We learn from Boswell that “no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The quantities which he drank of it at all hours were so great, that his nerves must have been uncommonly strong, not to have been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use of it.” Boswell says that Johnson assured him he never felt the least inconvenience from it. In a footnote to page 105 of Boswell’s “Life” we are informed that a Mr. Parker of Henley was in possession of a tea-pot which belonged to Dr. Johnson and held “above two quarts.” At the end of the eighteenth century Dr. Lettsom, a well-known authority on the subject, published a work on the “Natural History of the Tea Tree.” He found that amongst the less hardy and robust complaints were ascribed to the drinking of tea “there are many who cannot bear to drink a single dish of tea without being immediately sick and disordered at the stomach, ... and that in irritable constitutions it speedily excited the nerves to such a degree as to give rise to uneasy sensations and bring on spasmodic affections.” He also says “I know people of both sexes, who are constantly seized with great uneasiness, anxiety, and oppression as often as they take a single cup of tea.” For children he thought it decidedly harmful; “children and very young persons in general, should as much as possible be deterred from the use of this infusion. It weakens their stomach, impairs the digestive powers and favours the generation of many diseases.” On the whole however, he was not altogether opposed to the practice in strong healthy vigorous adults, “to such it is undoubtedly wholesome and equal at least if not preferable to any other kind of regale now in use.” On another page we read that “if not drunk too hot, nor in too great quantities it is perhaps preferable to any other vegetable infusion we know.” Quite at the end of the eighteenth century, Dr. Buchan, who was something of a medical reformer, and had naturally observed the results of tea-drinking thought that the ill-effects proceeded rather from the imprudent use of it than from any bad qualities in the tea itself. In his “Domestic Medicine” (p. 74) he says, “good tea, taken in moderate quantity, not too strong, nor too hot, nor drank upon an empty stomach, will seldom do harm, but if it be bad, which is often the case or substituted in the room of solid food, it must have many ill effects.” He observed that “females who live much on tea and other watery diet, generally become weak, and unable to digest solid food; hence proceed hysterics, and all their dreadful consequences.”