p. 331 | COFFEE DRUNKARDS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 27, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 21.

COFFEE DRUNKARDS.

The Graving for the Beverage Becomes Incurable after a Time.

"In the course of his studies Dr. Mendel found very few instances in which the confirmed coffee drunkard was ever cured," says the London Standard. "The symptoms constantly grow worse, and are only to be relieved by large quantities of the beverage the abuse of which has caused them. In this way the victims go from bad to worse, for, though well aware of the mischief being wrought, they suffer so severely that they are afraid to abandon the habit lest death should end the agony they experience.

"After beginning with the agreeable infusion of the roasted berries, they are driven, in their search for something more powerful, to swallow the tincture, which, though it operates for a time in the direction desired, soon loses its efficacy and has to be swallowed in greater and greater quantities, the evil influence of the coffee being, of course, heightened by the alcohol used to extract its essential ingredients. When brandy is taken, only temporary relief follows, though not infrequently the intoxication produced by the latter is eagerly welcomed in order to deaden the anguish caused by the inordinate indulgence in the former.

"This last stage of this peculiar disease shows itself in the sallow face and chilly hands and feet of the victims, coupled with an expression of dread and agony which settles over the countenance—a form of melancholia, alternated by hysteria, only to be temporarily relieved by repeated application to the coffeepot or to a strong tincture formed by steeping the crushed berries in spirits of wine. Meantime the diseased state of the body is demonstrated by the acute inflammation, which is apt to supervene at any moment. A bruise, a cut, a prick, or a sting, which in a healthy person would be scarcely noticed, is the starting-point for inflammation of an erysipelatous character, so that it seldom happens that the coffee inebriate is long lived.

"Coffee drunkards are more common among people of a nervous temperament than in the ranks of the stolid, phlegmatic folks, not easily moved by any stimulus, or who, like many Germans, prefer eating to drinking."