Well may the wise man pray, "Feed me with food convenient for me," for it is fairly safe to say that no single article of diet has emerged scathless from the critical survey of the dietetic reformer or his antagonist. We may even extend this indictment to the various fluids which the ingenuity of mankind has devised for quenching its thirst. However vigorously the scientist may promulgate the view that alcohol is strictly speaking a food, there can no longer be any doubt that it is in reality a tissue poison of the first order, which manifests its narcotising and finally degenerative action chiefly on the nervous system. It has indeed no claim to be termed a stimulant, being in plain terms only a drug with a temporary exhilarating effect followed thereafter by a long period of depression. The conclusion of practically all thoughtful medical men is that it is quite unnecessary in health, and if not of doubtful value in the treatment of disease, is at least capable of being replaced in most instances by less dangerous substances.

The virulent antipathy displayed by fanatical temperance reformers by reason of its use as a beverage or even as a medicine is quite misplaced, if they are themselves devotees of the " cup that cheers yet not inebriates." For tea, coffee, and cocoa all owe their undoubtedly stimulating and refreshing effects to their contained active principle, viz. caffeine, or one of its allies, a drug which can be procured from any chemist's shop and is to be found on the shelves of every dispensing physician. When used in moderation the valuable stimulating effects of each of these beverages is unquestionable, although it is undoubted that just as a certain percentage of the population is poisoned by the smallest quantity of alcohol, many people display a decided idiosyncrasy for tea, coffee, or cocoa. Some indeed exhibit a condition of chronic intoxication manifested by palpitation, breathlessness, nervousness, headache, indigestion, and in particular neuralgia and mental and physical depression.

It is sheer nonsense to state that a stimulating effect can be produced without a corresponding period of after depression, for action in this respect is always equal to the reaction produced, and it is certain that the injudicious use of any of these beverages is liable to be followed by the development of a craving no whit less tolerable than that for alcohol. This can be quite easily demonstrated, in an ordinary tea or coffee drinker at any rate, by ceasing to partake for a day or two, when the genesis of an unbearable headache will not fail to convince him that he has been under the influence of a drug. At least if it should do so, he need only resume his accustomed potations, when his headache will vanish like magic, and proclaim aloud that he has been cured by "a hair of the dog which bit him."

It is quite certain, however, that in the average person the use of tea, coffee, or cocoa may be continued in moderation for a lifetime without inducing any degenerative effect on the nervous system, at any rate of a character analogous or comparable with that so well known to follow even the moderate use of alcohol.