A treatise on foreign teas: Abstracted from an ingenious work, lately published, entitled An essay on the nervesSmith, Hugh
Science
A treatise on foreign teas: Abstracted from an ingenious work, lately published, entitled An essay on the nerves
Smith, Hugh
Tea -- Health aspects; Tea -- Health aspects -- China; Tea -- Health aspects -- India
How India tea can be serviceable in fevers is not easy to be
understood; for, if it has that effect upon the nerves to excite
watchfulness, it must greatly tend to increase, instead of diminish
feverish symptoms. Dr. Buchan attributes even one cause of the palsy to
drinking much tea or coffee, &c. and, in a note, he subjoins: "Many
people imagine that tea has no tendency to hurt the nerves, and that
drinking the same quantity of warm water would be equally pernicious.
This, however, seems to be a mistake, many persons drinking three or
four cups of warm milk and water daily, without feeling any bad
consequences; yet the same quantity of tea will make their hands shake
for twenty-four hours. That tea affects the nerves is likewise evident
from its preventing sleep, occasioning giddiness, dimness of the sight,
sickness, &c."
With regard to India teas possessing the quality of exciting the
spirits, this, like every other stimulus, either by constant use loses
its effect, or unnerves the system it is meant to strengthen. The
nerves through which the animal spirits circulate being, like the
strings of a violin or harpsichord, too frequently braced, lose, at
last, their natural tensity, and thus render the human frame one system
of debility.
Having thus, as briefly as possible, stated that even their ascribed
virtues are either derogatory to all physical principle, or else
destructive to the constitution, from their constant use, the nature of
India teas is next considered, with respect to what appears to be their
chief component parts, from analyzation.
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