that cheers’ and is _said_ not to
inebriate, is almost instantaneous.
What is the true significance of these facts?
The refreshment is certainly not due to nutrition, not to the
rebuilding of any worn-out or exhausted organic tissue. The total
quantity of material conveyed from the tea-leaves into the water is
ridiculously too small for the performance of any such nutritive
function; and besides this, the action is far too rapid, there is not
sufficient time for the conversion of even that minute quantity into
organised working tissue. The action cannot be that of a food, but
is purely and simply that of a stimulating or irritant drug, acting
directly and abnormally on the nervous system.
The five-o’clock lassitude and craving is neither more nor less
than the reaction induced by the habitual abnormal stimulation; or
otherwise, and quite fairly, stated, it is the outward symptom of a
diseased condition of brain produced by the action of a drug; it may be
but a mild form of disease, but it is truly a disease nevertheless.
The active principle which produces this result is the crystalline
alkaloid, the _theine_,[18] a compound belonging to the same class
as strychnine and a number of similar vegetable poisons. These, when
diluted, act medicinally—that is, produce disturbance of normal
functions as the tea does, and, like theine, most of them act specially
on the nervous system; when concentrated they are dreadful poisons,
very small doses causing death. The volatile oil, of which tea contains
about 1 per cent., probably contributes to this effect. Johnston
attributes the headaches and giddiness to which tea-tasters are subject
to this oil, and also ‘the attacks of paralysis to which, after a
few years, those who are employed in packing and unpacking chests of
tea are found to be liable.’ As both the alkaloid and the oil are
volatile, I suspect that they jointly contribute to these disturbances,
the narcotic business being done by the volatile oil, the paralysis
supplied by the alkaloid.
The non-tea-drinker does not suffer any of the five-o’clock symptoms,
and, if otherwise in sound health, remains in steady working condition
until his day’s work is ended and the time for rest and sleep arrives.
But the habitual victim of any kind of drug or disturber of normal
functions acquires a diseased condition, displayed by the loss of
vitality or other deviation from normal function, which is temporarily
relieved by the usual dose of the drug, but only in such wise as to
generate a renewed craving. I include in this general statement all the
vice-drugs (to coin a general name), such as alcohol, opium, tobacco
(whether smoked, chewed, or snuffed), arsenic, haschisch, betel-nut,
coca-leaf, thorn-apple, Siberian fungus, maté, &c., all of which are
excessively ‘refreshing’ to their victims, and of which the use may
be, and has been, defended by the same arguments as those used by the
advocates of habitual tea-drinking.
Speaking generally, the reaction or residual effect of these on the
system is nearly the opposite of that of their immediate effect, and
thus larger and larger doses are demanded to bring the system to its
normal condition. The non-tea-drinker or moderate drinker is kept awake
by a cup of tea or coffee taken late at night, while the hard drinker
of these beverages scarcely feels any effect, especially if accustomed
to take it at that time.
The practice of taking tea or coffee by students, in order to work
at night, is downright madness, especially when preparing for an
examination. More than half of the cases of breakdown, loss of memory,
fainting, &c., which occur during severe examinations, and far more
frequently than is commonly known, are due to this.
I continually hear of promising students who have thus failed; and,
on inquiry, have learned—in almost every instance—that the victim has
previously drugged himself with tea or coffee. Sleep is the rest of the
brain; to rob the hard-worked brain of its necessary rest is cerebral
suicide.
My old friend, the late Thomas Wright (the archæologist), was a victim
of this terrible folly. He undertook the translation of the ‘Life of
Julius Cæsar,’ by Napoleon III., and to do it in a cruelly short time.
He fulfilled his contract by sitting up several nights successively by
the aid of strong tea or coffee (I forget which). I saw him shortly
afterwards. In a few weeks he had aged alarmingly, had become quite
bald; his brain gave way and never recovered. There was but little
difference between his age and mine, and but for this dreadful cerebral
strain, rendered possible only by the stimulant (for otherwise he would
have fallen to sleep over his work, and thereby saved his life), he
might still be amusing and instructing thousands of readers by fresh
volumes of popularised archæological research.
I need scarcely add that all I have said above applies to coffee as to
tea, though not so seriously _in this country_. The active alkaloid is
the same in both, but tea contains weight for weight above twice as
much as coffee. In this country we commonly use about 50 per cent. more
coffee than tea to each given measure of water. On the Continent they
use about double our quantity (this is the true secret of ‘Coffee as in
France’), and thus produce as potent an infusion as our tea.
I need scarcely add that the above remarks are exclusively applied to
the _habitual_ use of these stimulants. As medicines, used occasionally
and judiciously, they are invaluable, provided always that they are not
used as ordinary beverages. In Italy, Greece, and some parts of the
East, it is customary, when anybody feels ill with indefinite symptoms,
to send to the druggist for a dose of tea. From what I have seen of
its action on non-tea-drinkers, it appears to be specially potent in
arresting the premonitory symptoms of fever, the fever headache, &c.
Since the publication of the above in ‘Knowledge,’ I have been reminded
of the high authorities who have defended the use of the alkaloids,
and more particularly of Liebig’s theory, or the theory commonly
attributed to Liebig, but which is Lehmann’s, published in Liebig’s
‘Annalen,’ vol. lxxxvii., and adopted and advocated by Liebig with his
usual ability.
Lehmann watched _for some weeks_ the effects of coffee upon two persons
in good health. He found that it retarded the waste of the tissues of
the body, that the proportion of phosphoric acid and of urea excreted
by the kidneys was diminished by the action of the coffee, the diet
being in all other respects the same. Pure caffeine (which is the same
as theine) produced a similar effect; the aromatic oil of the coffee,
given separately, was found to exert a stimulating effect on the
nervous system.
Johnston (‘Chemistry of Common Life’) closely following Liebig, and
referring to the researches of Lehmann, says: ‘_The waste of the body
is lessened by the introduction of theine into the stomach—that is,
by the use of tea._ And if the waste be lessened, the necessity for
food to repair it will be lessened in an equal proportion. In other
words, by the consumption of a certain quantity of tea, the health
and strength of the body will be maintained in an equal degree upon a
smaller quantity of ordinary food. _Tea, therefore, saves food_—stands
to a certain extent in the place of food—while, at the same time, it
soothes the body and enlivens the mind.’
He proceeds to say that ‘in the old and infirm it serves also another
purpose. In the life of most persons a period arrives when the stomach
no longer digests enough of the ordinary elements of food to make
up for the natural daily waste of the bodily substance. The size
and weight of the body, therefore, begin to diminish more or less
perceptibly. At this period _tea comes in as a medicine to arrest
the waste_, to keep the body from falling away so fast, and thus to
enable the less energetic powers of digestion still to supply as much
as is needed to repair the wear and tear of the solid tissues.’ No
wonder, therefore, says he, ‘_that the aged female, who has barely
enough income to buy what are called the common necessaries of life,
should yet spend a portion of her small gains in purchasing her ounce
of tea. She can live quite as well on less common food when she takes
her tea along with it_; while she feels lighter at the same time, more
cheerful, and fitter for her work, because of the indulgence.’ (The
italics are my own for comparison with those that follow.)
All this is based upon the researches of Lehmann and others, who
measured the work of the vital furnace by the quantity of ashes
produced—the urea and phosphoric acid excreted. But there is also
another method of measuring the same, that of collecting the expired
breath and determining the quantity of carbonic acid given off by
combustion. This method is imperfect, inasmuch as it only measures a
portion of the carbonic acid which is given off. The skin is also a
respiratory organ, co-operating with the lungs in evolving carbonic
acid.
Dr. Edward Smith adopted the method of measuring the respired carbonic
acid only. His results were first published in ‘The Philosophical
Transactions’ of 1859, and again in Chapter XXXV. of his volume on
‘Food,’ International Scientific Series.
After stating, in the latter, the details of the experiments, which
include depth of respiration as well as amount of carbonic acid
respired, he says: ‘Hence it was proved beyond all doubt that tea is
a most powerful respiratory excitant. As it causes an evolution of
carbon greatly beyond that which it supplies, it follows that it must
powerfully promote those vital changes in food which ultimately produce
the carbonic acid to be evolved. Instead, therefore, of supplying
nutritive matter, it causes the assimilation and transformation of
other foods.’
Now, note the following practical conclusions, which I quote in Dr.
Smith’s own words, but take the liberty of rendering in italics those
passages that I wish the reader to specially compare with the preceding
quotations from Johnston: ‘In reference to nutrition, we may say that
_tea increases waste_, since it promotes the transformation of food
without supplying nutriment, and increases the loss of heat without
supplying fuel, and _it is therefore especially adapted to the wants
of those who usually eat too much_, and after a full meal, when the
process of assimilation should be quickened, but _is less adapted to
the poor and ill-fed_, and during fasting.’ He tells us very positively
that ‘to take tea before a meal is as absurd as not to take it after
a meal, unless the system be at all times replete with nutritive
material.’ And, again: ‘Our experiments have sufficed to show how tea
may be _injurious if taken with deficient food, and thereby exaggerate
the evils of the poor_;’ and, again: ‘The conclusions at which we
arrived after our researches in 1858 were, that tea should not be taken
without food, unless after a full meal; or with insufficient food;
or by the young or very feeble; and that _its essential action is to
waste the system or consume food_, by promoting vital action which it
does not support, and they have not been disproved by any subsequent
scientific researches.’
This final assertion may be true, and to those who ‘go in for the last
thing out,’ the latest novelty or fashion in science, literature, or
millinery, the absence of any refutation of later date is quite enough.
But how about the previous ‘scientific researches’ of Lehmann, who,
on all such subjects, is about the highest authority that can be
quoted. His three volumes on ‘Physiological Chemistry,’ translated
and republished by the Cavendish Society, stand pre-eminent as the
best-written, most condensed, and complete work on the subject, and his
original researches constitute a lifetime’s work, not of mere random
change-ringing among the elements of obscure and insignificant organic
compounds, but of judiciously selected chemical work, having definite
philosophical aims and objects.
It is evident from the passages I have emphatically quoted that Dr.
Smith flatly contradicts Lehmann, and arrives at directly contradictory
physiological results and practical inferences.
Are we, therefore, to conclude that he has blundered in his analysis,
or that Lehmann has done so?
On carefully comparing the two sets of investigations, I conclude that
there is no necessary contradiction _in the facts_: that both may be,
and in all probability are, quite correct as regards their chemical
results; but that Dr. Smith has only attacked half the problem, while
Lehmann has grasped the whole.
All the popular stimulants, refreshing drugs, and ‘pick-me-ups’ have
two distinct and opposite actions—an immediate exaltation which lasts
for a certain period, varying with the drug and the constitution of
its victim, and a subsequent depression proportionate to the primary
exaltation, but, as I believe, always exceeding it either in duration
or intensity, or both, thus giving as a nett or mean result a loss of
vitality.
Dr. Smith’s experiments only measured the carbonic acid exhaled from
the lungs _during the first stage_, the period of exaltation. His
experiments were extended to 50 minutes, 71 minutes, 65 minutes, and
in one case to 1 hour and 50 minutes. It is worthy of note that, in
Experiment 1, 100 grains of black tea were given to two persons, and
the duration of the experiment was 50 and 71 minutes; the average
increase was 71 and 68 cubic inches per minute, while in No. 6, with
the same dose and the carbonic acid collected during 1 hour and 50
minutes, the average increase per minute was only 47·5 cubic inches.
These indicate a decline of the exaltation, and the curves on his
diagrams show the same. His coffee results were similar.
We all know that the ‘refreshing’ action of tea often extends over
a considerable period. My own experiments on myself show that it
continues about three or four hours, and that of beer or wine less than
one hour (moderate doses in each case).
I have tested this by walking measured distances after taking the
stimulant and comparing with my walking powers when taking no other
beverage than cold water. The duration of the tea stimulation has been
also measured (painfully so) by the duration of sleeplessness when
female seduction has led me to drink tea late in the evening. The
duration of coffee is about one-third less than tea.
Lehmann’s experiments extending over weeks (days instead of minutes),
measured the whole effect of the alkaloid and oil of the coffee during
both the periods of exaltation and depression, and, therefore, supplied
a mean or total result which accords with ordinary everyday experience.
It is well known that the pot of tea of the poor needlewoman subdues
the natural craving for food; the habitual smoker claims the same merit
for his pipe, and the chewer for his quid. Wonderful stories are told
of the long abstinence of the drinkers of maté, chewers of betel-nut,
Siberian fungus, coca-leaf, and pepper-wort, and the smokers and eaters
of haschisch, &c. Not only is the sense of hunger allayed, but less
food is demanded for sustaining life.
It is a curious fact that similar effects should be produced, and
similar advantages claimed, for the use of a drug which is totally
different in its other chemical properties and relations. ‘White
arsenic,’ or arsenious acid, is the oxide of a metal, and far as the
poles asunder from the alkaloids, alcohols, and aromatic resins in
chemical classification. But it does check the waste of the tissues,
and is eaten by the Styrians and others with physiological effects
curiously resembling those of its chemical antipodeans above named.
Foremost among these physiological effects is that of ‘making the food
appear to go farther.’
It is strange that Liebig or any physiologist who accepts his views
of vital chemistry, should claim this diminution of the normal waste
and renewal of tissue as a merit, seeing that, according to Liebig,
life itself is the product of such change, and death the result of its
cessation. But in the eagerness that has been displayed to justify
existing indulgences, this claim has been extensively made by men who
ought to know better than to admit such a plea.
I speak, as before, of the _habitual_ use of such drugs, not of their
occasional medicinal use. The waste of the body may be going on with
killing rapidity, as in fever, and then such medicines may save life,
provided always that the body has not become ‘tolerant,’ or partially
insensible, to them by daily usage. I once watched a dangerous case
of typhoid fever. Acting under the instructions of skilful medical
attendants, and aided by a clinical thermometer and a seconds watch,
I so applied small doses of brandy at short intervals as to keep down
both pulse and temperature within the limits of fatal combustion. The
patient had scarcely tasted alcohol before this, and therefore it
exerted its maximum efficacy. I was surprised at the certain response
of both pulse and temperature to this most valuable medicine and most
pernicious beverage.
The argument that has been the most industriously urged in favour of
all the vice-drugs, and each in its turn, is that miserable apology
that has been made for every folly, every vice, every political abuse,
every social crime (such as slavery, polygamy, &c.), when the time has
arrived for reformation. I cannot condescend to seriously argue against
it, but merely state the fact that the widely-diffused practice of
using some kind of stimulating drug has been claimed as a sufficient
proof of the necessity or advantage of such practice. I leave my
readers to bestow on such a plea the treatment they may think it
deserves. Those who believe that a rational being should have rational
grounds for his conduct will treat this customary refuge of blind
conservatism as I do.
I recommend tea drinkers who desire to practically investigate the
subject for themselves to repeat the experiment that I have made. After
establishing the habit of taking tea at a particular hour, suddenly
relinquish it altogether. The result will be more or less unpleasant,
in some cases seriously so. My symptoms were a dull headache and
intellectual sluggishness during the remainder of the day—and if
compelled to do any brain-work, such as lecturing or writing, I did it
badly. This, as I have already said, is the diseased condition induced
by the habit. These symptoms vary with the amount of the customary
indulgence and the temperament of the individual. A rough, lumbering,
insensible navvy may drink a quart or two of tea, or a few gallons of
beer, or several quarterns of gin, with but small results of any kind.
I know an omnibus-driver who makes seven double journeys daily, and
his ‘reglars’ are half a quartern of gin at each terminus—_i.e._ 1¾
pints daily, exclusive of extras. This would render most men helplessly
drunk, but he is never drunk, and drives well and safely.
Assuming, then, that the experimenter has taken sufficient daily tea
to have a sensible effect, he will suffer on leaving it off. Let him
persevere in the discontinuance, in spite of brain languor and dull
headache. He will find that day by day the languor will diminish, and
in the course of time (about a fortnight or three weeks in my case)
he will be weaned. He will retain from morning to night the full,
free, and steady use of all his faculties; will get through his day’s
work without any fluctuation of working ability (provided, of course,
no other stimulant is used). Instead of his best faculties being
dependent on a drug for their awakening, he will be in the condition
of true manhood—_i.e._ able to do his best in any direction of effort,
simply in reply to moral demand; able to do whatever is right and
advantageous, because his reason shows that it is so. The sense of duty
is to such a free man the only stimulus demanded for calling forth his
uttermost energies.
If he again returns to his habitual tea, he will again be reduced to
more or less of dependence upon it. This condition of dependence is a
state of disease precisely analogous to that which is induced by opium
and other drugs that operate by temporary abnormal cerebral exaltation.
The pleasurable sensations enjoyed by the opium-eater or smoker or
morphia injector are more intense than those of the tea-drinker, and
the reaction proportionally greater.
I must not leave this subject without a word or two in reference to a
widely prevailing and very mischievous fallacy. Many argue and actually
believe that because a given drug has great efficiency in curing
disease, it must do good if taken under ordinary conditions of health.
No high authorities are demanded for the refutation of this. A little
common sense properly used is quite sufficient. It is evident that
a medicine, properly so-called, is something which is capable of
producing a disturbing or alterative effect on the body generally
or some particular organ. The skill of the physician consists in so
applying this disturbing agency as to produce an alteration of the
state of disease, a direct conversion of the state of disease to a
state of health, if possible (which is rarely the case), or more
usually the conversion of one state of disease into another of milder
character. But, when we are in a state of sound health, any disturbance
or alteration must be a change for the worse, must throw us out of
health to an extent proportionate to the potency of the drug.
I might illustrate this by a multitude of familiar examples, but they
would carry me too far away from my proper subject. There is, however,
one class of such remedies which are directly connected with the
chemistry of cookery. I refer to the condiments that act as ‘tonics,’
excluding common salt, which is an article of food, though often
miscalled a condiment. Salt is food simply because it supplies the
blood with one of its normal and necessary constituents, chloride of
sodium, without which we cannot live. A certain quantity of it exists
in most of our ordinary food, but not always sufficient.
Cayenne pepper may be selected as a typical example of a condiment
properly so-called. Mustard is a food and condiment combined; this is
the case with some others. Curry powders are mixtures of very potent
condiments with more or less of farinaceous materials, and sulphur
compounds, which, like the oil of mustard, of onions, garlic, &c., may
have a certain amount of special nutritive value.
The mere condiment is a stimulating drug that does its work directly
upon the inner lining of the stomach, by exciting it to increased
and abnormal activity. A dyspeptic may obtain immediate relief by
using cayenne pepper. Among the advertised patent medicines is a pill
bearing the very ominous name of its compounder, the active constituent
of which is cayenne. Great relief and temporary comfort is commonly
obtained by using it as a ‘dinner pill.’ If thus used only as a
temporary remedy for an acute and temporary, or exceptional, attack of
indigestion all is well, but the cayenne, whether taken in pills or
dusted over the food or stewed with it in curries or any otherwise,
is one of the most cruel of slow poisons when taken _habitually_.
Thousands of poor wretches are crawling miserably towards their graves,
the victims of the multitude of maladies of both mind and body that are
connected with chronic, incurable dyspepsia, all brought about by the
habitual use of cayenne and its condimental cousins.
The usual history of these victims is, that they began by over-feeding,
took the condiment to force the stomach to do more than its healthful
amount of work, using but a little at first. Then the stomach became
tolerant of this little, and demanded more; then more, and more, and
more, until at last inflammation, ulceration, torpidity, and finally
the death of the digestive powers, accompanied with all that long
train of miseries to which I have referred. India is their special
fatherland. Englishmen, accustomed to an active life at home, and a
climate demanding much fuel-food for the maintenance of animal heat,
go to India, crammed, maybe, with Latin, but ignorant of the laws of
health; cheap servants promote indolence, tropical heat diminishes
respiratory oxidation, and the appetite naturally fails.
Instead of understanding this failure as an admonition to take smaller
quantities of food, or food of less nutritive and combustive value,
such as carbohydrates instead of hydrocarbons and albumenoids, they
regard it as a symptom of ill-health, and take curries, bitter ale, and
other tonics or appetising condiments, which, however mischievous in
England, are far more so there.
I know several men who have lived rationally in India, and they all
agree that the climate is especially favourable to longevity, provided
bitter beer, and all other alcoholic drinks, all peppery condiments,
and flesh foods are avoided. The most remarkable example of vigorous
old age I have ever met was a retired colonel eighty-two years of age,
who had risen from the ranks, and had been fifty-five years in India
without furlough; drunk no alcohol during that period; was a vegetarian
in India, though not so in his native land. I guessed his age to be
somewhere about sixty. He was a Scotchman, and an ardent student of the
works of both George and Dr. Andrew Combe.
A correspondent inquires whether I class cocoa amongst the stimulants.
So far as I am able to learn, it should not be so classed, but I cannot
speak absolutely. Mere chemistry supplies no answer to this question.
It is purely a physiological subject, to be studied by observation of
effects. Such observations may be made by anybody whose system has not
become ‘tolerant’ of the substance in question. My own experience of
cocoa in all its forms is that it is not stimulating in any sensible
degree. I have acquired no habit of using it, and yet I can enjoy a
rich cup or bowl of cocoa or chocolate just before bed-time without
losing any sleep. When I am occasionally betrayed into taking a late
cup of coffee or tea, I repent it for some hours after going to bed.
My inquiries among other people, who are not under the influence of
that most powerful of all arguments, the logic of inclination, have
confirmed my own experience.
I should, however, add that some authorities have attributed
exhilarating properties to the _theobromine_ or nitrogenous alkaloid
of cocoa. Its composition nearly resembles that of theine, as the
following (from Johnston) shows:
Theine Theobromine
Carbon 49·80 46·43
Hydrogen 5·08 4·20
Nitrogen 28·83 35·85
Oxygen 16·29 13·52
------ ------
100·00 100·00
It exists in the cocoa bean in about the same proportion as the theine
in tea, but in making a cup of cocoa we use a much greater weight
of cocoa than of tea in a cup of tea. If, therefore, the properties
of theobromine were similar to those of theine, we should feel the
stimulating effects much more decidedly.
The alkaloid of tea and coffee in its pure state has been administered
to animals, and found to produce paralysis, but I am not aware that
theobromine has acted similarly.
Another essential difference between cocoa and tea or coffee is that
cocoa is, strictly speaking, a food. We do not merely make an infusion
of the cacao bean, but eat it bodily in the form of a soup. It is
highly nutritious, one of the most nutritious foods in common use. When
travelling on foot in mountainous and other regions, where there was a
risk of spending the night _al fresco_ and supperless, I have usually
carried a cake of chocolate in my knapsack, as the most portable and
unchangeable form of concentrated nutriment, and have found it most
valuable. On one occasion I went astray on the Kjolenfjeld, in Norway,
and struggled for about twenty-four hours without food or shelter. I
had no chocolate then, and sorely repented my improvidence. Many other
pedestrians have tried chocolate in like manner, and all I know have
commended its great ‘staying’ properties, simply regarded as food. I
therefore conclude that Linnæus was not without strong justification in
giving it the name of _theobroma_ (food for the gods), but to confirm
this practically the pure nut, the whole nut, and nothing but the nut
(excepting the milk and sugar added by the consumer) should be used.
Some miserable counterfeits are offered—farinaceous paste, flavoured
with cocoa and sugar. The best sample I have been able to procure is
the ship cocoa prepared for the Navy. This is nothing but the whole nut
unsweetened, ground, and crushed to an impalpable paste. It requires
a little boiling, and when milk alone is used, with due proportion of
sugar, it is a _theobroma_. Condensed milk diluted, and without further
sweetening, may be used.
The following are the results of the analyses of two samples of cocoa
by Payen:
Cacao butter 48 50
Albumen, fibrin, and other nitrogenous matter 21 20
Theobromine 4 2
Starch, with traces of sugar 11 10
Cellulose 3 2
Colouring matter, aromatic essence traces
Mineral matter 3 4
Water 10 12
--- ---
100 100
The very large proportion of fat shows that the Italians are right in
their mode of using their breakfast cup of chocolate. They cut their
roll into ‘fingers,’ and dip it in the ‘aurora’ instead of spreading
butter on it.
Vegetable food generally contains an excess of cellulose and a
deficiency of fat; therefore cocoa, with its excess of fat and
deficiency of cellulose, is theoretically indicated as a very desirable
adjunct to an ordinary vegetarian dietary. The few experiments I
have made by perpetrating the culinary heresy of adding cocoa to
oatmeal-porridge and other _purées_, to mashed potatoes, turnips,
carrots, boiled rice, sago, tapioca, &c., prove that vegetarians have
much to learn in the cookery of cocoa. During two months’ sojourn in
Milan my daily breakfast consisted of bread, grapes, and powdered
chocolate. Each grape was bitten across, one-half eaten pure and
simple, then the cut and pulpy face of the other half was dipped in the
chocolate powder, and eaten with as much as adhered to it. I have never
been better fed.
FOOTNOTE:
[18] Ordinary tea contains about 2 per cent. of this. It may easily
be obtained by making a strong infusion and _slowly_ evaporating
it to dryness, then placing this dried extract on a watch-glass or
evaporating-dish, covering it with an inverted wineglass, tumbler, or
conical cap of paper. A white fume rises and condenses on the cool
cover in the form of minute colourless crystals. The tea itself may
be used in the same manner as the dried extract, but the quantity of
crystals will be less.