The earliest European coffee houses were established, in fact, in Constantinople and in Venice. The first one appeared in England in 1650; out of it grew the Oxford Coffee Club in 1655 and from that sprang the Royal Society itself. But alas, convivial gatherings at coffee houses became of ill repute; wives complained they could not expect their husbands back from errands because they would loiter in coffee houses and kings declared that their subjects met at coffee houses, became garrulous and bespoke political rebellion. The current Volstead, Charles II, therefore, sought to suppress coffee drinking, but evidently Anglo-Saxons valued their liberties more then than now for the King had little success. Frederick the Great, fearing coffee drinking for the more thrifty reason that it caused too much money to leave his domain, boldly attributed sterility to indulgence in the berry and sought to restrict the use of coffee by a license system. The medical profession came forward to denounce coffee for all sorts of sins. The English Dr. Pecoke accused it of causing leprosy. Dr. Duncan of Montpellier in 1706 wrote in opposition to all hot beverages while James the I actually composed a royal “Broadside Against Coffee.” The kingly book contained this gem-- Confusion huddles all into one scene, Like Noah’s arks, the clean and the unclean, For now, alas! the drink has credit got, And he’s no gentleman who drinks it not. Millingen in his “Curiosities of Medical Experiences,” 1837, said that coffee in excess produced “feverish heat and a predisposition to apoplexy.” But he did commend coffee and tea as beverages affording stimulus without producing intoxication. Francis Bacon declared that “coffee comforteth the heart and helpeth digestion” while Bach, to offset this, wrote his Cantata No. 211 of the “Secular Cantatas” to protest its use. In 1792 Dr. Benjamin Moseley said doubt existed as to whether coffee was a tonic or a sedative, but believed that it had intrinsic food value. Every now and then individuals arise to denounce or to praise an article of diet or a diet system and to declare that all men should hear and follow because this idea was of benefit to them. Such statements can have no standing in science, even when made by a doctor and based upon his actual experiences with a few patients. The only possible way to find out whether coffee, say, is beneficial, or the reverse is to investigate the literature and try to poll the authorities each one of whom has examined large numbers of individual cases to see if any general statements can be hazarded. Even then we cannot make final conclusions but we can assay general trends.