TEA AND COFFEE. These substances are almost universally used as beverages, and when properly employed, serve a four-fold purpose: they quench thirst, excite an agreeable exhilaration, repress the waste of the system, and supply nourishment. In consequence of being generally used at meal times, their stimulant properties are employed to promote digestion, and consequently they are not so objectionable as they might otherwise be. The liquids introduced into the stomach at meal times should not be cold. Tea and coffee are drunk warm, while water, except in a few instances, is always drunk cold, the effects of which have already been shown. That their inordinate use may be injurious no body can deny, but this is equally true of other beverages, even pure, cold water. Scientific investigators inform us that the use of these agents as beverages, when judiciously employed, is not injurious. It has been urged that they are poisonous, but if they are, they are very slow in their operation. When properly prepared, they are very agreeable beverages, and as man will drink more or less at meals, they are allowable; for if their use were excluded, some other beverage would be sought after, and quite likely one of an alcoholic character employed, so of two evils, if this be an evil, let us choose the least. Unlike alcoholic stimulants, they exhilarate without a depressing reaction after their influence has passed off. But one cup should be drunk at a meal, and it should be of moderate strength. The use of large quantities of drink at meals retards digestion by diluting the digestive fluids. The excessive use of large quantities of strong tea or coffee stimulates the brain and causes wakefulness, and produces irritability of the nervous system. When they are productive of such effects, their use is injurious, and should be considerably moderated or wholly discontinued. No criterion can be given by which the amount the system will tolerate can be regulated. What one person may take with impunity, may be deleterious to an other. Individuals differ greatly in this respect. There are some who cannot tolerate them at all, either because of some peculiarity of constitution, or on account of disease. And sometimes when tea is agreeable and beneficial, coffee disagrees with the individual and _vice versa._ Persons of nervous habits whether natural or acquired, are apt to find their wakefulness and irritability increased by the use of tea, particularly if strong, while coffee will have a tranquilizing effect. Persons of a lymphatic or bilious temperament often find that coffee disagrees with them, aggravating their troubles and causing biliousness, constipation, and headache, while tea proves agreeable and beneficial. Whenever they disagree with the system, the best rule is to abandon their use. We find many persons who do not use either, and yet enjoy health, a fact which proves that they are not by any means