A treatise on foreign teas: Abstracted from an ingenious work, lately published, entitled An essay on the nerves — John Shaqi
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
If the slightest external motion alone produces the following changes
in the body, what effects may not be ascribed to the constant use of
teas, which we find, as before stated, operate internally? A person in
perfect health, having his nostrils only touched with a feather, cannot
avoid his body being so convulsed as to produce what is commonly called
sneezing. But if the number of muscles agitated, the force and
straining of the body by sneezing, are considered; the slightness of
the cause must excite no little astonishment; for this action is
occasioned by the muscles of the scapula, abdomen, diaphragm, thorax,
lungs, &c. and if the sneezing continues, an universal explosion of the
liquids ensues: tears, mucus, saliva, and urine, are excreted. Thus,
without any moist, cold, hot, dry, sulphur, salt, or any other internal
or external application, an involuntary motion of all the solids and
fluids is produced by a feather touching, in the slightest manner, the
inside of our nostrils. But Boerhaave relates further, "That if
sneezing continues a long time, as it will by taking one hundredth part
of a grain of euphorbium up the nose, grievous and continued
convulsions will arise, head-aches, involuntary excretions of urine,
&c., vomitings, febrile heats, and other dreadful symptoms; and, at
last, death itself will ensue." It is therefore evident that the
slightest bodies produce the greatest changes in the human frame.
Such is the power of certain particles upon the nerves, that the
stomach will be thrown into convulsions that almost threaten an
inversion, by taking only four ounces of a wine in which so small a
portion of glass of antimony as one scruple is infused in eight pounds
of the former. And what is still more remarkable is, that the glass of
antimony remains not only undissolved, but, comparatively speaking,
undiminished in its weight.
These being a few of the fatal afflictions which experience shews to be
frequently the consequence of drinking India teas, its injurious nature
is too evident to require any further investigation of either their
ascribed or positive qualities. The next subject to be considered,
relative to India teas, is their Preparation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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