Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

Have it freshly made, take it in moderation, and it will never do any harm. Especially is this the case with China tea, if taken in preference to Indian, for it does not injure the stomach or the nerves in the way that the latter is apt to do.

Coffee.

Coffee does not as a rule tend to cause indigestion or affect the nerves; its ill-effects are due to the fact of its causing biliousness. People of what is known as a “livery” type had better avoid it altogether, if they have found it to have this result. Yet they might as well ascertain first as to whether it was the coffee or the milk which they took with it which accounted for their discomfort. It is a mystery as to why people, who cannot on their own assertion take hot milk without upsetting their livers, should drink it when its taste is disguised by that of coffee. The milk is there just the same, and the after-effects are bound to be as bad as if taken by itself.

Let such persons take their coffee thin, making it with water, and adding only as much milk as they would put into their tea, and it will probably turn out that they can take it without any bad after-effects.

There is one form, however, in which this beverage is harmful. That is in the form of black coffee. When taken in this form it certainly causes indigestion as well as biliousness. Some of the most persistent cases of dyspepsia, especially that which is most pronounced on waking up in the morning, are due entirely to the habit of drinking black coffee after dinner in the evenings. And the taste is evidently a seductive one, for there is no habit, not even that of alcohol, more difficult to eradicate. Yet until the use of coffee in this form is given up, the dyspepsia will most surely persist.

Water.

The amount of liquid consumed in the twenty-four hours is one of the most important questions in connection with diet, especially for anyone suffering from headaches, rheumatic pains, malaise, undue fatigue, and a variety of suchlike complaints, “minor ailments” as they are called. These ailments are anything but minor, we may observe, in regard to the amount of suffering they cause, and the train of symptoms and diseases to which they lead.

Without a sufficient quantity of liquids the waste matter in the tissues is apt to become too condensed, and on this account less able to reach the eliminatory organs, whose function it is to throw it off. It not uncommonly happens that a man will consult a doctor, complaining that he is suffering from pains in his limbs, either in the muscles or the joints or both, also from a constant dull headache and sense of tiredness. He fears that he is on the verge of rheumatic fever, and it is not improbable that that is exactly what he is. On inquiry it turns out that he has been in the habit of taking very little liquid either with meals or between them. He is told to take an extra quart, two if possible, a day. Then it often happens that in a week or two all his symptoms have disappeared, and he is capable of as much exertion as he ever was.

The liquid may be taken in any form, hot or cold, or in tea, coffee, lemon water or any other beverage the person may prefer. It does not matter how it is taken, so long as it gets into the system.

Alcohol.