Thus the Ceylon teas under the conditions of experiment part with slightly more tannin than the India or China teas. It will be noticed that the proportional tannin figures for the India and China teas are not very different, although some of the individual China teas give out less tannin than any of the India or Ceylon samples. It is possible that the China average is rendered rather high by an undue proportion of green tea which of course shows excess of tannin. The question will naturally be asked whether as a nation we do not drink too much tea, and there is a very simple means of solving the problem. As shown in table A the average consumption per head per annum in the United Kingdom is 6·1 pounds, or 117 grains of tea per diem. The average percentage of alkaloid in tea, as consumed, I calculate to be 2·8 per cent., and of tannin 7·5 per cent. This will mean that each person will take a daily dose of 3·28 grains of alkaloid and 8·8 grains of tannin. According to the last Census 3,716,708 out of 32,527,843, or 10 per cent. of the population of England and Wales, are under five years of age; these might almost be neglected as far as tea-drinking is concerned, so that we must add one-tenth to the average daily dose of the alkaloid and tannin, which will come to 3·6 grains of alkaloid, and 9·7 grains of tannin. The dose of caffeine according to the British Pharmacopœia is from one to five grains and of tannin from two to five grains. And hence on an average each person in the United Kingdom is constantly day by day consuming half as much alkaloid, and nearly as much tannin as would be permissible to be taken occasionally as a drug. Therefore I have no hesitation whatever in saying that we drink far too much tea, and the question has been raised in Ireland whether the excessive drinking of strongly infused tea has not had something to do with the increasing prevalence of insanity in that country. Thus in the Forty-third Annual Report of the Inspectors of Lunatics, Ireland (1894), the Inspectors dwell on the ill effects of decocted or over infused tea on persons who make it a staple article of dietary, thus leading to the production of dyspepsia, which in its turn tends to states of mental depression highly favourable to the production of the various forms of neurotic disturbance.