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Tea and Coffee

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 29, 1910

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 87, No. 52.

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Tea and Coffee

By Daniel H. Kress

Their Influence on the Home

D. H. KRESS, M. D.
DR. HARVEY W. WILEY, chief of the bureau of chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture, sounds a note of warning in the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, against the danger threatening the people of the United States from the present consumption of tea and coffee. He says that the Prohibitionists may tackle these drinks next, and advises the Trade Journal, in its own interests, to caution the people against the too free use of these beverages. He says:—
“There are a great many persons who are keenly susceptible to the influence of some of the soluble substances contained in tea and coffee. Most active of these substances by far is the alkaloid caffein. It has a peculiar effect in general, and in many cases has special effects.
“Many parents forbid the use of tea and coffee to their children, and I think this is a wise precaution. I do not think there is any danger of interfering with the health or nutrition of the child by abstinence from drinks of this kind; on the other hand, it appears to me there is danger of permitting the child to form a habit, because coffee- and tea-drinking are to a certain extent habits, and I think caffein is recognized as one of the habit-forming drugs. In regard to children, at least, therefore, the word ‘prohibition’ is perhaps a better one to use than ‘temperance.’
“Coffee and tea have become such universal beverages in the last three hundred years as to present a problem which must be faced in some way. The problem is not so acute as in the case of alcoholic beverages, which are not natural products. I use the word ‘natural’ in the sense that alcoholic beverages are not presented for consumption without having been specially prepared by the agency of man. This is also true of coffee and tea, as an extract is made; but in the extract the products are not changed, but only placed in a form suitable for drinking; whereas in the preparation of an alcoholic beverage the natural constituents of the products are entirely altered, the sugar being converted more or less completely into two other products wholly dissimilar in character; namely, carbon dioxide and alcohol. The soluble products of a cup of coffee or tea are those which are contained in the original substances, and it is not likely that they are changed in any marked manner by the process of leaching.
“There is, however, one distinct line to be drawn between such a drug as caffein and such a beverage as alcohol. In the use of caffein the person does not, as a rule, inflict any injury upon other people. He does not beat his wife, nor neglect his children, nor become a drunken sot reeling in the street. At most he becomes nervous, gets a disordered digestion, and a tendency to headache and depression in the absence of his accustomed drug.”
A little over three hundred years ago, tea and coffee were practically unknown in civilized lands; to-day, these beverages are found in nearly every home, and are freely used by adults and children. Aside from this, caffein, the poisonous alkaloid found in tea and coffee, is dispensed in many so-called headache cures and other patent medicines. It is also sold at the soda-fountains in many of the soft drinks.
Dr. Wiley calls attention to the difference that exists between alcohol and caffein. In the production of alcohol, he says, the original products—the sugars—are changed into carbon dioxide and alcohol; while in the cup of tea or coffee we find the original product unchanged. This is true; but this fact can not be urged in favor of the moderate use of caffein; for the same thing might be said with equal truth of cocaine, morphin, strychnin, and other poisons which are deadly in their effect. The fact is that there are many poisons found in the vegetable kingdom which are more to be dreaded than alcohol itself.
“In the use of caffein,” says Dr. Wiley, “the person . . . does not beat his wife, nor neglect his children, nor become a drunken sot reeling in the street.” This is equally true of the one under the influence of opium; and yet the representative men of China have been forced to prohibit the use of opium by the people.
Dr. Wiley says that, at most, caffein causes nervousness and a disordered digestion, and that abstinence from the accustomed cup results in headache and depression. The one who is nervous is naturally irritable and impatient; and impatience, we must admit, is responsible for most of the domestic unhappiness that exists. So while caffein does not cause its user to reel in the streets, indirectly its use is responsible for many an unhappy home, and probably in part for the enormous increase in divorce.
Nervousness and insomnia are the forerunners of insanity; and insanity is rapidly increasing in civilized countries. Dr. Forbes Winslow, an eminent English expert in criminal lunacy, says that the English people are “gradually approaching near proximity to a nation of madmen.”
“By comparing,” he says, “the lunacy statistics of 1869 with those of 1909, my reflections are sad indeed. A terrible but real curse is in store, and an insane world looks forward to me with certainty in the not-far-distant future.”
There are probably more nervous wrecks made by tea and coffee than by alcohol. So serious has this problem become in Ireland, that in a recent report from an inspector of schools, tea was considered a greater menace to the well-being of the people than alcohol. The presence of physical and moral degeneracy among many of the dwellers in Ireland is attributed to the free use of tea. The time is not far distant when the search-light of science must be turned upon these two beverages, as in the past ten years it has been turned upon alcohol. When it is, caffein will be placed side by side with morphin, cocain, and the other members of the family of narcotic drugs, where it rightfully belongs.
We are certain that homes are made happier and better when their inmates abstain from these beverages altogether.
Takoma Park, D. C.