p. 205 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 31, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 13.

Health and Temperance.

TEA AND COFFEE POISONS.

ONE of the best proofs of the poisonous nature of tea and coffee is the fact that they are recommended as physiological antidotes for some of the most deadly poisons known. If a person swallows a large dose of opium, or almost any other narcotic, the doctor does not prescribe hot water, or milk, or ginger tea, or lemonade, or any other bland thing, but strong tea or coffee. He knows that the poisonous effects of these drugs upon the body are just the opposite of those produced by opium, and expects the coffee to antidote the opium, not by destroying or eliminating it, but by opposing it. Atropia, another deadly poison, is also used as an antidote for opium, and it acts in the same way as tea and coffee.

There are thousands of people who are suffering from the poisonous effects of tea and coffee, as shown in dullness, and headaches, and neuralgias, and dyspepsias, and biliousness, and a host of ailments which they are prone to charge upon the liver, or the climate, or the weather, or to attribute to overwork or taking cold, or any cause but the real one. Take away the accustomed cup of coffee for breakfast or tea for dinner or supper, or both, and they declare themselves utterly good for nothing. They are nervous, and irritable, and confused, and disconcerted, and are as helpless as the old toper without his dram. And yet these very people declare, "Tea and coffee do not hurt me! They may not agree with some people, but my temperament needs them." As well talk about the "temperament" needing alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. All these drugs belong in the same category. They differ chiefly in the degree of their poisonous and intoxicating qualities.—Good Health.