In the Civil War, surgeons utilized coffee in allaying malarial fever and other maladies with which they had to contend, often under the most trying conditions, and with severely limited means of combating disease.[240] Its effect is to counteract the depressant action of low and miasmatic atmospheres, opening the secretions which they have checked. Travelers from the colder climes soon find that the fragrant cup of coffee is a corrective to derangements of the liver resulting from climatic conditions.[241] Dr. Guillasse, of the French Navy, in a paper on typhoid fever, says: Coffee has given us unhoped for satisfaction, and after having dispensed it we find, to our great surprise, that its action is as prompt as it is decisive. No sooner have our patients taken a few tablespoonfuls of it, than their features become relaxed and they come to their senses. The next day the improvement is such that we are tempted to look upon coffee as a specific against typhoid fever. Under its influence the stupor is dispelled, and the patient arouses from the state of somnolency in which he has been since the invasion of the disease. Soon all the functions take their natural course, and he enters upon convalescence.[242] Also it has been reported that in extreme cases of yellow fever, coffee has been used most effectively by many physicians as the main reliance after all other well known remedies have been administered and failed. According to Lorand,[243] the use of coffee in gout is strictly prohibited by Umber and Schittenhelm; but he considered it a mistake absolutely to forbid coffee, as, when a person has good kidneys, the small amount of uric acid furnished by the caffein can readily be eliminated. A curious remedy for gout and rheumatism, the efficacy of which the writer scouts, is said to be[244]--a pint of hot, strong, black coffee, which must be perfectly pure, and seasoned with a teaspoonful of pure black pepper, thoroughly mixed before drinking, and the preparation taken just before going to bed. If this has any value, it is probably purely psychological in its function. Several writers[245] attribute amblyopia and other affections of the sight to coffee and chicory, without giving much conclusive experimental data. Beer,[246] a Vienna oculist, however, held that the vapor from pure, hot, freshly-made coffee is beneficial to the eyes.