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According to Mr. Mattieu Williams, drunkenness serves one useful purpose; for it helps to get rid of the surplus population. A French physician held similar views of the use of tea and coffee; for, writing at the close of the seventeenth century, he expressed his belief,
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Coming down to more recent times, the most remarkable production against tea appeared in 1722. The mind of the author seems to have been seriously disturbed at the prospect of the deterioration of the race, which would inevitably follow indulgence in tea. His treatise, which is addressed to ladies, is entitled
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An Essay on the Nature, Use, and Abuse of Tea, in a Letter to a Lady; with an Account of its Mechanical Operation. London: printed by J. Bettenham for James Lacy at the Ship, between the Two Temple Gates, Fleet Street, 1722. Price 1_s._
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Madam,--an earnest desire, which all ages have shown, to serve your sex will, I hope, be sufficient warrant for my troubling you with these papers. To be assisting towards the preservation of that form and beauty with which God has adorned you, is certainly a work not less pious than pleasant; for while we indulge ourselves in our greatest pleasure (which is to serve your sex), would also show our love and gratitude to the Almighty Being, whose form you so nearly represent, and to whom we are so much indebted for the blessing we received when He gave man so agreeable an helpmate. Though the value which we ought to set on this blessing is a sufficient motive to us to endeavour by all means to dissuade you from anything which may be to your detriment, yet there are other motives which oblige us to have a more particular regard to the health of your sex. For when by any means you ignore your constitutions and impair your healths, though you yourselves suffer too severely for it, yet the tragedy does not end here, for the calamity is entailed on succeeding ages, perhaps to the third and fourth generations.
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If this lawgiver lived in these our days, what a mean opinion, what a little hope, would he have of the next age, when the women of this age fell so very short of that regularity and healthy way of living, which he looked on as necessary for the preservation of a state! With what an uneasiness would he have seen the many errors which we daily commit!--errors which are introduced by luxury, suffered through ignorance, and supported by being fashionable. He would soon have condemned the exorbitant use of tea, and upon the first observing its ill effects would certainly have prohibited the importation of it. But the present age has other considerations: tea pays too great a duty, and supports too many coaches, not to be preferred to the health of the public. Tea has too great interest to be prohibited, and I wish reason itself may be sufficient to dissuade the world from the use of it. I must confess I have so little hope from these papers, that though (to me and some others, who have had the perusal of them) they seem just and satisfactory, yet I should never have presented them to the public, had not I thought it an indispensable duty to acquaint the world with the many disorders which may possibly arise from its too frequent use.
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He does not deny that tea is
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but lays down the following propositions, which he endeavours to prove. First, that tea may attenuate the blood to any degree necessary to the production of any disease, which may arise from too thin a state of the blood. Secondly, that tea may depauper the blood, or waste the spirits, to any degree necessary to produce any disease, which may arise from too poor a blood. Third, that tea may bring on any degree whatsoever of a plethora necessary to the production of any disease, which may arise from a plethoric state of body. From an experiment upon a dog the author concludes that
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The author draws some terrible pictures of the evils of tea-drinking, but does not presume to dictate how his readers should act.
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Whether or not we ought to abandon the use of what may possibly be of so vast injury to us, I leave to every reasonable man to judge, having myself done the duty of a man and Christian in warning them of what dangers they may fall into.
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Discourse on Tea, with Plain and Useful Rules for Gouty People,
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A moderate use of tea of a due strength seems better adapted to the fair sex than men, for they, naturally being of a more lax and delicate make, are more liable to a fulness of blood and juices; as also because they have less exercise or head-labours, than which nothing braces better, or gives the fibres a greater springiness; and because they are less accustomed to drink wine, whose astringency corrugates the fibres, and enables the vessels to act with greater briskness and force, so in some measure answers the end of the labour.
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Letter to a Friend concerning Tea, in which he accused tea of impairing digestion, unstringing the nerves, involving great and useless expense, and in his own case, and that of others, inducing symptoms of paralysis. But, in the first instance, he preached against tea, not because he thought it injurious, but because he wanted money. The whole of the London Methodists were at that time very poor. The Rev. L. Tyerman, in his
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Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley,
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The number of members in the London Society on the 12th of April, 1746, was 1939, and the amount of their quarterly contributions 113_l._ 9_s._, upon an average fourteenpence per member. Considering the high price of money, and that nearly the whole of the London Methodists were extremely poor, the amount subscribed was highly creditable. Wesley also believed its use to be injurious. He tells us that when he first went to Oxford, with an exceedingly good constitution, and being otherwise in health, he was somewhat surprised at certain symptoms of a paralytic disorder. His hand shook, especially after breakfast; but he soon observed that if for two or three days he intermitted drinking tea, the shaking ceased. Upon inquiry, he found tea had the same effect upon others, and particularly on persons whose nerves were weak. This led him to lessen the quantity he took, and to drink it weaker; but still for above six and twenty years he was more or less subject to the same disorder. In July, 1746, he began to observe that abundance of the people of London were similarly affected; some of them having their nerves unstrung, and their bodily strength decayed. He asked them if they were hard drinkers; they replied, 'No, indeed, we drink scarce anything but a little tea morning and night!' ... Having set the example (of abstinence from tea) Wesley recommended the same abstinence to a few of his preachers; and a week later to above a hundred of his people, whom he believed to be strong in faith, all of whom, with two or three exceptions, resolved by the grace of God to make the trial without delay. In a short time he proposed it to the whole society. Objections rose in abundance. Some said, 'Tea is not unwholesome at all.' To these he replied that many eminent physicians had declared it was, and that, if frequently used by those of weak nerves, it is no other than a slow poison. Others said, 'Tea is not unwholesome to me; why then should I leave it off?' Wesley answered, 'To give an example to those to whom it is undeniably prejudicial, and to have the more wherewith to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked.' Others said, 'It helps my health, nothing else will agree with me.' To such Wesley's caustic reply was, 'I suppose your body is much of the same kind with that of your grandmother, and do you think nothing else agreed with her, or with any of her progenitors? What poor, puling, sickly things must all the English then have been till within these hundred years! Besides, if, in fact, nothing else will agree with you--if tea has already weakened your stomach, and impaired your digestion to such a degree, it has hurt you more than you are aware. You have need to abhor it as deadly poison, and to renounce it from this very hour.' What was the result of Wesley's attempt to form a _tea_-total society? We can hardly tell, except that he himself abstained from tea for the next twelve years, until Dr. Fothergill ordered him to resume its use. Charles Wesley began to abstain, but how long his abstinence lasted we are not informed. About 100 of the London Methodists followed the example of their leader; and, besides these, a large number of others began to be _temperate_ and to use less than they had previously.
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This was, to say the least, adds Mr. Tyerman,
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A Journal of Eight Days' Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston-upon-Thames, to which is added an Essay on Tea, considered as Pernicious to Health, obstructing Industry, and impoverishing the Nation. The effects of tea-drinking formed the subject of Dr. Lettsom's inaugural thesis, when he sought the medical doctorate of the University of Leyden in 1767. He accused tea of inducing
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Think of it! exclaims an opponent of tea,
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American Health and Temperance Association was formed in 1879 against tobacco, tea, and coffee; and, according to one of its publications, has a membership of more than 10,000. It believes that more harm is done at the present time by tobacco, tea, and coffee, than by all forms of alcoholic drinks combined, and
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The
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Good Health Publishing Company, at Battle Creek, also issues tracts on the
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Evil Effects of the Use of Tea and Coffee,