That tea is a substance injurious to health is beyond a doubt. Nothing but long habit from early life renders it less baneful than it otherwise would be: persons who take its infusion for the first time invariably experience uncomfortable sensations. It is well known that individuals who are not in the practice of taking tea in the evening, never transgress this habit with impunity; and it is quite clear that a preparation which deprives them of sleep, and renders them restless during a whole night, cannot be salubrious by day; and although the following opinion of Dr. Trotter regarding the use of this leaf is somewhat exaggerated, it is founded on experience; and I have known several persons afflicted with a variety of serious affections who never could obtain relief until they had ceased to consume it.
“Tea is a beverage well suited to the taste of an indolent and voluptuous age. To the glutton it affords a grateful diluent after a voracious dinner; and, from being drunk warm, it gives a soothing stimulus to the stomach of the drunkard: but, however agreeable may be its immediate flavour, the ultimate effects are debility and nervous diseases. There may be conditions of health, indeed, where tea can do no harm, such as in the strong and athletic; but it is particularly hurtful to the female constitution, to all persons who possess the hereditary predisposition to dyspepsia, and all diseases with which it is associated, to gout, and to those who are naturally weak-nerved. Fine tea, where the narcotic quality seems to be concentrated, when taken in a strong infusion, by persons not accustomed to it, excites nausea and vomiting, tremors, cold sweats, vertigo, dimness of sight, and confusion of thought. I have known a number of men and women subject to nervous complaints, who could not use tea in any form without feeling a sudden increase of all their unpleasant symptoms; particularly acidity of the stomach, vertigo, and dimness of the eyes. As the use of this article of diet extends among the lower orders of the community and the labouring poor, it must do the more harm. A man or a woman who has to go through much toil and hardship has need of substantial nourishment; but that is not to be obtained from an infusion of tea. And if the humble returns of their industry are expended in this leaf, what remains for the purchase of food better adapted to labour? In this case tea becomes hurtful, not only from its narcotic quality, but because that quality acts with double force in a body weakened from other causes. This certainly is one great reason for the increased and increasing proportion of nervous, bilious, spasmodic, and stomach complaints, &c. appearing among the lower ranks of life.”
It is well known that tea is frequently resorted to by literary men to keep them awake during their lucubrations. Dr. Cullen said he never could take it without feeling gouty symptoms; and we frequently see aged females, who are in the habit of taking strong green tea, subject to paralytic affections. Many experienced physicians, such as Grimm, Crugerus, Wytt, Murray, Letsom, condemn the abuse of the plant as highly dangerous.[25] That it is a most powerful astringent we well know; and the hands of the Chinese who are employed in its preparation are shrivelled, and, to all appearance, burned with caustic. Chemists have extracted from it an astringent liquor containing tannin and gallic acid. This liquor, injected in the veins or under the integuments of frogs, produces palsy of the posterior extremities, and, applied to the sciatic nerve for half an hour, has occasioned death.
There is no doubt that tea acts differently on various individuals. In some it is highly stimulant and exhilarating; in others its effects are oppression and lowness of spirits; and I have known a person who could never indulge in this beverage without experiencing a disposition to commit suicide, and nothing could arouse him from this state of morbid excitement but the pleasure of destroying something, books, papers, or any thing within his reach. Under no other circumstances than this influence of tea were these fearful aberrations observed. It has been remarked that all tea-drinking nations are essentially of a leucophlegmatic temperament, predisposed to scrofulous and nervous diseases. The Chinese, even the degraded Tartar races amongst them, are weak and infirm, their women subject to various diseases arising from debility. Although their confined mode of living, and want of the means of enjoying pure air and exercise, materially tends to render them liable to these affections; still their immoderate use of strong green tea, taken, it is true, in very small quantities at the time, but repeatedly, greatly adds to this predisposition.
From long experience I am convinced that, although tea may in general be considered a refreshing and harmless beverage, yet in some peculiar cases it is decidedly injurious; and many diseases that have baffled all medical exertions, have yielded to the same curative means so soon as the action of tea had been suspended.
MANDRAGORE.
Self-styled wandering Turks and Armenians are frequently met with in crowded cities vending rhubarb, tooth-powder, and various drugs and nostrums, exciting the curiosity of the idlers that group around them, by exhibiting a root bearing a strong resemblance to the human form. This is the far-famed mandragore, of which such wonderful accounts have been related by both ancients and moderns.
This plant is the Atropa Mandragora of Linnæus, and grows wild in the mountainous and shaded parts of Italy, Spain, and the Levant, where it is also cultivated in gardens. The root bears such a likeness, at least in fancy’s eyes, to our species, that it was called Semi-homo. Hence says Columella,
Quamvis semihominis vesano gramine fœta
Mandragora pariat flores mœstamque cicutam.