Coffee is a diuretic, and hence its habitual use promotes disease of the kidneys. “Very warm drinks are in themselves debilitating to the stomach, but the addition of the properties of tea, coffee, or other herbs, burdens the kidneys and urinary apparatus with an unnatural amount of labor continually. (See Bright’s Disease.) These organs, kept constantly over-excited, must become debilitated, and preternaturally irritable, and this condition of debility and irritability extends sympathetically to all the surrounding viscera; finally, the abdominal muscles themselves become relaxed, and, with the general nervous exhaustion produced by the active nervine and narcotic properties of the herb throughout the system, a foundation is laid for the whole train of maladies, displacements of organs, disordered functions, and ‘weaknesses,’ which are so general at the present day.”
Again, coffee is often referred to as a respiratory food. It does, in small doses, and at first, have the effect to excite abnormally the nerves governing the respiratory movements, as well as those of the heart, stomach, etc.—stimulates them; hence the tendency, finally, to sluggish action of these organs, and even paralysis: a peculiar type of “nightmare” often met with among coffee and tobacco users, illustrates this well, although the connection is not usually comprehended,—a feeling of suffocation, following one of pressure,
or “rushing feeling,” at the base of the brain, as it is often described; usually observed at night just as the individual is dropping off to sleep, seemingly at the very moment of “losing” himself, and very naturally, too, at this particular moment: prior thereto there had been somewhat of a constrained feeling, perhaps, unobserved by the victim, who, while awake, would continue the process of breathing by means of an unconscious, but still real, degree of voluntary effort. In sleep, the suffocation which ensues causes the victim to wake with a start and with a violent palpitation of the heart; or he may not succeed in rousing himself: this means death. In fact, all stimulants and poisons, as tobacco, coffee, distilled liquors, etc., tend to local and general paralysis.
Coffee is styled the drink, par excellence, of the brain-worker. Cases like the following are by no means rare: Under the influence of two or three cups of strong coffee the brain of an essayist works satisfactorily, perhaps for hours; the hands and feet meanwhile growing cold and clammy, and the entire surface “chilly,” while the brain throbs with congestion, until, finally, the mind becomes confused, strange mistakes are made, words are repeated or misspelled, and although the over-stimulated but now clogged and exhausted brain can see, dimly outlined within itself, pages, whole chapters perhaps, that must be written now or be forever lost—or at least his diseased imagination thus pictures it—still he finds it impossible to proceed, and with a martyr spirit, or perhaps despairingly, he ceases from his labors. A night of disturbed
sleep (see article on Insomnia) almost surely follows, and during its waking intervals the brain often does its best work, which is worse than lost, unless the sufferer rises in (what should be) “the dead hours of the night” to record his brilliant thoughts. This effort he is often loath to make: he can think, or rather can not stop thinking, but he feels too weak to rise. Imperfect, however, as may be his repose, still, he may, with the aid of fresh stimulation, be enabled to take up his work again for the day. This may go on indefinitely, but with less and less satisfactory results from month to month,—neuralgic pains, “nervous headaches,” or other evidence of visceral irritation, meantime adding to the sufferings to be endured,—until, after a time, becoming alarmed, he feels the need of a long vacation. If, however, in spite of all premonitions of danger, he keeps on denying himself the “rest” (from stimulation as well as from labor) he so much needs, it is like pulling a heavy load up-hill, and a little later he finds himself utterly prostrated. Whether, now, he dies speedily of paralysis, “heart disease,” or “nervous prostration”; fails gradually and dies of “consumption”; or recovers some degree of health, after a long illness, the cause of his disease is believed by himself, friends—and physician, perhaps—to have been “overwork.”[90] In fact, it is the effect of stimulation
inciting to excessive brain, to the neglect of physical, exercise; the brain is clogged by its own unexcreted waste, and the entire system unbalanced and unstrung. It is in such cases that a resort to “tonic treatment,” beef-tea, or a “generous diet” of flesh-food—for which, perhaps, a fictitious appetite is created by the use of “regular” or irregular bitters—often destroys the patient’s last chance for recovery. “It is,” says Professor Brunton, “piling on fuel, instead of removing ash.”[91]
[90] The same amount of the stimulant alone (coffee, tobacco, wine, or what not), without the hard work that tended to aid in its elimination, would have made quicker work of it. What such a person requires under these circumstances is to give his brain rest from severe mental application. Nor is it, in my opinion, sound doctrine to say that a weary-brained man may rest by rushing at muscular exercise, or vice versa. To a certain extent the rule holds good; but the exhausted or very tired man requires a period of absolute rest, before taking up any form of work. At the proper time, however, he will be improved by taking up active exercise in the open air, and performing daily such regular muscular and literary work as he can comfortably, however little this may be, without any sort of stimulation other than that derived from simple, nutritious food and pure air. (See article on Consumption for hint as to exercise.)
[91] “Indigestion as a Cause of Nervous Prostration,” Popular Science Monthly, January, 1881.
The illustration here given is one of the worst cases, but such instances are frequently observed among the class usually designated as brain workers, not only, but among business men, whose work, scheming, mishaps, and unnatural habits altogether, bring them to sick-beds and premature graves; while mild forms are met with constantly everywhere.
Whatever degree of eminence our brain-workers may hope to attain under any form of stimulation, before their lives shall be prematurely ended, all may rest assured that by obeying the laws of life and building up a healthy body they will, in the long run—the “run” made longer thereby—do more and better work without than with artificial aid. The stimulus of good