I therefore strongly recommend this substitute, especially as so many of us have to submit to the beneficent domestic despotism of the gentler and more persevering sex, one of the common forms of this despotism being that of not permitting its male victim to drink cold water at breakfast. This burnt soup has the further advantage of rendering imperative the boiling of the water, a most important precaution against the perils of sewage contamination, not removable by mere filtration. The experience of every confirmed tea-drinker, when soundly interpreted, supplies condemnation of his beverage; the plea commonly urged on its behalf being, when understood, an eloquent expression of such condemnation. ‘It is so refreshing;’ ‘I am fit for nothing when tea-time comes round until I have had my tea, and then I am fit for anything.’ The ‘fit for nothing’ state comes on at 5 P.M., when the drug is taken at the orthodox time, or even in the early morning, in the case of those who are accustomed to have a cup of tea brought to their bedside before rising. Some will even plead for tea by telling that by its aid one can sit up all night long at brain-work without feeling sleepy, provided ample supplies of the infusion are taken from time to time. It is unquestionably true that such may be done; that the tea-drinker is languid and weary at tea-time, whatever be the hour, and that the refreshment produced by ‘the cup that cheers’ and is _said_ not to inebriate, is almost instantaneous. What is the true significance of these facts? The refreshment is certainly not due to nutrition, not to the rebuilding of any worn-out or exhausted organic tissue. The total quantity of material conveyed from the tea-leaves into the water is ridiculously too small for the performance of any such nutritive function; and besides this, the action is far too rapid, there is not sufficient time for the conversion of even that minute quantity into organised working tissue. The action cannot be that of a food, but is purely and simply that of a stimulating or irritant drug, acting directly and abnormally on the nervous system. The five-o’clock lassitude and craving is neither more nor less than the reaction induced by the habitual abnormal stimulation; or otherwise, and quite fairly, stated, it is the outward symptom of a diseased condition of brain produced by the action of a drug; it may be but a mild form of disease, but it is truly a disease nevertheless.