A physician, whose acquaintance I have long been favoured with, and who, with some others, was present when the preceding experiments were made at the college of Edinburgh, has a remarkable delicacy in feeling the effects of a small quantity of fine Tea. If drank in the forenoon, it affects his stomach with an uneasy sensation, which continues for several hours, and entirely takes away his appetite for food at dinner; though at other times, when he takes chocolate for breakfast, he generally makes a very hearty meal at noon, and enjoys the most perfect health. If he drink a single dish of tea in the afternoon, it affects him in the same manner, and deprives him of sleep for three or four hours through the succeeding night; yet he can take a cup of warm water with sugar and milk, without the least inconvenience.
It may be remarked that opium has nearly the same effect upon him as Tea, but in a greater degree; for he informs me, that when he once accidentally took a quantity of the solution of opium, it had not the least tendency to induce sleep, but produced a very disagreeable uneasiness at his stomach, approaching to nausea. The late celebrated Professor Whytt[86], of Edinburgh, affords a striking example how injurious the effects of Tea may be upon constitutions, which I shall relate in his own words. “I once imagined Tea to be in a great measure unjustly accused; and that it did not hurt the stomach more than an equal quantity of warm water; but experience has since taught me the contrary. Strong Tea drunk in any considerable quantity, in a morning, especially if I eat little bread with it, generally makes me fainter before dinner than if I had taken no breakfast at all; at the same time it quickens my pulse, and often affects me with a kind of giddiness. These bad effects of Tea are most remarkable when my stomach is out of order.”
SECTION VI.
I am informed likewise by a physician, of long and extensive practice in the city, that he has known several instances of a spitting of blood having been brought on, by breathing in an air loaded with the fine dust of Tea. It is customary for those who deal largely in this article to mix different kinds together, so as to suit the different palates of their customers. This is generally performed in the back part of their shops, several chests perhaps being mixed together at the same time. Those who are much employed in this work are at length very often sufferers by it; some are seized with sudden bleedings from the lungs or from the nostrils; and others attacked with violent coughs, ending in consumptions.
These circumstances are chiefly brought in sight to prove, that, besides a sedative relaxing power, there exists in Tea an active penetrating substance, which, in many constitutions, cannot fail of being productive of singular effects.