A treatise on foreign teas / Abstracted from an ingenious work, lately published, entitled An essay on the nerves

by Hugh Smith

At this time the body is in a very different state of temperature from that of the morning. By the toil, care, study, or amusement of the former part of the day, the solids are wasted, and the fluids in a state of ferment and evaporation. Added to this, the aliment which is taken at dinner time so exhausts the animal warmth, as to leave the whole body in a state of refrigeration. What is therefore taken in this situation should be neither relaxing, constipating, nor heating; it should possess a genial warmth, a cordial assistant, and a restorative nutriment. The first should be such as to supply the deficiency of warmth which the body feels by the act of digestion, without inflaming the blood, or too greatly increasing the pulse. The second, or cordial assistant, should rather increase the powers of the body than those of the heart; for the force of the heart may be increased to the detriment of health. This is evident from a weakness of the body being the consequence of the force of the heart being increased in an inflammatory fever. And with regard to what is taken in the afternoon requiring a restorative nutriment, it is necessary that it should be light, pure, and wholesome, lest its solidity and heaviness should oppress the bowels at a time when their tone is relaxed by recent fatigue and digestion. These qualities being the most proper to produce fresh animal spirits, are the most fit to be taken when a new accession of them is necessary. It has been observed those are the most robust whose serum resembles most the white of an egg. It has therefore been most rationally concluded, that the origin of the animal spirits is from aliments capable of being changed into a similar substance, but so attenuated by incalation as to concrete by fire. For this reason the greatest support of the spirits is afforded by light and nourishing meats and drinks, which in taste and smell are even agreeable to infants. All cordials and aromatics are consequently the most proper for such purposes, and at such times, when heavier foods would impress, instead of recruiting, the exhausted solids and fluids. It is therefore Boerhaave recommends such aromatics, for the reviving and recruiting the animal spirits, as have the most pleasing taste and smell. Agreeably to this opinion, Dr. Solander employed his researches to form an afternoon beverage of such herbs as should possess all the above cardiac and balsamic qualities. The use of the sanative tea between dinner and supper operates as the most reviving and wholesome aliment that can, at such a time, be possibly taken. An enquiry having been made into the nature, preparation, and manner of using the sanative tea, there only remains to conclude this Second Part of the Essay with the consideration of its

EFFECTS.

From the view that has been taken of the nature, preparation, and manner of using, the salutary effects are most clearly and easily to be ascertained. As the basis of this tea is the combined principle of the most balsamic oils, nutritious salts, and animating sulphurs, which the vegetable world produces, their effects must be proportionably salutary. And as their combination is such as to correct the pernicious qualities of each other, their conjoint effect must be the most wholesome that can possibly be administered for the health of human nature. As every simple, however specific in certain cases, possesses qualities that are pernicious in other respects, it has been the first principle of physical enquiry not only to find the basis of a medicine, but to form compounds or ingredients that corrected the injurious tendency of each other. With this scientific principle Dr. Solander having composed his sanative tea, has rendered it the most general specific in its effects of any medicinal aliment.

This tea affording a compound oil, which is formed of the most aromatic vegetables the earth affords, it is no wonder its effects, like honey, should approach so near a general specific. The invaluable oils, uniting with the sulphurs of the sanative tea, recruit, soften, and lubricate the juices, diminish the too great elasticity, dryness, and crispness of the nervous fibres, and afford the exhausted liquids fresh supplies. Their effects are consequently exceedingly restorative in all cases, where the force of the fibres and the vessels are too strong, the circulation too rapid, and the blood too attenuated or diminished; as it prevents the too quick action of the solids, and the too rapid motion of the blood, the body is nourished, and the mind prepared for the refreshment of sleep when the approach of night invites to repose. In spitting of blood its effects are particularly beneficial. The oil being easily detached from the earth of the plant is, in such cases, exceedingly nutritive, and, by its checking the stimulation, and sheathing the acrimony of the humours, the blood is replenished with the most healing and balsamic virtues.

In pleurisies, ulcers, and abscesses of the lungs, hectic fevers, dry coughs, night sweats, and difficulty of breathing, the balsamic oil and sulphur of this tea is most salutary.

The dropsical, phlegmatic, corpulent, cathetic, and all such as are in their stamina relaxed, will find the greatest relief in its constant use; and to those who are emaciated, either from hereditary or acquired disease, it is particularly beneficial.

In seasons when experience informs us that the blood requires cleansing and attenuating, this tea will be of considerable service to the healthy as well as the diseased. By these means the constitution will be preserved and restored from all those chronic and acute afflictions, which are the consequences of acrimonious humours and foulness of blood.

As this tea produces the effects of cleansing the stomach, promoting digestion, diluting the chyle, and invigorating the whole viscera, it should be constantly drank by those who live freely.

Unlike most medicinal applications, this tea requires no previous preparation of the body. Such are its nature and progression of effects, that it first renders the body in a state suitable to receive succeeding benefits; nor is it dangerous, like mineral waters, to which persons afflicted with nervous complaints generally resort. Persons suffering acute or inflammatory diseases, or who have their vessels too greatly constringed, need not be under the apprehensions of suffering scirrhuses, or even death, which is the confluence of drinking, in such cases, mineral waters; but, on the contrary, they may expect to receive, from the use of the sanative tea, the most beneficial effects, not only in the above, but also in the gout and rheumatism, from its moderate use producing a gentle perspiration.

To account for the variety of salutary effects that this valuable discovery produces, we shall now proceed to consider its operation as a medicine and an aliment, which will afford the most convincing and conclusive arguments that can be possibly adduced in favour of its sanative qualities.