The above virtues of the sanative tea are not here asserted as a declamatory panegyric, but as the result of a physical analysis of their nature, and a serious examination into their mode of operating as a restorative and constant aliment. Without presuming their qualities to be an unlimited remedy for all complaints, the nature of the preparation of this tea is compared with the causes and effects of nervous disorders: from this comparison their relative virtue to such diseases are most clearly evinced: and thus is this invaluable discovery proved to be the most effectual remedy for all those complaints caused by drinking foreign teas, that was ever yet or may be hereafter invented.
In proposing to the public any simple or compound, for the preserving, increasing, or restoring health, the first object should be to explain its nature. This is the principal test by which its merits can be known, or mankind rationally induced to try its virtues. And as this sanative tea is offered as a substitute for what is generally used as two fourths of our aliment, and which, from the preceding enquiry, has been found the principal cause of our present infirmities, the greater necessity there is for a candid investigation of its nature.
Impressed with the above conviction, it is fairly stated that the nature of this sanative tea is not from any combination of the animal or mineral kingdom, but a collection of the most salutary native and exotic herbs that are produced in the vegetable empire of nature. These have not been collected by the fanatic devotees of occult qualities, but by the scientific researches and personal experience of a character that is equally and justly admired for his philosophical, medical, and botanical knowledge. The discoverer, Dr. Solander, of this tea, inquired into the virtues of each native and exotic herb of which it is composed, not only by abstract reasoning upon its relative qualities, but by the more immediate evidence of his senses: by submitting each vegetable to his taste and smell, he derived the most certain physical proof of its qualities. Thus he knew the particular virtues of each, and what salutary effects they must, from their preparation as a compound, produce when applied as a relief for the innumerable diseases caused by drinking foreign teas. Not confining himself to English Plants, he studied and examined the virtues of Exotics, among which he discovered some that possess virtues he had not found in those of his own country: by adopting these, he has increased the salutary effects of his invaluable tea. From reading Hippocrates, Discorides, and Galen, he found the ancients derived all their knowledge of plants by their taste and smell. With these examples before him, and his own propensity to study, joined to his penetrating judgement, it is no wonder he should have so well succeeded. Thus he recurred to the original mode of inquiry, which first established and raised the eminence of physic; neglecting that delusive principle of Aristotle's philosophy, which has since taught too many physicians to express the virtue of medicines by hot, cold, moist, and dry, without deriving the least information from their senses Dr. Solander, aided by chemical analysis, distinguished the virtue by the taste or odour of every plant. By this means their specific juices he found tasted either earthy, mucilaginous, sweet, bitter, aromatic, fetid, acrid, or corrosive. From this experience he found the observation of some botanists to be true, "That there is no virtue yet known in plants but what depends on the taste or smell, and may be known by them."[2 ] With this infallible means of pursuing his enquiry, he formed a tea composed of herbs that are in their nature astringent, balsamic, aromatic, cephalic, and diaphoretic. These virtues combined may be said to form one of the most incomparable specifics, as a nutritive and restoring aliment, that has been discovered.
In the astringent, the acid fixing upon the more earthly parts, the nutritious oil is more easily separated, which renders them also pectoral, cleaning, and diuretic. This part of the tea is in its nature particularly serviceable in all cases where vulnerary medicines are requisite. They particularly amend the acid in the nervous juice, and thus restore the equal motion of the spirits, which were obstructed or retarded by spasms or convulsions. By the volatile oil and volatile pungent salt, obstructions are opened, and the motions of the languid blood increased to a healthy degree of circulation. They resolve coagulated phlegm in the stomach, preserve the fluidity of the juices, and promote digestion, by assisting the bile in its operation.
And with regard to their balsamic and aromatic nature, these qualities warm the stomach and expel wind, by rarefying the flatuous exhalations from chyle in the prima viæ. These, by their sweetness, allay the sharpness of rheums, and lenify their acrimony. Being filled with an oily salt, they open the passage of the lungs and kidnies. By opening the pores, they extraordinarily discuss outward tumours, and attenuate the internal coagulation. All these virtues may be said to be derived from the union of their balsamic oil and volatile salt.
By a second class of aromatics, with which Dr. Solander composed this sanative tea, is such as have a bitter astringency joined to their volatile oil and salt. These united qualities correct acids in the stomach, cleanse the lungs, and open obstructions in the glands caused by coagulated serum; and the saline pungent oil altering the acids in the glands of the brain, by correcting and attenuating its lympha and succus nervosus, produces the same effect; for the lympha and nervous juice are, like other glandulous humours, liable to acidity and stagnation; therefore these aromatics, by exciting their motion and correcting their acidities, render the liquids of the nerves more volatile, and are therefore justly termed cephalics. And as it is the property of volatiles to ascend, the reason is evident of the brain being assisted by their salutary qualities. These aromatics likewise evacuate serum from the blood, promote its circulation, and attenuate the coagulations of chyle, lympha, and succus nervosus. And here, it is proper to add, that all aromatics, by rarefying the blood, are cordial. There being aromatic astringents in this tea, its infusion strengthens the fibres and membranes of the stomach, and all the nervous system, in such a manner as not to destroy their tensity by that too great contraction caused by the foreign teas; and, having no acid in their astringency, the blood is preserved from too great a rarefaction, which would otherwise happen from the pungency of their oily qualities. These also excite the appetite, by stimulating the natural progress of the chyle, and thus prevent its too rapid fermentation of its spirituous parts into windy flatulencies. For the same reason vinegar is taken with hot meats and herbs. Having mentioned vinegar, it may not be improper to state this vegetable acid is the best antidote against the poison of any acrid herbs. That part of the tea which has a mucilaginous taste is inwardly cooler than oil, although it be different in nature. Such herbs defend the throat from the sharpness of rheums, the stomach from corrosive humours of disease or acrimonious medicines; the ureters from sharp, choleric, or acid urine, and lubricate the passage for the stony gravel. Their crude parts cool the heat of scorbutic blood, lessen its violent motion, and sheathe its acrid saline particles.
By their different mucilaginous principles they produce the following various salutary effects:
The earthy repel and cool outward inflammations.
The watery, which is thick and gummose, stop fluxes and correct sharp humours.
Those of an oily odour alleviate pains.