In connection with the active use of coffee as a beverage a short history of this substance will not be out of place. In the following historical sketch I am indebted chiefly to Mr. John Uri Lloyd.1

It appears from the researches of Lloyd that coffee was not known to the ancients. It is not mentioned in the history of the Jews, nor do the early Greek and Latin writers make any reference to it. No description of it, moreover, is found in the older writings of Confucius, and other Eastern Philosophers. Nevertheless, it is evident that, in its native country, the coffee must have been used from times immemorial. The coffee tree appears to be originally of African origin.

There is a belief that coffee was introduced in Abyssinia by Robert Manns about the year 875, and from Abyssinia it reached Arabia in the thirteenth century, and from Arabia it was introduced into Syria, Persia, Turkey, Asia and in other countries.

The first introduction of coffee into Great Britain appears to be about the year 1640, just two years after the foundation of Harvard University in the United States. It is thus seen that the European and American use of coffee is not of very ancient origin. At the time of its first introduction into London (1651) it commanded a very high price, ranging from 20 to 25 dollars per pound. In 1657 the use of coffee was introduced into Paris, but it met with some disfavor on the part of Louis XIV, and afterward Louis XV, and neither of these monarchs started drinking coffee, and it did not become popular in France before 1669. The popularity of coffee in Paris was due largely to the acts of the Ambassador of Mahomet, who gave magnificent entertainments, and introduced the use of Turkish coffee. Black slaves of the Ambassador, arrayed in most gorgeous oriental costumes, presented the very choicest Mocha in very small cups of fine porcelain, made with the art which seems known alone in oriental countries. This magnificent presentation of a beverage, which, in itself, is calculated to win its way on account of its taste and its influence upon the nerves, succeeded in making it popular with those who were able to afford it. The use of coffee in the French Capitol became one of the fads of the aristocracy. They took much interest in it, and the daughters of Louis XIV, notwithstanding the position of their father relative to the use of the beverage, became addicted to the use of it, and finally it became a common beverage of the Royal household. It is related that the cost of the berry at that time was so high that, although not drunk in very great quantities, it cost the Royal family as much as $15,000 per year.

1 The Western Druggist.

In 1664 the use of coffee was introduced in Germany, and from Germany it spread rapidly to neighboring countries.

Lloyd attributes the rapid spread of the use of coffee to the fact that man naturally craves a stimulant at times, and is never willing to be wholly without it; and the stimulating effect of the caffein, the active principle of coffee, modified as it is by its form of combination and its association with the other ingredients of the coffee, presented to man a beverage which was almost ideal and satisfied his craving for a stimulant.