Doctor, Suppose We Go And Take Something?

"All right; I will drink a glass of mineral water and then discuss drinks."

Doctor, Since You Do Not Drink Anything Very Stimulating, You Probably Have Something Caustic To Say About Liquor Drinking?

"I don't propose to commence on alcoholic liquors, but on the drinks that pave the way for them."

That Is A New Idea. You Don't Mean To Say That Other Drinks Cause An Appetite For Liquor, Do You?

"Such a thing as an appetite for liquor, strictly speaking, does not often exist."

What, Then, Is It?

"It is a mental condition which makes the individual crave stimulants."

Then It Is A Craving For The Effects And Not The Taste?

"That is it. A well person is free from nervousness, and does not want any stimulants."

Then Our Habits Affect The Nervous System?

"Yes; nervousness apparently increases with each generation. It is often attributed to worry, but the real cause is the habits of the people, and a large share of it is due to their drinking habits."

Then Nervousness Does Not Result Merely From Worry Or Overwork, As Many People Suppose?

"No; people are mainly worried because they are nervous. If we were not nervous, the ordinary cares of life would not cause us to worry."

Doctor, I Am Very Anxious To Know What You Are Going To Charge This To?

"To no one thing; but I wish to show the relation of other causes to nervousness."

Since You Have Already Spoken Of Water, I Suppose You Will Charge Tea And Coffee With A Good Deal?

"Yes, coffee in this country, and tea in other countries."

I Thought The General Opinion Was That Coffee Was Not Injurious?

"General opinion is about as safe to guide us as it would be to have a mule put in a pilot house to steer a ship across the ocean. As an illustration, there are numbers of people who are sick every week, or at least every month, and are foolish enough to say that nothing they eat or do, hurts them; and it has often struck me that it would be just as reasonable to say of a man who is hung till he is dead, that the hanging didn't injure him, but that he merely died because he stopped breathing."'

Why Do You Say Such Things?

"To get people to understand that when they are knocked over, something struck them."

What Bearing Has This On Coffee?

"That effects have causes."

How Can You Prove That Coffee Has Any Bad Effects?

"By drinking it or watching others."

"That doesn't throw any light on the subject."

"Well, coffee is a stimulant, and the heart has only a limited capacity. When it is stimulated beyond that, it must be correspondingly weak, just as it was stimulated to increased activity by the coffee. Suppose we illustrate it in this way: We will take two tanks of water and connect them with a pipe. Now, if each tank be two-thirds full, the pressure will be equal; but if the water be pumped from one to the other, the one will have its pressure increased just to the extent that the water is taken from the other, and the one from which the water is taken will have its pressure decreased."

Now Are You Sure That The Effects Of Coffee Are Similar?

"It is very much like it; people who drink two or three cups of strong coffee could hardly get along without it. If they do not have it, they will have the headache and be irritable, or, in other words, there is relaxation, a weakness of circulation and the machinery of the system refuses to run properly until it is again brought under the influence of a new supply of coffee."

"Well, I suppose I have seen hundreds of people of that-kind, but I never thought it was serious."

"Yes, it is; if coffee is necessary to keep any one going, so to speak, such person might propery be called a coffee inebriate."'

Well, How Does That Pave The Way For Liquor?

"In this way-: People who are affected by the use of coffee become nervous to an extent that is chronic, and the condition of the nervous system of the parents is likely to be transmitted to their children."

Then It Is Not So Much Of An Appetite As It Is A Nervous Condition?

"No; liquor drinkers, or at least very few of them, will admit that they drink liquor because they like it. It is purely an abnormal craving for some kind of stimulant. They don't feel right without it."

Then Why Don't Everybody Take To The Use Of Strong Drinks?

"A very large per cent, do, but it must be remembered that not every one uses stimulants to make a serious nervous condition. Besides this, nature constantly attempts to correct her own defects, and if it were not for the fact that each generation keeps imposing upon nature, we would soon be an ideal race."