Coffee is styled the drink, _par excellence_, of the brain-worker. Cases like the following are by no means rare: Under the influence of two or three cups of strong coffee the brain of an essayist works satisfactorily, perhaps for hours; the hands and feet meanwhile growing cold and clammy, and the entire surface “chilly,” while the brain throbs with congestion, until, finally, the mind becomes confused, strange mistakes are made, words are repeated or misspelled, and although the over-stimulated but now clogged and exhausted brain can see, dimly outlined within itself, pages, whole chapters perhaps, that must be written now or be forever lost——or at least his diseased imagination thus pictures it——still he finds it impossible to proceed, and with a martyr spirit, or perhaps despairingly, he ceases from his labors. A night of disturbed sleep (see article on Insomnia) almost surely follows, and during its waking intervals the brain often does its best work, which is worse than lost, unless the sufferer rises in (what should be) “the dead hours of the night” to record his brilliant thoughts. This effort he is often loath to make: he can think, or rather can not stop thinking, but he feels too weak to rise. Imperfect, however, as may be his repose, still, he may, with the aid of fresh stimulation, be enabled to take up his work again for the day. This may go on indefinitely, but with less and less satisfactory results from month to month,——neuralgic pains, “nervous headaches,” or other evidence of visceral irritation, meantime adding to the sufferings to be endured,——until, after a time, becoming alarmed, he feels the need of a long vacation. If, however, in spite of all premonitions of danger, he keeps on denying himself the “rest” (from stimulation as well as from labor) he so much needs, it is like pulling a heavy load up-hill, and a little later he finds himself utterly prostrated. Whether, now, he dies speedily of paralysis, “heart disease,” or “nervous prostration”; fails gradually and dies of “consumption”; or recovers some degree of health, after a long illness, the cause of his disease is believed by himself, friends——and physician, perhaps——to have been “overwork.”[90] In fact, it is the effect of _stimulation_ inciting to excessive brain, to the neglect of physical, exercise; the brain is clogged by its own unexcreted waste, and the entire system unbalanced and unstrung. It is in such cases that a resort to “tonic treatment,” beef-tea, or a “generous diet” of flesh-food——for which, perhaps, a fictitious appetite is created by the use of “regular” or irregular bitters——often destroys the patient’s last chance for recovery. “It is,” says Professor Brunton, “piling on fuel, instead of removing ash.”[91]