The Chemistry of Cookery

by W. Mattieu Williams

Speaking generally, the reaction or residual effect of these on the system is nearly the opposite of that of their immediate effect, and thus larger and larger doses are demanded to bring the system to its normal condition. The non-tea-drinker or moderate drinker is kept awake by a cup of tea or coffee taken late at night, while the hard drinker of these beverages scarcely feels any effect, especially if accustomed to take it at that time.

The practice of taking tea or coffee by students, in order to work at night, is downright madness, especially when preparing for an examination. More than half of the cases of breakdown, loss of memory, fainting, &c., which occur during severe examinations, and far more frequently than is commonly known, are due to this.

I continually hear of promising students who have thus failed; and, on inquiry, have learned—in almost every instance—that the victim has previously drugged himself with tea or coffee. Sleep is the rest of the brain; to rob the hard-worked brain of its necessary rest is cerebral suicide.

My old friend, the late Thomas Wright (the archæologist), was a victim of this terrible folly. He undertook the translation of the ‘Life of Julius Cæsar,’ by Napoleon III., and to do it in a cruelly short time. He fulfilled his contract by sitting up several nights successively by the aid of strong tea or coffee (I forget which). I saw him shortly afterwards. In a few weeks he had aged alarmingly, had become quite bald; his brain gave way and never recovered. There was but little difference between his age and mine, and but for this dreadful cerebral strain, rendered possible only by the stimulant (for otherwise he would have fallen to sleep over his work, and thereby saved his life), he might still be amusing and instructing thousands of readers by fresh volumes of popularised archæological research.

I need scarcely add that all I have said above applies to coffee as to tea, though not so seriously in this country. The active alkaloid is the same in both, but tea contains weight for weight above twice as much as coffee. In this country we commonly use about 50 per cent. more coffee than tea to each given measure of water. On the Continent they use about double our quantity (this is the true secret of ‘Coffee as in France’), and thus produce as potent an infusion as our tea.

I need scarcely add that the above remarks are exclusively applied to the habitual use of these stimulants. As medicines, used occasionally and judiciously, they are invaluable, provided always that they are not used as ordinary beverages. In Italy, Greece, and some parts of the East, it is customary, when anybody feels ill with indefinite symptoms, to send to the druggist for a dose of tea. From what I have seen of its action on non-tea-drinkers, it appears to be specially potent in arresting the premonitory symptoms of fever, the fever headache, &c.

Since the publication of the above in ‘Knowledge,’ I have been reminded of the high authorities who have defended the use of the alkaloids, and more particularly of Liebig’s theory, or the theory commonly attributed to Liebig, but which is Lehmann’s, published in Liebig’s ‘Annalen,’ vol. lxxxvii., and adopted and advocated by Liebig with his usual ability.

Lehmann watched for some weeks the effects of coffee upon two persons in good health. He found that it retarded the waste of the tissues of the body, that the proportion of phosphoric acid and of urea excreted by the kidneys was diminished by the action of the coffee, the diet being in all other respects the same. Pure caffeine (which is the same as theine) produced a similar effect; the aromatic oil of the coffee, given separately, was found to exert a stimulating effect on the nervous system.

Johnston (‘Chemistry of Common Life’) closely following Liebig, and referring to the researches of Lehmann, says: ‘The waste of the body is lessened by the introduction of theine into the stomach—that is, by the use of tea. And if the waste be lessened, the necessity for food to repair it will be lessened in an equal proportion. In other words, by the consumption of a certain quantity of tea, the health and strength of the body will be maintained in an equal degree upon a smaller quantity of ordinary food. Tea, therefore, saves food—stands to a certain extent in the place of food—while, at the same time, it soothes the body and enlivens the mind.’

He proceeds to say that ‘in the old and infirm it serves also another purpose. In the life of most persons a period arrives when the stomach no longer digests enough of the ordinary elements of food to make up for the natural daily waste of the bodily substance. The size and weight of the body, therefore, begin to diminish more or less perceptibly. At this period tea comes in as a medicine to arrest the waste, to keep the body from falling away so fast, and thus to enable the less energetic powers of digestion still to supply as much as is needed to repair the wear and tear of the solid tissues.’ No wonder, therefore, says he, ‘that the aged female, who has barely enough income to buy what are called the common necessaries of life, should yet spend a portion of her small gains in purchasing her ounce of tea. She can live quite as well on less common food when she takes her tea along with it; while she feels lighter at the same time, more cheerful, and fitter for her work, because of the indulgence.’ (The italics are my own for comparison with those that follow.)