Whether in Maine or California, Florida or Kansas; whether in a “malarial district” or in a region celebrated
for its salubrity,—whatever the locality,—the only standard, the purest air attainable for the inhabitants of any town or hamlet, is the outdoor air. Apropos of this I make a brief extract from the letter of a patient, a delicate lady, under treatment for chronic dyspepsia, and other troubles, who, under date of September 5th, says: “I have tried to follow your directions, and the result is very satisfactory. I live out of doors as much as possible through the day, and for weeks have even slept out on the porch at night. I have enjoyed this very much,—never slept so soundly nor felt so fresh on waking. Of course my friends predicted malaria from sleeping out of doors so near the fogs from the river, but I haven’t had even a sniffle! I exercise a great deal and have grown very much stronger. It seemed pretty hard at first to live on one meal a day and exercise too, but I persevered and feel better for it. Every one here is astonished at my progress and increase of strength. At first I think they rather resented my not coming to the table, and they openly declared the foolishness of living without meat; but they have ‘sick spells’ which now I never do, and they can not endure heat or cold as I can. I think I can dimly see your position, and begin to realize the simplicity of certain problems generally regarded so complicated.”—(Mrs. S., Washington, D. C., writing from Wadley’s Falls, N. H.)
I feel that my readers will absolve me from the charge of egotism in thus introducing the testimony of this poor lady, the victim of malpractice in the first instance, who, after passing through course after
course of drug medication at the hands of eminent, and so-called skillful physicians, at last begins, not dimly, as she herself says, but clearly, as I believe, to see the simplicity of the health question; and especially ought I to be pardoned when I here distinctly remark that I claim to be only the contemporary of thousands upon thousands, physicians and laymen, who have become converts to Hygienic Medicine; being convinced that the proposition is as true as it is simple, that, in general, substances which are injurious for healthy persons to swallow, are even more deleterious to the sick.
CHAPTER XVII.
COFFEE, MEDICINALLY AND DIETETICALLY CONSIDERED.—THE
TRUE THEORY OF STIMULATION.[84]
“The chief constituent of the coffee berry, the alkaloid caffeine—in chemical analysis recognized as identical with that of the tea plant, theine—when separated from the other constituents, ... so as to be seen in its perfect purity, appears in snow-white, silky, filiform crystals, flexible and fragile, without odor, but having a mildly bitter taste.... But it remains an important consideration that this crystallized constituent ... is built on the chemical type of the alkaloid, a class of bodies which nature forms in plants, but not in food-plants—bodies that include narcotics, stimulants, hypnotics, deliriants, poisons, tonics; some of them affecting the whole nervous system, one to excite and another to depress; and others influencing only parts of the nervous system, for special functions of the body.”[85]
[84] This paper first appeared in the Boston Journal of Chemistry and Popular Science Review, May and June, 1882.
[85] Professor Albert B. Prescott, in Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1882, “Chemistry of Tea and Coffee.”