Has Coffee No Uses?

"Yes, coffee is useful as a drug, is very pleasant to the taste, and if water and milk are merely flavored with coffee, and it is used as a flavor more than something to tone up the nervous system, it is not seriously harmful, and may be, at times, very useful. It may not injure every one, but the habit of drinking two or three cups of coffee (strong coffee at that) is most pernicious, and not only does serious harm, but is very likely to do harm to unborn generations, as well as to lead to the use of stronger stimulants."

Are There Any Other ILL Effects From Coffee?

"A considerable quantity of strong coffee retards digestion and does injury in that way."

What Property Is It In Coffee That Affects The Nervous System?

"The name given it is caffeine. It contains some other properties, but it is the caffeine that gives it its stimulating effects. The practice of giving coffee to children cannot be too strongly condemned."

What Are The Symptoms Of Coffee Inebriety?

"Nervous tremor, languor, prostration, sleeplessness, craving, with headaches when it is not supplied in sufficient strength or amount."

If Coffee Be Used At All, How Should It Be Made?

"Coffee is the least harmful when the smallest amount of its active properties are extracted. The longer it is steeped in water and the more it is boiled, the more injurious it is. It should not be strong, and should never be permitted to boil; nor should it be permitted to stand for great length of time, but the hot water should be poured on and left only for a few minutes, to merely extract the aroma of the coffee."

Doctor, How Does Tea Compare With Coffee?

"It is very similar to coffee, and there is much discussion as to which is the more wholesome or harmful."

What Is Your Opinion?

"Tea, in my opinion, is still worse than coffee. It is perhaps not quite so much of a stimulant, but contains a high per cent, of tannic acid. This makes tea an astringent and a great source of constipation. It therefore deranges the system, causes nervousness, insomnia, and has more serious effect on the digestive organs than coffee."

In What Way Does It Affect Digestion?

"Well, it affects digestion directly, because of the fact that the tannic acid of tea precipitates albumen in the foods. This may be better understood by saying that if tannic acid be applied to the white of an egg, which is albumen, it will make a tough substance of it quite like leather. It is, in fact, this process of applying tannic acids to skins that makes leather."

Is That The Reason Why, That When Egg Is Used To Clarify Coffee It Forms In Lumps?

"Yes; that is the same principle. It clarifies the coffee by being coagulated and gathering the coffee grounds as it settles, and when egg is used to clarify coffee or any other drink it should be strained."

Doctor, You Say Tea And Coffee Are Both Bad. They Are Certainly Not Worse Than Tobacco?

"No; they are not worse than tobacco; but tobacco does not belong to foods, and we cannot discuss it now."

Is There Any Other Objection To Tea And Coffee?

"Yes; both tea and coffee are especially injurious to persons who have what the physicians call the arthritic tendency."

What Do You Mean By That?

"A large number of diseases result because the system does not perfectly clear itself of nitrogenous matter. These various ailments are styled uric acid diseases."

What Are Some Of Them?

"Probably the most universal one is sick headache Periodical sick headaches are almost certain to be the result of uric acid in the blood."

Then Tea And Coffee Add To The Uric Acid In The System?

"Yes; people who have sick headache, asthma, bronchitis, rheumatism, gout, epilepsy, and diseases of the stomach generally, should drink neither tea nor coffee."

Has Tea Any Particular Use?

"It is sometimes used because of its astringent properties in diarrhoea, or summer complaint, and is really more of a medicine than food."

Doctor, From What You Say, I Conclude That The Abuse Of Tea And Coffee Is Almost As Far-Reaching In Its Effects As That Of Alcoholic Liquors?

"You are right; and it is really a pitiable sight to see people who are trying to save the world from its vices adopt such habits that they transmit such traits and characteristics to their own children, that the very evils they seek to remedy are fostered by their own offspring."