COFFEE by Dr. Pussykynd

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · May 3, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 18.

COFFEE.

By Dr. Pussykynd

DEAR MR. LOW: Not Mr. Lowe, but you who are living on a low plane, physically and mentally. I was going to add, morally and spiritually, but we will leave that out of the question for the present, knowing that if we get the body and mind right, the moral and spiritual will come right by the trend of a healthy mind.

A healthy person living normally and working up to his full power, will naturally grow tired as the day goes by, and soon after nightfall will grow sleepy. Now the proper thing to do is to go to bed, and seek "nature’s sweet restorer, blessed sleep."

"God bless the man who first invented sleep!" exclaims Sancho Panza. This blessing must stay with the wise and kind Giver of all good. Everything He gives is good.

Our heavenly Father knew His business when He made sleep for man; and why should we interfere with God’s wise arrangement? But under the stimulus of a cup of coffee (or tea) a person who would naturally go to sleep at eight or nine o’clock in the evening, will read or work on and on until ten or twelve, or later, thus wearing out the machinery of the body that ought, hours perhaps before, to have been laid up for repairs.

This is only part of the damage this stimulant will do. The morning cup of coffee will so stimulate that the man will do in one day what he ought to do in two. I do not think it will be as good work; but it will do the work of wearing the body twice as much. Now I ask you candidly, How long can such a thing go on before it does irreparable damage? The end can only be physical and mental breakdown, sickness, and nervous prostration.

There is no strength imparted to the body by coffee. It is only good food that can nourish and build up the tissues of the body. There is stimulus enough in pure foods and water to energize all the activities of the body and mind, and they will do it in a healthful, normal way. Huxley says the horse is the most economical machine ever made, showing more energy for the amount of fuel consumed than any other. Man might be a better machine, if he would live rationally.

Coffee and tea, like spirits, have no food value, therefore can give no real strength. "It makes me strong," you say. Do not be too sure of that. Give a few drinks of whisky to a man who can easily lift three hundred pounds, and he feels strong. He thinks he can lift a ton; but test him upon lifting a machine. He can probably lift only two hundred fifty pounds. Wait until the whisky "dies in him," and that "all-gone feeling" comes on, and test him again. "I can not lift," he says, "I feel as weak as water;" but he is surprised to find that he can lift, as much nearly as he ever could.

Do not trust to this feeling of strength. It is only weakness; for coffee, like whisky, is a stimulant. Nor must you feel alarmed about that "all-gone feeling." It is nature’s work in the building-up process. The extent of the feeling is a measure of the harm your stimulant has been doing you. It is nature’s cry for rest and repair. Heed it. Seek the true remedy. Live rationally. Work up to your full capacity; but when nature gives you the signal to rest, do so. Lie down to pleasant dreams, and on rising your going forth will be like that of the sun, "rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." Very kindly, DR. PUSSYKYND.