Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1882 — THE VIRTUES OF COFFEE. [ARTICLE]

THE VIRTUES OF COFFEE.

Its Exhilarating Effects Upon the System and Benefits in a Medicinal Way. • It is getting to be the fashion now for people to say that coffee is injurious to health and many persons are giving it up regretfully. Perhaps coffee is very injurious in some cases, but of all beverages it is contended that is the least injurious. Coffee-drinkers are generally cheerful, strong and persevering. The eminent Dr. Boek, of Leipsic, says: “The nervousness and peevishness of the times are chiefly attributable to tea and coffee." He says that “the digestive organs of confirmed coffee-drinkers are in a state of chronic derangement, which reacts on the brain, produces fretful and lachrymose moods.” “I cannot agree," says Dr. Henry Segur, of Paris, “that the nervousness and peevishness of the present times are to be attributed to the use of coffee. If people are more nervous or in worse humor than formerly, we may find other causes arising from the customs and habits of society much more likely to produce such a state of things than .the use of this particular article of diet.” Let us examine the effects of coffee on the economy. Taken in moderation it is a mental and bodily stimulant of a most agreeable nature, and, followed by no harmful reaction, it produces contentment of mind, allays hunger and bodily weakness, increases the incentive and capacity for work, makes man forget his misfortunes, and enables those who use it to remain a long time without food or sleep, to endure unusual fatigue and preserve their cheerfulness and contentment. Jomand says: “An infusion made with ten ounces of coffee enables me to live without other food for five consecutive days without lessening my ordinary occupations and to use more afid more prolonged muscular exercise than I was accustomed to without any other physical injury than a slight degree of fatigue and a little loss of flesh.” . • The mental exhilaration, physical activity and wakefulness it causes explains the fondness for it which has been shown by so many men of science, poets, scholars and others devoted to thinking. It has, indeed, been called the intellectual beverage. It supported the old age of Voltaire and enabled Fontenelle -toopass his hundred years. The action of coffee is directed chiefly to the nervous system. It produces a warming, cordial impression on the stomach, quickly followed by a diffused agreeably and nervous excitement, which extends itself to the cerebral functions, giving rise to increased vigor of imagination and intellect, without any subsequent confusion or Stupor, such are characteristic of narcotics. Coffee contains essential principles of nutrition far exceeding in importance its exhilarating properties and is one of the most desirous articles for sustaining the system in certain prostrating diseases. As compared with the nutrition to be derived from the best of soups, coffee has decidedly the advantage, and is to b j preferred in many instances. The medicinal effects of coffee are very great. In intermittent fever it has been used by eminent physicians, with the happiest effect, in cutting short the attack, and if properly managed is better in many cases than the sulphate of quinine. In that low state of intermittent, as found on the banks of the Mississippi river and other malarial districts, accompanied with enlarged spleen and torpid liver, when judidiously administered it is one of the surest remedies. In yellow fever it has been used by physicians, and with some it ls their main reliance after other necessary remedies have been administered; it retains tissue change, and thus becomes a conservator of force in that state in which the nervous system tends to collapse, because the blood has become impure; it sustains the nervous power until the duration and reorganizatien of the blood are accomplished, and lias the advantage over other stimulants in inducing no injurious secondary effects. In spasmodic asthma its utility is well established, as in whooping cough, stupor, lethargy and such troubles. In hysterical attacks, for which in many cases a physician can form no diagnosis, coffee is a great help. Coffee is opposed to malaria, to all noxious ..vapors. As a disinfectant it has wonderful powers. As an instantaneous deodorizer it has no equal for the sick room, as all exhalations are immediately neutralized by simply passing a chafing-dish with burning coffee grains through the room. It may be urged that an article possessing such powers and capacity for such energetic action must be injurious as an article of diet of habitual employment, and not without deleterious properties; but no corresponding nervous derangements have been observed after its effects had disappeared, as are seen in narcotics and other stimulants. The action imparted to the nerves is natural and healthy. Habitual coffee drinkers generally enjoy’good health. Some of the oldest people have used coffee from earliest infancy without feeling any depressing reaction, such as is produced by alcoholic stimulants.