rible folly. Pie undertook the translation of the "Life of Julius Cæsar," by Napoleon III, and to do it in a cruelly short time. He fulfilled his contract by sitting up several nights successively by the aid of strong tea or coffee (I forget which). I saw him shortly afterward. In a few weeks he had aged alarmingly, and become quite bald, his brain gave way and never recovered. There was but little difference between his age and mine, and but for this dreadful cerebral strain, rendered possible only by the alkaloid (for otherwise he would have fallen to sleep over his work, and thereby saved his life), he might still be amusing and instructing thousands of readers by fresh volumes of popularized archaeological research.
I need scarcely add that all I have said above applies to coffee as to tea, though not so seriously in this country. The active alkaloid is the same in both, but tea contains weight for weight about three times as much as coffee. In this country we commonly use about fifty per cent more coffee than tea to each given measure of water, and thus get about half as much alkaloid. On the Continent they use about double our quantity (this is the true secret of "coffee as in France"), and thus produce as potent an infusion as our tea.
The above remarks are exclusively applied to the habitual use of these stimulants. As medicines, used occasionally and judiciously, they are invaluable, provided always that they are not used as ordinary beverages. In Italy, Greece, and some parts of the East, it is customary, when anybody feels ill, with indefinite symptoms, to send to the druggist for a dose of tea. From what I have seen of its action on non-tea-drinkers, it appears to be specially potent in arresting the premonitory symptoms of fever, the fever-headache, etc.
XLI.—AUTHORITIES ON TEA AND COFFEE.
Since the publication of my last I have been reminded of the high authorities who have defended the use of the alkaloids, and more particularly of Liebig's theory, or the theory commonly attributed to Liebig, but which is Lehmann's, published in Liebig's "Annalen," Volume LXXXVII, and adopted and advocated by Liebig with his usual ability.
Lehmann watched for some weeks the effects of coffee upon two persons in good health. He found that it retarded the waste of the tissues of the body, that the proportion of phosphoric acid and of urea excreted by the kidneys was diminished by the action of the coffee, the diet being in all other respects the same. Pure caffeine (which is the same as theine) produced a similar effect; the aromatic oil of the coffee, given separately, was found to exert stimulating effect on the nervous system.
Johnstone ("Chemistry of Common Life"), closely following Liebig, and referring to the researches of Lehmann, says: "The waste of the body is lessened by the introduction of theine into the stomach
