This verdict is upheld by the results of a symposium[195] conducted by the _Medical Times_, in which a large majority of the medical experts participating, among whom may be enumerated Drs. Lockwood, Wood, Hollingworth, Robinson, and Barnes, agreed that the drinking of coffee is not harmful _per se_, but that over-indulgence is the real cause of any ill effects. This is also true of any ingested material. Insomnia is a condition frequently attributed to coffee, but that the authorities disagree on this ground is shown by Wiley's[196] contention, "We know beyond doubt that the caffein (in coffee) makes a direct attack on the nerves and causes insomnia." While Woods Hutchinson[197] observes: Oddly enough, a cup of hot, weak tea or coffee, with plenty of cream and sugar, will often help you to sleep, for the grateful warmth and stimulus to the lining of the stomach, drawing the blood into it and away from the head, will produce more soothing effects than the small amount of caffein will produce stimulating and wakeful ones. The writer has often had people remark to him that while black coffee sometimes kept them awake, coffee with cream or sugar or both made them drowsy. In the course of experiments conducted by Montuori and Pollitzer[198] it was found that coffee prepared by hot infusion when given by mouth or hypodermically with the addition of a small dose of alcohol proved an efficient means of combating the pernicious effects of low temperatures. Coffee prepared by boiling, and tea, showed negative effects. The value of coffee as a strength-conserver, and its function of increasing endurance, morale, and healthfulness, was demonstrated by the great stress which the military authorities, in the late and in previous wars, placed upon furnishing the soldiers with plenty of good coffee, particularly at times when they were under the greatest strain. Various articles[199] record this fact; and these statements are further borne out by the data given below in the discussion of the physiological effects of caffein, to which the majority of the stimulating effects of coffee may be attributed. According to Fauvel,[200] with a healthy patient on a vegetable diet, chocolate and coffee increase the excretion of purins, diminishing the excretion of uric acid and apparently hindering the precipitation of uric acid in the organism. This diminution, however, was not due to retention of uric acid in the organism.