In modern times many more purely medicinal drinks and condiments have been added to our diet: snuffing and smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and hemp-leaves, eating opium and agaric, drinking brandy, several kinds of stimulating and medicinal beers, tea (Chocolate belongs to the nutritious articles, when it is not too highly spiced: otherwise it is objectionable, or even hurtful.) and coffee. Medicinal things are substances that do not nourish, but alter the healthy condition of the body; any alteration, however, in the healthy state of the body constitutes a kind of abnormal, morbid condition. (In proportion as the substances we call medicines can make the healthy body sick, so are they calculated to remove the abnormal states dangerous to life, which go by the name of diseases. The sole end of medicines consequently is, to change the abnormal, the morbid state, that is, to transform it into health. Used by themselves, and when no disease is present, they are absolutely hurtful things for health and normal life. Their frequent use as articles of diet deranges the harmonious concordance of our organs, undermines health and shortens life. A wholesome medicine for a healthy individual is a contradiction of terms.)

All medicines have, in strong doses, a noxious action on the sensations of the healthy individual. No one every smoked tobacco for the first time in his life without disgust; no healthy person ever drank unsugared black coffee for the first time in his life with gusto – a hint given by nature to shun the first occasion for transgressing the laws of health, and not to trample so frivolously under our feet the warning instinct implanted in us for the preservation of our life. But continuing the use of these medicinal articles of diet (whereto fashion and example seduce us), habit gradually extinguishes the noxious impressions that they at first made upon us; they even become agreeable to us, that is to say, the disagreeable impressions their ingestion at first produced do not strike us so much as we go on using them, and their apparently agreeable effects upon our organs of sensation gradually become necessary to us. The ordinary run of mankind esteems even factitious wants as happiness, and gradually associates with their satisfaction the idea of relish. Perhaps also, inasmuch as by their use we become to a certain degree sickly, our instinct tries from time to time at least to alleviate this indisposition occasioned by the continued us of these medicinal articles of diet, by means of the palliative relief which they are capable of affording to the malady produced from time to time by themselves.

In order to understand this proposition, we must take into consideration the fact that all medicines produce in the body conditions the opposite of one another. Their commencing action (primary action) is the direct opposite of their secondary action, that is, of the state they leave behind in the body when their primary action has ceased some hours. (For instance, to-day jalap powder purges, ad to-morrow and the next day there follows constipation.) Most medicines produce, both in their primary and secondary action, disturbances in the healthy body and disagreeable sensations and pains, a certain set of these in their primary action and another opposite set in their secondary action, and even their prolonged employment excites no agreeable effects in the healthy individual. Only the few medicinal substances that the refinement of a sensual world has chosen to introduce among articles of diet, form in some degree, an exception to this, at least in their primary action. They possess the peculiar property, when continued to be used in moderation, to create in their primary action of a sort of artificial exaltation of the ordinary state of heath, an artificial exaltation of the life and almost only agreeable sensations, whilst the disagreeable effects their secondary action tends to develop remain for some time of little importance, as long as the individual is pretty well in health, and leads in other respects a healthy and natural of life. To this small class of medicines introduced into our dietary belongs coffee, with its partly agreeable, partly disagreeable effects, both of which, strange though it may appear, are but little known. Its irregular, unrestricted use in ordinary life, at almost all times of the day, its employment in such various strength and quantity, its preparation under the most dissimilar conditions, its general use by persons of the most various ages and constitutions, of the most different health and habits of life, deprives the observer of all means of seeing its action aright, deprives the observer of all means of seeing its action aright, and makes it excessively difficult to ascertain its true action, and thence to draw pure inferences. So a disk may be covered with the clearest characters and words, but all will be unrecognizable if the disk be whirled round with great rapidity; in that case everything runs together, even to the eyes of the most sharpsighted. It is only by accurate, prolonged, unprejudiced observation, as free as possible from all source of deception, and by carefully tracing back the phenomena to their cause, that we can obtain accurate knowledge respecting the most important of all beverages, coffee.

Its primary action is in general a more or less agreeable exaltation of the vital activity; the animal, the natural, and the vital functions (as they are called) are artificially exalted by it during the first hours, and the secondary action that ensues gradually after the lapse of several hours is the opposite – disagreeable feeling of existence, a lower degree of vitality, a kind of paralysis of the animal, natural, and vital functions. (“When I awake in the morning,” writes a genteel, consummate coffee-drinking lady,” I have the power of thinking, and the activity of an oyster.” When a person unaccustomed to the use of coffee drinks a moderate quantity, to one accustomed to its use drinks an immoderate (The expressions moderate and immoderate must only be understood in a relative and individual sense; they cannot be defined by fixed magnitude and figures of universal acceptation. Thus a certain prince, H. C. V. C., reared in a luxury, who is now dead, required for an allowance, every time he drank coffee, an infusion of fourteen ounces of the roasted bean, whereas we meet with persons who are very strongly affected by a quarter of an ounce. Each person must fix his own standard according to his peculiar corporeal system. One can bear more than another. Moreover the whole series of agreeable symptoms of the primary action of coffee I have here described does not appear in every one, at all events not all at once, but only one a time, some in one, others in another, in this one more, in that fewer.) quantity, for the first hours the self-consciousness, the feeling of his existence, of his life, becomes more lively. He gets a circumscribed redness of the cheeks, a redness which does not become gradually lost in the surrounding parts, but which presents the appearance of a well-defined red spot. The forehead and palms of the hands become warm and moist, He feels warmer than before; he feels agreeable, yet uneasily warm. The occurs a kind of voluptuous palpitation of the heart, somewhat resembling that occurring during great joy. The veins of the hands swell. Externally also he is warmer to the feel than natural, but his warmth never comes to the length of heat, even after a large quantity of coffee (it sooner turns into general perspiration); none ever become burning hot.

Presence of mind, attention, sympathy, become more active than in the healthy natural state. All external objects appear to excite a feeling of pleasure, they take on, if I may be allowed the expression, a joyous varnish, and if the quantity of coffee taken was very great, they assume an almost over-pleasing lustre. (If the quantity of coffee taken be immoderately great and the body very excitable and quite unused to coffee, there occurs a semilateral headache, from the upper part of the parietal bone to the base of the brain. The cerebral membranes of this side also seem to be painfully sensitive. The hands and feet become cold; on the brow and palms cold seat appears. The disposition becomes irritable, and intolerant; no one can do anything to please him. He is anxious and trembling restless, weeps almost without cause, or smiles almost involuntarily. After a few hours, sleep comes on, out of which he occasionally starts up in affright. I have seen this rare state two or three times.) During the first hours the coffee drinker smiles contented with himself and with all external objects, and this property it was that mainly tended to make coffee a social beverage. All the agreeable sensations communicated are speedily increased to enthusiasm (though only for a short time). All sorts of disagreeable recollections, or disagreeable natural feelings cease during this kind of blessed fever.

In the healthy natural states of the human being, left to themselves, disagreeable sensations must alternate with agreeable ones; this is the wise arrangement of our nature. During the primary action of this medicinal beverage, however, all is delight, and even those corporeal functions which in the natural state of health are accompanied by an unpleasant sensation almost bordering on pain, are now performed with extreme ease, almost with kind of pleasure. In the first moments or quarters of an hour awaking particularly when this takes place earlier than usual, everyone who in not living completely in a state of rude nature, has disagreeable feeling of not thoroughly awakened consciousness, of confusion, of laziness, and want of pliancy in the limbs; it is difficult to move quickly, reflection is a labour. But, see, coffee removes this natural disagreeable sensation this discomfort of the mind and body, almost instantaneously; we suddenly become completely alive. After completing our day’s labour we must, in the course of nature, become lazy; a disagreeable feeling of weight and weariness in our bodily and mental powers make us ill-humoured and cross, and compels us to give ourselves up to the requisite rest and sleep. This crossness and laziness, this disagreeable weariness of mind and body on the approach of natural sleep, rapidly disappears on taking this medicinal beverage, and a dispersion of sleepiness, a factitious liveliness, a wakefulness in defiance of nature occurs.

In order to live we require food, and see! Nature compels us to seek it and replace what has been lost, by hunger, or gnawing uncomfortable sensation in the stomach, a tormenting longing for food, a quarrelsome crossness, chilliness, exhaustion, &c. Not less uncomfortable is the feeling of thirst, nor is it less a wholesome provision of nature. Besides the longing desire for liquids which our body needs for its restoration, we are tormented by a dryness of the throat and mouth, a dry heat of the whole body, that to a certain extent impedes the respiration, a restlessness, &c. We drink coffee – and see! We feel but little or nothing more of the painful sensations of hunger, nor of the anxious, longing sensation of thirst. Genuine coffee-drinkers, especially those ladies addicted to its use, who are deprived of the opportunity of recovering from the bad effects of this drink by occasional exercise in the open air, experience little or nothing more of the real sensations of hunger and thirst. In this case the body is cheated of its nutriment and drink, and the cutaneous vessels are at the same time unnaturally forced to absorb from the atmosphere as much moisture as is requisite to carry on the functions of life. Confirmed coffee-drinkers pass much more urine than the quantity of fluids they drink. The most natural demands of nature are stifled. (Thus they gradually approach – thanks be to the divine beverage! – to the condition of the blessed spirits above; a true commencement of beatification here below.) The all-bountiful Preserver of all livings beings, made the healthy man feel uncomfortable on taking exercise immediately after having satisfied his appetite with food; this uncomfortable feeling was intended to compel us to leave off our business and to rest both the body and the mind, in order that the important function of digestion might be commenced undisturbed. A lassitude of body and mind, a constriction in the region of the stomach, a kind of disagreeable pressure, a fullness and tension in the abdomen, &c., on taking exercise, remind us when we attempt to exert our energies immediately after a meal, of the rest that is now required – and of we attempt to exercise our thinking faculty, there occurs a lassitude of the mental powers, a dulness of the head, a coldness of the limbs, accompanied by warmth of the face; and the pressive sensation in the stomach, combined with a disagreeable sensation of tension in the abdomen, becomes still more intolerable, proving that exerting the mental powers at the commencement of the process of digestion, is more unnatural and more hurtful than even exertion of the body.

Coffee puts a sudden stop to this lassitude of mind and body, and removes the disagreeable sensation in the abdomen after a meal. The more refined gourmands drink it immediately after dinner – and they obtain this unnatural effect in a high degree. The become gay, and feel as light as though they had taken little or nothing little or nothing into their stomach. The wise Regulator of our nature has also sought to compel us by disagreeable sensations to evacuate the accumulated excrement. There occurs an intolerable anxiety conjoined with a no less disagreeable feeling of straining, whereby all the agreeable sensations of life are put a stop to, and, as it were, swallowed up in it, until the evacuation is commenced. It is a necessary part of our nature that there should be some effort in the expulsion of the excrements. But this has been provided against by the refining spirit of our age, which has sought to elude this law of nature likewise. In order artificially to promote and hasten the time required for digestion, which in the order of things is several hours, and to escape the anxious, frequently slowly increasing call to stool, the degenerate mortals of our times, who strain after enjoyment and have a childish dread of all uncomfortable sensations, find their means of escape in coffee. Our intestines excited by coffee (in its primary action) to more rapid peristaltic movements, force their contents but half digested more quickly towards the anus, and the gourmand imagines he has discovered a splendid digestive agent. But the liquid chyme which serves to nourish the body, can in this short time neither be properly altered (digested) in the stomach, nor sufficiently taken up by the absorbents in the intestinal canal; hence the mass passes through the unnaturally active bowels, without parting with more than the half of its nutritious particles for the supply of the body, and arrives at the excretory orifice still in a half-liquid state. Of a truth a most excellent digestive agent, far surpassing nature! Moreover, during thee evacuation itself the anus us excited by the primary action of the coffee to more rapid dilatation and contraction, and the faeces pass out soft, almost without effort, and more frequently than in the case of healthy individuals who do not partake of coffee.

These and other natural pains and disagreeable sensations, which are a part of the wise ordering of our nature, are diminished and rendered almost unnoticeable by the primary action of coffee more than by any other artificial means. As quick as lightening there arise voluptuous images in the mind from very moderate exciting cause, and the excitation of the genitals to complete ecstasy become the work of a few seconds; the ejaculation of the semen is almost irrestrainable. The sexual desire is excited by coffee from ten to fifteen years too soon, in the tenderest, immaturest age in both sexes; a refinement (Enjoyment! Enjoyment! Is the cry of our age – quicker, uninterrupted enjoyment of life at whatever cost! And this object is to a certain degree attained by means of this beverage, that accelerates and squanders the vital powers.) that has the most perceptible influence on our morality and mortality – not to speak of the earlier impotence that follows as a natural consequence therefrom. ( [Who, among all the medicinal writers of this period 91803) has thought so justy, and written so wisely, as Hahnemann? Who among his contemporaries has promulgated so many facts which have been confirmed by modern investigations as the founder of homoeopathy?] – Am-P.)

In an individual of very irritable temperament, or who has already been enervated by the copious use of coffee and a sedentary life, the effects I have mentioned appear in a still more prominent light. Every unprejudiced person must perceive in the corporeal derangements and sensations affected by coffee, something unnatural, an over-stimulation. An excessive sensitiveness, or a gaiety greatly disproportioned to the object of it, a tenderness almost partaking of a convulsive character, an inordinate sorrowfulness, a wit that is not altogether under the restraints of reason, an excessive distortion of the features approaching to caricature, under circumstances where a mere smile, a little joke a slight perplexity, a moderate expression of grief or sympathy, would have sufficed. Even the muscles of the rest of the body exhibit an unnatural excessive activity – all is life, all is motion (though there may be but little cause for it) during the first hour after partaking of strong, or (to use the often inaccurate language of the world) good coffee. The ideas and the pictures of the fancy flow in rapid succession and in a continuous stream before the seat of the imagination and sensation in the brain – an artificially accelerated, artificially exalted life! In the natural state we require some effort to remember clearly things long past; immediately after taking coffee the stores of memory spring, so to speak, into our mouth – and the consequence often is loquacity, hurried chattering, and letting things escape from our lips that we ought not to have spoken about. Moderation and purpose are entirely wanting. The cold considerate earnestness of our forefathers, the firm steadfastness of will, of resolve, and of judgement, the endurance of the not rapid but powerful movements of the body, adapted to the object object in view, that used to consitute the original national character of the Germans – the whole sublime original stamp of out descent disappears before this medicinal beverage, and changes into over-hasty disclosures, hurried resolves, immatured judgements, frivolity, changeableness, talkativeness, irresolution, flighty mobility of the muscles, without the production of any durable impression, and theatrical behaviour. (Who can tell what enervating dietetic practices it was by which those admirable heroic virtues of patriotism, love of children, inviolable constancy, unshakable integrity, and strict fulfilment of duties (the well-known attributes of by-gone times) have in our days almost dwindled down into paltry egotism! Like wise the single heroic virtues, are now-a days (by what enervating dietitic practices?) split up into petty intrigues, concealed trickeries and artificies, and distributed over myriads of individuals – compelling the uncontaminated person to exercise much caution every step he takes! Which is the more injurious, a single bomb-shell, or a million of invisible books, distributed every where to catch the feet of the unwary?)

I well know that in order to revel in the dreams of fancy, in order to compose frivolous novels, and light, playful witticisms, the German must drink coffee – the German lady requires strong coffee in order to sparkle with wit and sentiment in fashionable circles. The ballet dancer, the improvisator, the conjurer, the juggler, the sharper, and the keeper of a faro-bank, all require coffee, as likewise the fashionable musician for his giddy rapidity of execution, and the omnipresent fashionable physician, to enable him to rush through his ninety visits in forenoon. Let us leave to these people their unnatural stimulant, together with its evil effects to their own health and the welfare of mankind! But this much is at least certain, - the most refined sensualist, the most devoted debauchee, could have discovered on the whole surface of the globe no other dietitic medicinal substance besides coffee, (And to certain extent tea also.) Capable of changing our usual feelings for some hours into agreeable ones only, of producing in us for some hours into agreeable ones only, of producing in us for some hours, rather a jovial, even a petulant gaiety, a livelier wit, an exalted imagination above what is natural to our temperament, of quickening the movement of our muscles to a kind of trembling activity, of spurring on the ordinary quiet pace of our digestive and excretory organs to double velocity, of keeping the sexual practice in an almost involuntary state of excitation, of silencing the useful pangs of hunger and thirst, of banishing blessed sleep from our weary limbs, and artificially producing in them even a kind of liveliness when the whole creation of our hemisphere fulfils its destiny by enjoying refreshing repose in the silent lap of night. Thus we despotically overthrow the wise arrangement of nature, but not without injury to ourselves!

When the first transient effect of coffee has departed after a few hours, there follows gradually the opposite state, the secondary action. The more striking the former was, so much the more observable and disagreeable is the latter. All persons do not suffer equally from the abuse of a medicinal beverage such as coffee is. Our systems are so admirably arranged that if we live agreeably to nature in other respects a few errors in diet, if they be not too great, are tolerably harmless. Thus, for instance, the day-labourer or peasant in Germany drinks brandy, which is so pernicious in itself, almost every morning; but if he only take a small portion at a time, he will often attain a pretty considerable age. His health suffers little. The excellence of his constitution and his otherwise healthy mode of life counteract the injurious effects of his dram almost without letting a trace appear. Now, if instead of brandy the day-labourer or peasant drink a couple of cups of weak coffee, the same thing occurs. His robust body, the vigorous exercise of his limbs, and quantity of fresh air he inhales everyday, repel the hurtful effects of his beverage, and his health suffers little or nothing in consequence. But the bad effects of coffee becomes much more perceptible when these favourable circumstances are not present. Man can, no doubt, enjoy a kind of health, though his occupation confines him to the house – or even to one room – even though he has to live a very sedentary life in the room – even though he has to live a very sedentary life in the room, and his body is delicately constituted, provided he live in other respects conformably with his taste. Under the moderate use of only easily digestible, mild, simple, purely nutritious, almost unspiced food and drink, along with a prudent moderation of the passions and frequent renewal of the air in the rooms, even women, without any great exercise, (Under such circumstances prisoners also.)enjoy a kind of health which doubtless can be readily compromised by external causes, but which, if these are avoided, may still be termed a moderate degree of health. In such persons the action of all morbific substances, that is , of all medicines, is much more striking and severe than in robust individuals accustomed to labour in the open air, who are able to bear some very hurtful things without particular injury.

These weakly dwellers in rooms live in the low level of their health but half a life, if I may use the expression; all their sensations, their energy, their vital functions, are somewhat below par, and they eagerly resort to a beverage that so powerfully exalts for some hours their vital energy and their feeling of existence, unconcerned about the results and the secondary action of this palliative. This secondary action resembles their state before partaking of the coffee, only it is somewhat stronger. When the few hours of the above described primary action of this medicinal beverage, that representation of artificially exalted vital energy, is gone, there then gradually creeps on a yawning drowsiness and greater inactivity than in the ordinary state, the movements of the body become more difficult than formerly, all the excessive gaiety of the previous hours changes into obtuseness of the senses. If, during the first hours changes into obtuseness of the senses. If, during the first hours after drinking the coffee, the digestion and the expulsion of the excrements were hastened, now the flatus becomes painfully incarcerated in the intestines, and the expulsion of the faeces becomes more difficult ad slower than in the former state. If, in the first hours, an agreeable warmth pervaded the frame, this factitious vital-spark now gradually becomes cold. All external agents appear less agreeable than before. More ill-humoured than ordinarily, they are more given to peevishness. The sexual passion which was excited by the coffee in the first hours becomes all the colder and more obtuse. A kind of speedily satiated ravenous hunger takes the place of the healthy desire for nutriment, and yet eating and drinking oppress the stomach more than previously. They have greater difficulty in getting to sleep than formerly, and the sleep is heavier than it used to be before they took coffee, and on awaking they are more sleepy, more discouraged more melancholy than usual. But look! All these evils are rapidly driven away by a renewed application to this hurtful palliative – a new, artificial life commences – only it has a somewhat shorter duration than the first time, and thus its repetition becomes ever more frequently necessary, or the beverage must always be made stronger in order to enable it again to excite life for a few hours. By such means the body of the person whose occupation confines him to his room degenerates all the more. The injurious effects of the secondary action of this medicinal drink spread farther around, and strike their roots too deeply to allow of their being again effaced, if only for a few hours, by a mere repetition of the same palliative more frequently or in stronger doses. The skin now becomes generally more sensitive to the cold, and even to the open air though not cold; the digestion becomes obstructed, the bowels become constipated for several days at a time, flatulence occasions anxiety and causes a number of painful sensations. The constipation only alternates with diarrhoea, not with a healthy state of the bowels. Sleep is obtained with difficulty, and bears more resemblance to a slumber to a slumber that causes no refreshment. On awaking there are remarkable confusion of the head, half-waking dreams, slowness of recollecting himself, helplessness of the limbs, and a kind of joylessness that throws a dark shade over all God’s lovely nature. The beneficient emotions of the heart, warm philanthropy, gratitude, compassion, heroism, strength and nobility of the mind, and joyousness, change into pusillanimity, indifference, insensible hardness of heart, variable humour, melancholy.

The use of coffee as a beverage is continued, and sensitiveness alternates every more with insensibility, over-hasty resolves with irresolution, noisy quarrelsomeness with cowardly compliance, affectation of friendship with malicious envy, transient rapture with joylessness, grinning smiling with inclination to shed tears – symptoms of constant hovering betwixt excitement and depression of the mind and the body. It would be no easy task for me to indicate all the maladies, that under the names of debility, nervous affections and chronic diseases, prevail among the coffee-drinking set, enervating humanity and causing degeneration of mind and body. But it must not be imagined that all the evil results I have named occur to every coffee-bibber in the same degree! No, one suffers more from this, another from that symptom of the secondary action of coffee. My description includes the whole coffee-drinking race; all their maladies which arise from this source I have arranged together, as they have from time to time come under my notice. The palliative agreeable sensation which the coffee distributes from some hours through the finest fibres, leaves behind it, as a secondary action, an extraordinary susceptibility to painful sensations, which always becomes greater and greater, the longer, the oftener, the stronger and the greater the quantity in which the coffee is drunk. Very slight things (that would make scarcely any impression on a healthy person not accustomed to the use of coffee) cause in the coffee drinking lady megrim, a frequent often intolerable toothache, which comes on, chiefly at night, with redness of the face and at length swelling of the cheek – a painful drawing and tearing in different parts of the body, on one side of the face or at one time in one limb, at another in another. (This drawing tearing in the limbs caused by coffee in its secondary action and when its use is persisted in for a long time, is not in the joints, but from one joint to the other. It appears to be more in the flesh or cellular tissue than in the bones, is unattended by swelling or other abnormal appearance, and there is scarcely any tenderness on touching the part. Our nosologists know nothing about it.) The body has a special tendency to erysipelas, either in the legs (hence the frequency of old ulcers there) or (when suckling) in the mammae, or on one half of the face. Apprehensive and flying heat are her daily complaints, and nervous semilateral headache her property. (The megrim above alluded to, which only appears after some exciting cause, as vexation, overloading of the stomach, a chill, &c., generally very rapidly and at all times of the day, differs entirely from the so-called nervous hemicrania. The latter occurs in the morning, soon or immediately after waking, and increases gradually. The pain is almost intolerable, often of a burning character, the external coverings of the skull are also intolerably sensitive and painful on the least touch. Body and mind seem both to be insufferably sensitive. Apparently destitute of all strength, they seek a solitary and of possible dark spot, where , in order to avoid the daylight they pass the time with closed eyes in a kind of waking slumber, usually on a couch raised in the back, or in an arm chair, quite motionless. Every movement, every noise increases their pains. The avoid speaking themselves and listening to the conversation of others. Their body is colder than usual, though without rigour; the hands and feet in particular are very cold. Everything is distasteful to them, but chiefly eating and drinking, for an incessant nausea hinders them from taking anything. In bad cases the nausea amounts to vomiting of mucus, but the headache is seldom alleviated thereby. The bowels are constipated. This headache almost never goes off until evening; in very bad cases I have seen it last thirty-six hours, so that it only disappeared the following evening. In slighter cases its original producer, coffee, shortens its duration in a palliative manner, but it communicated to the system the tendency to produce it after a still shorter interval. It recurs at undetermined times, every fortnight, three, four weeks, & c. It comes on without any exciting cause, quite unexpectedly; even the night previously the patient seldom feels any premonitory signs of the nervous headache that is to come on the next morning.)

From moderate errors of diet and disagreeable mental emotions there occur painful affections of the chest, stomach and abdomen (known by the inaccurate name of spasms) – the catamenia come on with pains, are not regular or the discharge is less copious and at length quite scanty; it is watery or slimy; leucorrhoea (generally of an acrid character) prevails almost the whole time, from one period to another, or completely supersedes the menstrual flux – coition is often painful. The earthy, yellowish or quite pale complexion, the dull eye surrounded by blue rings, the blue lips, the flaccid muscular tissue, the shrivelled breasts, are the almost suppressed menses alternate with serious uterine hemorrhages. In males there occur painful hemorrhoids and nocturnal emissions of semen. In both sexes the sexual power becomes gradually extinguished. The normal exuberant energy of the embrace of a healthy couple becomes a worthless bagatelle. Impotence of both sexes and sterility, inability to suckle a child, ensues. – The monster of nature, that hollow-eyed ghost, onnanism, is generally concealed behind the coffee-table (though indulgence in the perusal of meretricious novels, over-exertion of the mind, bad company and a sedentary life in close apartments, contribute their share). As an inordinate indulgence in coffee has for its secondary effect to dispose the body greatly to all kinds of disagreeable sensations and most acute pains, it will be readily comprehended how it, more than any other hurtful substance we are acquainted with, excites a great tendency to caries of the bones. Nor error of diet causes the teeth to decay more easily and certainly than indulgence in coffee. Coffee alone (with the exception of grief and the abuse of mercury) destroys the teeth in the shortest space of time. (Observations on which I can depend have convinced me if this.) The confined air of a room and overloading the stomach (especially at night) contribute their share to this effect. But coffee by itself is quite capable of destroying in a short space of time this irreparable ornament of the mouth, this indispensable accessory organ for distinct speech and for the intimate mixture of the food with the digestive saliva, or at least of rendering them black and yellow. The loss of the front (incisor) teeth is chiefly due to the abuse of coffee. If I except the true spina ventosa, there occurs scarcely a singly case of caries of the bones in children (if they have not been over-dosed with mercury) from any other cause than from coffee? (These ulcerations of the bones, which lie concealed beneath elevated, hard, bluish red swellings of the soft parts, exude an albuminous looking mucus, mixed with some cheese-like matter, It has very little smell. The pains of the affected part are very shooting in their character, The rest of the body presents a pure picture of the coffee dyscrasia.) Besides these, there are in children other deep-seated flesh abscesses orifice, which are often solely to be ascribed to the action of the coffee.

As a rule, coffee acts most injuriously on children; the more tender their age, the worse its effects. Although it is incapable of itself of producing true rickets, but can only accelerate them, in conjunction with their special exciting cause (food composed of unfermented vegetable substances, and the air of close, damp rooms), yet it of itself excites in little children, even when their other food is wholesome and the air in which they live good, a kind on infantile hectic. Which is not much less sad in its results. Their complexion becomes pale, their muscles quite flaccid. It is only after a long time that they learn to walk a little, but then their gait is uncertain, they easily fall, and wish always to be carried. They stammer in their speech. They wish for a great variety of things, but relish nothing heartily, The drollery, happiness and liveliness that characterize the age of childhood are changed into indolent dejection; nothing gives them pleasure, nothing makes them contented; they enjoy only a sort of half lief. They are very easily startled, and timid. Diarrhoea alternates with costiveness. Viscid mucus rattles in their chest as they breathe, especially when they are asleep, which no amount of coughing can remove: they have always got a wheezing at the chest. Their teeth come with much difficulty and with convulsion fits; they are imperfect, and fall out decayed before the period for changing them arrives. Mostly every evening, just before bed-time or after lying down in bed, they get redness and heat on one or both cheeks. The sleep very imperfectly, toss about at night, often want to drink; they then perspire, not only on the forehead, but also on the hairy scalp, particularly at the back of the head, and whine and moan in their sleep. They get through every disease with difficulty, and their recovery is very slow and imperfect. They are frequently subject to a chronic inflammation of the eyes, not unfrequently accompanied by an eruption in the face, along with peculiar relaxation of the upper eyelid, which prevents them raising it, even when the redness and swelling of the lids are but moderate. This kind of ophthalmia, that often lasts for several years, making them frequently lie upon the face with constant peevishness and crying, or conceal them selves in a dark place where they remain lying or sitting in a stooping posture, this ophthalmia, I say, chiefly affects the cornea, covers it with red vessels and at last with dark spots, or there occur phlyctneulae and little ulcers on it, that often cat deeply into the cornea and threaten blindness. This ophthalmia and that rattling at the chest and the other ailments above described, attack even infants at the breast, who take nothing but their mother’s milk, if the mother indulges in coffee and inhabits a close room. How penetrating must not the hurtful power of this medicinal beverage be, that even infants at the breast suffer from it!

After children, coffee acts, as I have said, most injuriously on the female sex, and literary people whose occupation is sedentary and confines them them to their rooms. To these may be added workmen engaged in a sedentary trade. The bad effects of coffee are, as I have above mentioned, most effectually diminished by great activity and exercise in the open air, - but not permanently removed. Some individuals also find out as if by instinct, a sort of antidote to coffee in the use of spirituous liquors. It is impossible to deny that they do possess some antidotal powers. These are, however, mere stimulants, without any nutritive quality; that is to say, they are likewise medicinal substances, which, when daily used as articles of diet, produce other injurious effects, and yet are unable to prevent the hurtful action of the coffee from taking effect, - what they cause are artificial ameliorations, of the vital functions, followed by morbid effects, though of a different, more complex nature. Leaving off the use of coffee (It is by no means easy to do away with an inveterate habit of using coffee. – I first endeavour to convince my patients seriously of the urgent and indispensible necessity of discontinuing its use. Truth grounded on obvious experience seldom fails to produce conviction – almost never, when it is urged from the philanthrophic heart of a physician, who, convinced himself himself of the goodness of his cause, is thoroughly penetrated by the truth of his maxims. Nothing will then prevent their reception, there is no question of any private interest on the part of the doctor; and nothing but pure gain on the side of the party he wishes to convince. If we have attained this object (whether this is the case or no, he who has a knowledge of human nature can tell by the way the patient receives his advice), we may advice that the quantity of coffee taken by reduced by a cup to be continued for a week longer, until this can either be left off at once, or it may be continued on every alternate day for another week, according to circumstances.

If we have to do with persons on whom we can rely, the affair is managed in the course of four weeks. But should some faint-heartedness or indecision on the part of slaves to coffee make its accomplishment difficult, or should the weak state do the health-make its discontinueance be too severely felt, we would do well for every cup of coffee we take away, to allow a cup of tea to be drunk, until in the course of a week nothing but tea (a similar but lesser evil) is drunk, and this, as it has not had time to become a habitual beverage, may be more easily diminished, until at last nothing more of the sort is taken, but only a couple of cups of warm milk for breakfast, in place of coffee or tea. Whilst thus breaking off the habit, it is indispensible that the body be refreshed and strengthened by daily walks in the open air, by amusements of an innocent character, and by appropriate food, if we wish that the injurious effects of the coffee should disappear, and the individual be confirmed in his resolution to give it up. And if all goes on well, it will not be a bad plan for the doctor, or a friend in his stead, to assure himself from time to time of the true conversion of his patient, and if necessary, uphold his resolution when the force of example in company seems to cause it to waver.) is the chief remedy for these insidious and deeply penetrating injurious effects, and corporeal exercise in the open air tends to promote the subsequent recovery. If however body and mind be sunk too low, there are some medicines very useful for that state, but this is not the proper place to enumerate them, as I am not at present writing for medical men. When I describe the daily use of coffee as very prejudicial, and when I shew from observations and experience f many years that to relaxes and withers the energy of our body and mind, some may retort upon me the appellation “medicinal beverage,” which I must unhesitatingly bestow upon coffee.

They are so ; but only under certain indispensible conditions. It is only when the medicine is suitable for health, and to employ a medicine as a beverage in the ordinary healthy state, is hurtful procedure, a self-evident contradiction. I prize them medicinal powers of coffee when it is appropriately employed as a medicine, as much as those of any other medicament. There is nought superfluous in God’s creation; every thing is created for the weal of mankind, particularly the most powerful things, to which class coffee belongs in an especial degree. But let the following facts be borne in mind. Every single medicine develops in the healthy human body some special alterations, that are peculiar to itself exclusively. When these are known, and when the medicine is employed in cases of disease that have an almost exact similarity with the alteration that have an almost exact similarity with the alteration that the medicine is capable of itself producing (in the healthy body), a radical cure takes place. This employment of the medicine is the curative one, the only one to be relied on in chronic diseases. In speaking of this power of a medicine to alter the human body in a manner peculiar to itself, I allude to its primary or initiatory action. I have said above that the primary action of a medicine (for some hours after it has been taken) is the direct opposite of its secondary action, or the state in which it leaves the body whenever its first action is past. Now if the primary action of a medicine be the exact opposite of the morbid condition of the body we seek to cure, its employment is palliative. Almost instantaneous amendment ensues, - but a few hours afterwards the malady returns and attains a greater height than it had before the employment of the remedy, the secondary action of the medicine, which resembled the original disease, aggravates the latter. A miserable method of treatment when we have with do with a chronic malady. I shall give an example. The primary action of opium in the healthy system is to cause a stupefying snoring sleep, and its secondary action – the opposite – sleeplessness. Now if the physician will be so foolish as treat a morbid, habitual sleeplessness with opium, he acts in a palliative manner, The stupid, snoring, unrefreshing sleep speedily follows the ingestion of the opium, but its secondary action, as I have stated, is sleeplessness, an addition to his already habitual sleeplessness, when is now accordingly aggravated. Twenty-four hours afterwards the patient sleeps still less than before he took the opium; a stronger dose of the latter must now be given, the secondary action of which is a still greater sleeplessness, that is, an aggravation of the malady, which the foolish man imagined he was curing.