Edwin M. Hale, M. D.
No. 2200 Prairie Avenue, Chicago, Ill.
ILEX CASSINE, THE ABORIGINAL NORTH AMERICAN TEA.
Edwin M. Hale, M. D., Chicago.
There is a shrub or small tree, a species of holly (Ilex cassine), growing in the Southern States along the seacoast, not extending inland more than 20 or 30 miles, from Virginia to the Rio Grande. Its leaves and tender branches were once used by the aboriginal tribes of the United States in the same manner as the Chinese use tea and the South Americans use maté. But while the use of Thea sinensis and Ilex paraguayensis still survives, the use of the shrub above mentioned has been almost abandoned by our native Indians and by the white people who once partially adopted it as a beverage.
The reason for its disuse is hard to discover, for, in common with the tea and maté, it contains caffeine, or a similar alkaloid. The object of this paper is to examine its history, to suggest its restoration to a place among the stimulant beverages, and inquire into its possible economic value.
I have been able to trace its use as a beverage back to the legendary migration of the Creeks from their supposed far western home to the seacoast of the Carolinas. Whether it was used by the prehistoric mound-builders is a question which may not at present be solved. But some archæologist of the future may find in the remains of the mound-builders or their predecessors proof of its use among them.[1]