thus increases the self-poisoning which is so prominent a cause, consequence, and aggravation of these nervous conditions. Coffee exerts a very similar action to that of tea, albeit the nervous symptoms produced by it are usually secondary to the disturbances of the stomach and bowel digestion. Coffee produces tremor, insomnia, nervous dyspepsia, and helmet sensations. With the exception of certain districts of the United States, coffee abuse is not carried to such an extent as tea, albeit in these, as in some portions of Germany, the habit is an excessive one. The conditions described result in Germany as frequently as they do in the United States. Mendel[162] finds that in Germany coffee inebriety is increasing and supplanting alcohol. Profound depression with sleeplessness and frequent vertex headache are early symptoms. Strong coffee will remove these temporarily, but it soon loses its effects, and they recur. There is much tremor, especially of the hands. The heart's action is rapid and irregular. Nervous dyspepsia is frequent. L. Bremer, of St. Louis, Mo., has observed similar conditions among both Germans and Americans there. While coca took its place only recently among the toxic causes of degeneracy, it was old as a factor in the degeneration of the Peruvian long ere the discovery of America by Columbus. Forty-three years ago Johnston[163] wrote that even Europeans in different parts of Peru had fallen into the coca habit long practised by the Indians. A confirmed chewer of coca is called a _coquero_, and he becomes more thoroughly a slave to the leaf than the inveterate drunkard is to alcohol. Sometimes the _coquero_ is overtaken by an irresistible craving, and betakes himself for days together to the woods, and there indulges unrestrainedly in coca. Young men of the best families of Peru are considered incurable when addicted to this extreme degree of excess. They abandon white society, and live in the woods or in Indian villages. In Peru the term white _coquero_ has the same sense as irreclaimable drunken tramp. The inveterate _coquero_ has an unsteady gait, yellow skin, quivering lips, hesitant speech, and general apathy. The drug has assumed an unusual prominence in the field of degeneracy since the discovery of its alkaloid, cocaine. Since then there has sprung into existence in both Europe and the English-speaking countries the world over, a habit which, while much over-estimated, is undoubtedly growing, and aggravating as well as producing degeneracy. Many of the cases reported as due to cocaine are, however, chargeable to the desire of the hysteric or neurasthenic to secure a new sensation, or the desire on the part of the opium or whisky _habitué_ to try a dodge for forgiveness by friends. The habit is very frequently induced by patent medicines taken to cure catarrh by the neurasthenic, or to cure nervousness by hysterics as well. As the deformities of the nose passages predispose to what is called "catarrh,"