its poisonous effect, is similar to hydrocyanic or prussic acid, only not so powerful. It is a very destructive agent in its interference with those vital processes concerned in ultimate nutrition, robbing the blood corpuscles of vitality, and preventing the transformation into tissue of the nutriment conveyed by the circulation, and of worn-out tissue into waste, thus poisoning the blood and nervous centers, and disturbing the whole animal economy.” In view of this state of things, need we search with microscopes for the causes of sickness, go outside of our own bodies for “malaria,” or look to any extraordinary circumstance as essential to generate the most deadly diseases? According to the recent experiments (on dogs) of M. Lennen, communicated to the Paris Society of Biology, coffee does produce “anæmia of the stomach, retards digestion, and, the anæmia repeating itself, ends by bringing on habitual increased congestion of the stomach, which, according to M. Lennen, is synonymous with dyspepsia.” [Footnote 87: As explained elsewhere (p. 201), gentle exercise in the open air, after such a meal, though not the best, is nevertheless a remedy.] [Footnote 88: Effects of Excess in Diet, “Physiology and Hygiene,” p. 402, Huxley.] It is not difficult, then, to comprehend why the final effect of coffee must be especially injurious, if not disastrous, to asthmatics and “consumptives,” the head and front of whose disease is dyspepsia, pure and simple. (See “Consumption.”) The _British Medical Journal_, after noting the experiments of M. Lennen, and favoring his conclusions, goes on to say: “It is well known——and English physicians have laid great stress upon this point——that the abuse of coffee and tea often brings on gastralgia, dyspepsia, and, at the same time, more or less disturbance of the _apparatus of innervation_.” The question naturally arises, What constitutes an “abuse” of a medicine? I should say its daily use as a beverage.