Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 4, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 42.

Health and Temperance.

Tea Drinkers' Diseases.

It is not a little curious that the diseases arising from the wrong use of tea should be met with in greater frequency in countries foreign to its growth. It might have been supposed that where production went on, there would be found those evils that attend the consumption of tea in their greatest extent; but such does not appear to be the case. The diseases due to tea are well known to doctors, but the public seems to be strangely indifferent to the teaching of their medical advisers in these matters. Recently, in France, M. Eloy has reminded medical men how vast is the number of diseases owning an allegiance to the dominion of Queen Tea. The list of headings in M. Eloy's paper is well calculated to arouse attention, and, we hope, to lead to some abatement of this widespread disorder.

America and England are the two countries that are afflicted most with the maladies arising from the excessive consumption of tea. Individuals may suffer in a variety of ways. It is customary to speak of acute, subacute, and chronic "theism,"—a form that has no connection with theological matters. It is possible to be a "theic" by profession or a "theic" by passion. The predominance of nervous symptoms is a characteristic of theism; general excitations of the functions of the nervous system may be observed; or the weakness may be noted more especially in the brain as distinguished from the spinal cord. Perversion of the sense of hearing is not at all an uncommon symptom—patients hearing voices that have no real or objective existence. The irritability that overtakes women so frequently may sometimes be clearly traced to an excessive indulgence in an afternoon tea.

It is a mistake to suppose that it is the poor seamstress who is the chief sufferer from theism. No doubt the tannin which tea that has been standing long contains does a great amount of mischief, but the derangement that it causes hardly belongs to that class of diseases with which we are at present concerned. Rather does theism belong to that genus of disease in which morphinism, caffeism, and vanillism are found. The habit of tea drinking is one that grows on its victims like similar ones of opium or alcohol. There is hardly a morbid symptom which may not be traceable to tea as its cause. This is a fact that general practitioners often use to their own satisfaction and to their patient's advantage, if it happen to be that kind of patient who does not object to making some sacrifice in order to be rid of troubles.—Lancet.