The enemies of tea appear to have been quite as active as its friends. A German physician declared it a cause of dropsy and diabetes, and the introducer of foreign diseases, and he charged the merchants with "inexpressible frauds, calling them greedy as hell, the vilest of usurers, who lie in wait for men's purses and lives." According to Mr. Mattieu Williams, drunkenness serves one useful purpose; for it helps to get rid of the surplus population. A French physician held similar views of the use of tea and coffee; for, writing at the close of the seventeenth century, he expressed his belief, "that they are permitted by God's providence for the lessening the number of mankind by shortening life, as a kind of silent plague." Coming down to more recent times, the most remarkable production against tea appeared in 1722. The mind of the author seems to have been seriously disturbed at the prospect of the deterioration of the race, which would inevitably follow indulgence in tea. His treatise, which is addressed to ladies, is entitled "An Essay on the Nature, Use, and Abuse of Tea, in a Letter to a Lady; with an Account of its Mechanical Operation. London: printed by J. Bettenham for James Lacy at the Ship, between the Two Temple Gates, Fleet Street, 1722. Price 1_s._" This book contains some curious information about the diseases liable to follow the use of tea. The author begins:-- "Madam,--an earnest desire, which all ages have shown, to serve your sex will, I hope, be sufficient warrant for my troubling you with these papers. To be assisting towards the preservation of that form and beauty with which God has adorned you, is certainly a work not less pious than pleasant; for while we indulge ourselves in our greatest pleasure (which is to serve your sex), would also show our love and gratitude to the Almighty Being, whose form you so nearly represent, and to whom we are so much indebted for the blessing we received when He gave man so agreeable an helpmate. Though the value which we ought to set on this blessing is a sufficient motive to us to endeavour by all means to dissuade you from anything which may be to your detriment, yet there are other motives which oblige us to have a more particular regard to the health of your sex. For when by any means you ignore your constitutions and impair your healths, though you yourselves suffer too severely for it, yet the tragedy does not end here, for the calamity is entailed on succeeding ages, perhaps to the third and fourth generations." The author then notes the fact that Lycurgus thought the Spartan women not in the least unworthy of his care and direction, and proceeds to remark:--